Social networking sites (SNSs) are quickly becoming the main venues for social interaction of Internet users. As the competition between these online services is growing ever stronger, the success of SNSs derives from persuasive core application designs that influence users in taking specific actions, such as joining the community or recruiting new users. Therefore there is a need to identify relevant, value-adding features that facilitate social interaction and that are integrated in the group’s socialization rituals. The present study employed Cialdini’s framework in the analysis of SNSs design characteristics that facilitate social influence leading to the fulfillment of site marketing objectives, such as member acquisition, member retention and user loyalty. We examined social application features of the three major Romanian SNSs, i.e. Facebook, Hi5 and Neogen on six dimensions corresponding to Cialdini’s social influence principles: reciprocation, consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. We thereby extract core application commonalities and differences and identify design gaps from a social influence perspective that are to be explored and exploited as a source of competitive advantage. Marketing implications of the results are discussed

Andrei, Andreia Gabriela

Iacob, Amalasunta

Iosub, Daniela

Munich RePEc Personal Archive

MPRAMunich Personal RePEc ArchivePatterns of social influence in socialnetworking sites – a design perspectiveDaniela Iosub and Andreia Gabriela Andrei and AmalasuntaIacobAlexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania21. November 2009Online at http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/37314/MPRA Paper No. 37314, posted 17. March 2012 12:41 UTCPATTERNS  OF  SOCIAL  INFLUENCE  IN  SOCIAL  NETWORKING SITES – A DESIGN PERSPECTIVEDaniela IOSUB Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, RomaniaAndreia Gabriela ANDREI Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, RomaniaAmalasunta IACOBAlexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, RomaniaAbstractSocial  networking sites  (SNSs) are quickly  becoming the main venues for  social  interaction of  Internet  users.  As  the  competition  between  these  online  services  is  growing  ever  stronger,  the  success of SNSs derives from persuasive core application designs that influence users in taking specific actions, such as joining the community or recruiting new users. Therefore there is a need to  identify relevant, value-adding features that facilitate social interaction and that are integrated in  the group’s socialization rituals. The present study employed Cialdini’s framework in the analysis of  SNSs  design  characteristics  that  facilitate  social  influence  leading  to  the  fulfillment  of  site  marketing objectives, such as member acquisition, member retention and user loyalty. We examined  social application features of the three major Romanian SNSs, i.e. Facebook, Hi5 and Neogen on  six dimensions corresponding to Cialdini’s social influence principles: reciprocation, consistency,  social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. We thereby extract core application commonalities and  differences and identify design gaps from a social influence perspective that are to be explored and  exploited as a source of competitive advantage. Marketing implications of the results are discussed.Keywords: social influence, persuasive design, persuasive site application, social networking sites1. BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATIONSocial networking sites (SNSs) have become the most important meetings places of Internet users. As main venues for online social interaction of online users, SNSs are one of the fastest growing businesses on the Internet. But as the competition is growing ever stronger, the need to differentiate is gaining in importance as well. In this context, the success of SNSs derives from the employment of a persuasive design that fulfills marketing objectives, such as user acquisition, user retention etc. Making use of a social web design that uses social psychology principles in order to adequately stimulate the processes of offline interaction is needed for the achievement of marketing objectives. Hence, Social Design becomes a market competitiveness factor in Social Networking Sites and  we  identify  a  need  for  relevant,  value-adding  design  features  that  facilitate  online  social interaction.A further argument for the development of this paper has been the fact that we have been identified little attempts to structure social design features under a relevant theoretical framework derived from social psychology. And even more so with regard to SNS. More specifically, extant scientific literature does not provide a social influence perspective on SNS design.In our paper, we try to respond to the issues mentioned above by use of an exploratory research on the most important three Social Networking Sites in Romania.2. PURPOSE OF THE STUDYThe purpose of this paper is to understand how social influence principles are integrated into a SNS core application design in order to achieve marketing objectives. Moreover, we aim to find out which social influence principles are not currently used in SNS design, and the application of which could potentially have relevant, value-adding impact on SNS competitiveness. Our final goal is to structure social design features under a relevant theoretical framework derived from social psychology, an endeavor which is novel in the scientific literature dedicated to design applications of social psychology.We employ the study of SNS design features using a structured approach,  i.e.  Cialdini's framework consisting of six major social  influence principles:  reciprocation,  consistency,  social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. This is, of course, not a comprehensive listing of all social influence principles. However, it contains the most important features of social influence, as derived from social psychology literature.It is important to mention that throughout this paper we understand by social influence “the process of changing one's attitudes, values and behaviors in response to attitudes and behaviors of others” (Cialdini, 1984). In addition, the marketing objectives we will be referring to in this paper are: member acquisition (network size), active membership (return-to-site rate) & user loyalty, and content creation.3. LITERATURE REVIEWA review  of  the  extant  literature  on  design  applications  of  social  influence  suggests  a growing body of literature on website design from persuasiveness perspective. For example, Fogg & Eckles (2007) identify that successful online services share a pattern of target behaviors that are part of an overall framework, which they refer to as the “Behavior Chain for Online Participation”. If this is true for persuasiveness, could this be true for social influence as well?Oinas-Kunnonen & Harjumma (2008)  list  techniques  for  persuasive  system content  and functionality,  describing  example  software  requirements  and  implementations  and  suggesting several new techniques. Moreover, the authors propose a new categorization of these techniques, composing of the primary task, dialogue, system credibility and social support categories.Weiksner,  Fogg  & Liu  (2009)  use  a  Grounded  Theory  approach  to  find  and  name six persuasion patterns. They list four patterns that lead to large-scale viral – Provoke and Retaliate, Reveal and Compare, Expression, and Group Exchange – and that are native to Facebook. The other two patterns mentioned by the authors – Competition and Deception – are adapted to Facebook. But most importantly, Weiksner et al conclude that persuasion in online social networks follows regular, observable patterns. This could be the case for social influence as well.And  Cugelman,  Thelwall  &  Dawes  (2009)  describe  a  communication-based  influence components model that can serve as a useful framework to describe or design online interventions, whether they adopt interpersonal or mass media approaches,  whether they use overt and covert tactics, and whether they are focused on human mediated communication or direct human computer interaction.It is clear that literature on persuasive web design is growing at a steady pace, but given that design is viewed solely from a persuasiveness perspective, we can identify very brief mention of social influence, which indicated a need for a social influence perspective on design. Moreover, there  are  no  scientific  attempts  to  structure  social  design  features  under  relevant  theoretical framework derived from social psychology. This become even clearer with regard to SNS.The only attempt to understand application design from social influence perspective that we have come across in Mimunah Ali's study on blog design. Ali (2009) found that design elements of blogs in the same network share similar design preferences shown by the number of similarity occurrence of design preferences across blogs in the same network, pertaining to a hypothesis of social design convergence among online applications. However, we must mention that Ali has made use of no recognized theoretical social psychology framework for the listing and study of  blog features.On the other hand, there is a growing number of studies on online social influence, such as Postmes  et  al  (2001),  Dholakia  et  al  (2004),  Guadagno & Cialdini  (2005,  2007),  Ellison  et  al (2007), Okdie & Guadagno (2008), Guadagno (2009) etc.  These studies are from a pure social psychology perspective, with no reference to marketing.Moreover,  these studies investigate mostly text-based computer-mediated communication and  explore  topics  like  compliance  through  authority  and  consistency.  Specifically,  Cialdini  & Guardagno (2005, 2007) note in their review of online social influence literature, that only two of the six principles  of  influence have been examined empirically in  online contexts:  authority & commitment / consistency. The studies reviewed indicate that sometimes online influence attempts function  similarity  to  attempts  of  the  same  kind  in  other  contexts  and  sometimes  they  not. Therefore,  from  a  research  perspective,  online  social  influence  has  received  a  little  attention, particularly in SNSs.4. METHODOLOGYIn  order  to  understand  how  social  influence  principles  are  integrated  into  a  SNS  core application design from a marketing perspective, we make use of a cross-comparison of three case studies. Specifically, we study three SNSs: Hi5, Neogen and Facebook. We have chosen specifically these social networks because they are three top SNS in terms of Romanian users, comprising the large majority of Romanian SNS users.By means of observation, we identify 136 design functionalities. We then structure these SNS functionalities  on  3  dimensions:  social  influence  principles  /  marketing  objectives;  social influence principles / social network; marketing objectives / social network. This results in 6 tables, which are then condensed into a diagram, for the sake of briefness.Marketing objectivesSocial influence principles     Facebook, Hi5, NeogenFig.1 Approach to the study of SNS design featuresWe structure SNS design features using Cialdini's framework consisting of six major social influence principles: reciprocation, consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. Below we  make  a  very  brief  presentation  of  the  six  social  influence  principles  we  have  used  in  the assessment of SNS design features:- the principle of reciprocation – it refers to people’s psychological need to return a favor, a gift and to the sense of obligation to make a concession to someone when that person has made a concession. Examples from traditional marketing: the gift as a sales technique, free samples in sales promotion, gifts from parties during elections etc.- the principle of commitment and consistency – it refers to people’s psychological need to honor a previous agreement or statement and the obsessive desire to be (and appear) consistent and stable in the predispositions and preferences. Once people make a choice or take a stand, they will make enormous efforts to respond in ways that justify their earlier decision. This principle is widely used in marketing, where it is mostly linked with cognitive dissonance. Examples: low-balling and foot-in-the-door tactics in sales.- the principle of social proof (social validity) - Robert Cialdini sums up the principle of social proof: "If a lot of people are doing the same thing, then we think: they must know something we don't. Especially when we are uncertain, we are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in the collective knowledge of the crowd.” Examples in traditional marketing: “World’s number 1 computer”, “6 million men around the world use Gillette”, the more comments a blogger has, the more he/she will receive (and the more RSS subscribers, the more will subscribe).- the principle of liking - it refers to the fact that people are persuaded by people they like: physically attractive people, people they feel similar to (people like them…), or people they identify with. Examples in traditional marketing: using celebrities in advertising, using “women like us” in in advertising for Dove products or Activia yogurt.- the principle of authority – it refers to the fact that people do what the person with the highest title/rank, the fanciest car, or the nicest clothes tells them to do. Is based on the association principle. Examples in traditional marketing: using experts in advertising (see Colgate toothpaste).- the principle of scarcity - it refers to the fact that when a thing is scarce/ rare, people think that is MUST be valuable (for example, diamonds). Examples in traditional marketing: “Limited Edition”, “Limited number of copies”, “Purchase NOW and get a discount”, “Limited Opportunity available for Only 3 days!!!”5. RESULTSOur structured approach to the listing and classification of SNS design features on the six social psychology principles mentioned above indicates, first of all, that SNSs converge in social design.  We  hypothesize  that,  with  time,  social  networking  sites  start  to  structure  their  design according  to  the  best  practices  of  competitors,  practices  that  adequately  mimic  offline  social interactions leading to the fulfillment of marketing objectives. This in turn leads to a very high degree of similarity and overlapping in terms of social design features between SNSs.Table 1. Marketing Objectives vs Social Influence principlesUser acquisition Active membership Content creationReciprocation Δ  ◊   ○ Δ  ◊ Δ  ◊   ○ Consistency Δ  ◊          ◊ Social proof Δ  ◊   ○ Δ  ◊ Δ  ◊   ○ Liking Δ  ◊   ○ Δ  ◊ Δ  ◊   ○ Authority Δ  ◊   ○ Δ  ◊  Δ  ◊   ○ Scarcity      ◊    ◊  ○        ◊  ○ Δ - Facebook; ◊ - Hi5; ○ - NeogenThis  high  degree  of  functionality  similarity  or  pattern  of  convergence  could  also  be attributed to a to a pattern of trial-and-error and imitation that SNSs employ to determine best practices in social design for achieving marketing objectives.We have synthetically presented the results of our exploratory research in Table1. It is clear that SNS are organized according to most social influence principles (four principles out of six taken into consideration in our framework). However, we find that consistency and scarcity are under-represented in social design, we have found very few design features that trigger cognitive dissonance processes, as well as no permanent design features emphasizing scarcity.The results indicates that the intuition of software designers has yet to come up with design features that relate to consistency and scarcity, as opposed to the other social influence principles which SNS application designers have applied almost unconsciously in order to model offline social interactions. These two very powerful social influence principles are necessary for motivating social interactions,  therefore  their  use  in  SNS  design  would  enhance  the  fulfillment  of  marketing objectives.  6. LIMITATIONSA first limitation is, of course, the use of exploratory research. We need to continue this paper empirically by use of experiments for testing SNS design features. Secondly, we resume to the cross-comparison of only three SNSs. Though Facebook acts as a benchmark for most SNS product managers, it would be interesting to study other smaller networks to check for the use of consistency and scarcity principles.7. CONCLUSIONSIn  this  paper  we  make  of  a   cross-comparison  of  the  design  features  of  the  three  top Romanian  Social  Networking  Sites  using  Cialdini's  social  influence  framework.  We  find convergence in social design, but also structural “holes” in SNS core application design on two social influence principles: consistency and scarcity.Therefore,  SNSs need to design features that  trigger  user’s  psychological  need to  honor previous public commitments (Newsfeed) and user’s need to act in accordance to self image (as described  in  user  profile).  Also,  SNSs  need  to  design  permanent  design  functionalities  that accentuate rarity, since rare means valuable.Given the convergence between SNS features, the development of these new features on consistency and scarcity is recommendable in order to gain a competitive advantage. Though the sustainability of the increased competitiveness is debatable, the development of these new features will  surely  increase  the  marketing  performance  of  SNSs  through  proper  mimicking  of  offline interactions.8. CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGEWe contribute to knowledge by providing a systematic approach to the integration of social influence principles into online networking sites design for increased market competitiveness. We hereby identify design gaps from a social influence perspective that are to be explored and exploited as a source of competitive advantage.  Moreover,  our paper adds to the literature by structuring social  design  features  under  a  relevant  theoretical  framework  derived  from  social  psychology (Cialdini’s six principles of influence), which is a novel  endeavor for this field of research. Not least, we offer a starting point for more relevant research on social networking sites.References[1]  Ali, M. (2009). The Social Impact on Webdesign in Online Social Communities. M.D. Lytras et. al (Eds.): WSKS 2009, pp. 207-217, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.[2]  Cialdini, R.B. (1984), Influence, New york: William Morrow and Company.[3]  Cugelman, B., Thelwall, M. & Dawes, P. (2009). Communication-based influence components model. PERSUASIVE 2009. ACM International Conference Proceedings Series.[4]  Dholakia, Utpal M., Richard P. Bagozzi and Lisa Klein Pearo (2004). A Social influence model of  consumer participation in  network and small-group-based virtual  communities.  International  Journal of Research in Marketing, 21(3), 241-263.[5]  Fogg, B.J. & Eckles, D. (2007). The Behavior Chain for Online Participation: How Successful Web Services Structure Persuasion. In Y. de Kort et al. (Eds.): PERSUASIVE 2007, LNCS 4744, pp. 199–209, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2007.[6]  Guadagno, R. E., & Cialdini, R. B. (2005). Online persuasion and compliance: Social influence on the Internet and beyond. In Y. Amichai-Hamburger (Ed.), The social net: The social psychology  of the Internet, pp 91-113. New york, Oxford University Press.[7]  Guadagno, R. E.,  & Cialdini,  R. B. (2007). Persuade him by email,  but see her in person: Online persuasion revisited. Computers in Human Behavior, 23, 999-1015.[8]  Okdie,  B.  M.,  &  Guadagno,  R.  E.  (2008).  Social  influence  and  computer-mediated communication. In K. St. Amant & S. Kelsey (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Computer Mediated  Communication, pp. 477-491. Hershey, PA.:IGI Global.[9]  Oinas-Kukkonen,  H.,  Harjumaa,  M.,  (2008).  A systematic  framework  for  designing  and evaluating persuasive systems. In Oinas-Kunnonen et al. (Eds.): PERSUASIVE 2008, LNCS 5033, pp.164-176, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2008.[10] Postmes, T.,  Spears, R., Sakhel, K., & De Groot, D. (2001). Social influence in computer-mediated communication:  The effects  of  anonymity on group behavior.  Personality  and Social  Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1242-1254.[11] Weiksner, M. G., Fogg, B. J. and Liu, X. (2008). Six Patterns for Persuasion in Online Social Networks.  In  Oinas-Kunnonen  et  al.  (Eds.):  PERSUASIVE  2008,  LNCS  5033,  pp.  151-163, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2008.

English

Patterns of social influence in social networking sites – a design perspective

Munich Personal RePEc Archive

MPRA
Munich Personal RePEc Archive
Patterns of social influence in social
networking sites – a design perspective
Daniela Iosub and Andreia Gabriela Andrei and Amalasunta
Iacob
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
21. November 2009
Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/37314/
MPRA Paper No. 37314, posted 17. March 2012 12:41 UTC
PATTERNS  OF  SOCIAL  INFLUENCE  IN  SOCIAL  NETWORKING 
SITES – A DESIGN PERSPECTIVE
Daniela IOSUB 
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Andreia Gabriela ANDREI 
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Amalasunta IACOB
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania
Abstract
Social  networking sites  (SNSs) are quickly  becoming the main venues for  social  interaction of  
Internet  users.  As  the  competition  between  these  online  services  is  growing  ever  stronger,  the  
success of SNSs derives from persuasive core application designs that influence users in taking 
specific actions, such as joining the community or recruiting new users. Therefore there is a need to  
identify relevant, value-adding features that facilitate social interaction and that are integrated in  
the group’s socialization rituals. The present study employed Cialdini’s framework in the analysis of  
SNSs  design  characteristics  that  facilitate  social  influence  leading  to  the  fulfillment  of  site  
marketing objectives, such as member acquisition, member retention and user loyalty. We examined  
social application features of the three major Romanian SNSs, i.e. Facebook, Hi5 and Neogen on  
six dimensions corresponding to Cialdini’s social influence principles: reciprocation, consistency,  
social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. We thereby extract core application commonalities and  
differences and identify design gaps from a social influence perspective that are to be explored and  
exploited as a source of competitive advantage. Marketing implications of the results are discussed.
Keywords: social influence, persuasive design, persuasive site application, social networking sites
1. BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
Social networking sites (SNSs) have become the most important meetings places of Internet 
users. As main venues for online social interaction of online users, SNSs are one of the fastest 
growing businesses on the Internet. But as the competition is growing ever stronger, the need to 
differentiate is gaining in importance as well. In this context, the success of SNSs derives from the 
employment of a persuasive design that fulfills marketing objectives, such as user acquisition, user 
retention etc. Making use of a social web design that uses social psychology principles in order to 
adequately stimulate the processes of offline interaction is needed for the achievement of marketing 
objectives. 
Hence, Social Design becomes a market competitiveness factor in Social Networking Sites 
and  we  identify  a  need  for  relevant,  value-adding  design  features  that  facilitate  online  social 
interaction.
A further argument for the development of this paper has been the fact that we have been 
identified little attempts to structure social design features under a relevant theoretical framework 
derived from social psychology. And even more so with regard to SNS. More specifically, extant 
scientific literature does not provide a social influence perspective on SNS design.
In our paper, we try to respond to the issues mentioned above by use of an exploratory 
research on the most important three Social Networking Sites in Romania.
2. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this paper is to understand how social influence principles are integrated into 
a SNS core application design in order to achieve marketing objectives. Moreover, we aim to find 
out which social influence principles are not currently used in SNS design, and the application of 
which could potentially have relevant, value-adding impact on SNS competitiveness. Our final goal 
is to structure social design features under a relevant theoretical framework derived from social 
psychology, an endeavor which is novel in the scientific literature dedicated to design applications 
of social psychology.
We employ the study of SNS design features using a structured approach,  i.e.  Cialdini's 
framework consisting of six major social  influence principles:  reciprocation,  consistency,  social 
proof, liking, authority and scarcity. This is, of course, not a comprehensive listing of all social 
influence principles. However, it contains the most important features of social influence, as derived 
from social psychology literature.
It is important to mention that throughout this paper we understand by social influence “the 
process of changing one's attitudes, values and behaviors in response to attitudes and behaviors of 
others” (Cialdini, 1984). In addition, the marketing objectives we will be referring to in this paper 
are: member acquisition (network size), active membership (return-to-site rate) & user loyalty, and 
content creation.
3. LITERATURE REVIEW
A review  of  the  extant  literature  on  design  applications  of  social  influence  suggests  a 
growing body of literature on website design from persuasiveness perspective. For example, Fogg 
& Eckles (2007) identify that successful online services share a pattern of target behaviors that are 
part of an overall framework, which they refer to as the “Behavior Chain for Online Participation”. 
If this is true for persuasiveness, could this be true for social influence as well?
Oinas-Kunnonen & Harjumma (2008)  list  techniques  for  persuasive  system content  and 
functionality,  describing  example  software  requirements  and  implementations  and  suggesting 
several new techniques. Moreover, the authors propose a new categorization of these techniques, 
composing of the primary task, dialogue, system credibility and social support categories.
Weiksner,  Fogg  & Liu  (2009)  use  a  Grounded  Theory  approach  to  find  and  name six 
persuasion patterns. They list four patterns that lead to large-scale viral – Provoke and Retaliate, 
Reveal and Compare, Expression, and Group Exchange – and that are native to Facebook. The other 
two patterns mentioned by the authors – Competition and Deception – are adapted to Facebook. But 
most importantly, Weiksner et al conclude that persuasion in online social networks follows regular, 
observable patterns. This could be the case for social influence as well.
And  Cugelman,  Thelwall  &  Dawes  (2009)  describe  a  communication-based  influence 
components model that can serve as a useful framework to describe or design online interventions, 
whether they adopt interpersonal or mass media approaches,  whether they use overt and covert 
tactics, and whether they are focused on human mediated communication or direct human computer 
interaction.
It is clear that literature on persuasive web design is growing at a steady pace, but given that 
design is viewed solely from a persuasiveness perspective, we can identify very brief mention of 
social influence, which indicated a need for a social influence perspective on design. Moreover, 
there  are  no  scientific  attempts  to  structure  social  design  features  under  relevant  theoretical 
framework derived from social psychology. This become even clearer with regard to SNS.
The only attempt to understand application design from social influence perspective that we 
have come across in Mimunah Ali's study on blog design. Ali (2009) found that design elements of 
blogs in the same network share similar design preferences shown by the number of similarity 
occurrence of design preferences across blogs in the same network, pertaining to a hypothesis of 
social design convergence among online applications. However, we must mention that Ali has made 
use of no recognized theoretical social psychology framework for the listing and study of  blog 
features.
On the other hand, there is a growing number of studies on online social influence, such as 
Postmes  et  al  (2001),  Dholakia  et  al  (2004),  Guadagno & Cialdini  (2005,  2007),  Ellison  et  al 
(2007), Okdie & Guadagno (2008), Guadagno (2009) etc.  These studies are from a pure social 
psychology perspective, with no reference to marketing.
Moreover,  these studies investigate mostly text-based computer-mediated communication 
and  explore  topics  like  compliance  through  authority  and  consistency.  Specifically,  Cialdini  & 
Guardagno (2005, 2007) note in their review of online social influence literature, that only two of 
the six principles  of  influence have been examined empirically in  online contexts:  authority & 
commitment / consistency. The studies reviewed indicate that sometimes online influence attempts 
function  similarity  to  attempts  of  the  same  kind  in  other  contexts  and  sometimes  they  not. 
Therefore,  from  a  research  perspective,  online  social  influence  has  received  a  little  attention, 
particularly in SNSs.
4. METHODOLOGY
In  order  to  understand  how  social  influence  principles  are  integrated  into  a  SNS  core 
application design from a marketing perspective, we make use of a cross-comparison of three case 
studies. Specifically, we study three SNSs: Hi5, Neogen and Facebook. We have chosen specifically 
these social networks because they are three top SNS in terms of Romanian users, comprising the 
large majority of Romanian SNS users.
By means of observation, we identify 136 design functionalities. We then structure these 
SNS functionalities  on  3  dimensions:  social  influence  principles  /  marketing  objectives;  social 
influence principles / social network; marketing objectives / social network. This results in 6 tables, 
which are then condensed into a diagram, for the sake of briefness.
Marketing objectives
Social influence principles     Facebook, Hi5, Neogen
Fig.1 Approach to the study of SNS design features
We structure SNS design features using Cialdini's framework consisting of six major social 
influence principles: reciprocation, consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity. Below 
we  make  a  very  brief  presentation  of  the  six  social  influence  principles  we  have  used  in  the 
assessment of SNS design features:
- the principle of reciprocation – it refers to people’s psychological need to return a favor, a 
gift and to the sense of obligation to make a concession to someone when that person has made a 
concession. Examples from traditional marketing: the gift as a sales technique, free samples in sales 
promotion, gifts from parties during elections etc.
- the principle of commitment and consistency – it refers to people’s psychological need to 
honor a previous agreement or statement and the obsessive desire to be (and appear) consistent and 
stable in the predispositions and preferences. Once people make a choice or take a stand, they will 
make enormous efforts to respond in ways that justify their earlier decision. This principle is widely 
used in marketing, where it is mostly linked with cognitive dissonance. Examples: low-balling and 
foot-in-the-door tactics in sales.
- the principle of social proof (social validity) - Robert Cialdini sums up the principle of 
social proof: "If a lot of people are doing the same thing, then we think: they must know something 
we don't. Especially when we are uncertain, we are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in 
the collective knowledge of the crowd.” Examples in traditional marketing: “World’s number 1 
computer”, “6 million men around the world use Gillette”, the more comments a blogger has, the 
more he/she will receive (and the more RSS subscribers, the more will subscribe).
- the principle of liking - it refers to the fact that people are persuaded by people they like: 
physically attractive people, people they feel similar to (people like them…), or people they identify 
with. Examples in traditional marketing: using celebrities in advertising, using “women like us” in 
in advertising for Dove products or Activia yogurt.
- the principle of authority – it refers to the fact that people do what the person with the 
highest title/rank, the fanciest car, or the nicest clothes tells them to do. Is based on the association 
principle. Examples in traditional marketing: using experts in advertising (see Colgate toothpaste).
- the principle of scarcity - it refers to the fact that when a thing is scarce/ rare, people think 
that is MUST be valuable (for example, diamonds). Examples in traditional marketing: “Limited 
Edition”, “Limited number of copies”, “Purchase NOW and get a discount”, “Limited Opportunity 
available for Only 3 days!!!”
5. RESULTS
Our structured approach to the listing and classification of SNS design features on the six 
social psychology principles mentioned above indicates, first of all, that SNSs converge in social 
design.  We  hypothesize  that,  with  time,  social  networking  sites  start  to  structure  their  design 
according  to  the  best  practices  of  competitors,  practices  that  adequately  mimic  offline  social 
interactions leading to the fulfillment of marketing objectives. This in turn leads to a very high 
degree of similarity and overlapping in terms of social design features between SNSs.
Table 1. Marketing Objectives vs Social Influence principles
User acquisition Active membership Content creation
Reciprocation Δ  ◊   ○ Δ  ◊ Δ  ◊   ○ 
Consistency Δ  ◊          ◊ 
Social proof Δ  ◊   ○ Δ  ◊ Δ  ◊   ○ 
Liking Δ  ◊   ○ Δ  ◊ Δ  ◊   ○ 
Authority Δ  ◊   ○ Δ  ◊  Δ  ◊   ○ 
Scarcity
      ◊    ◊  ○        ◊  ○ 
Δ - Facebook; ◊ - Hi5; ○ - Neogen
This  high  degree  of  functionality  similarity  or  pattern  of  convergence  could  also  be 
attributed to a to a pattern of trial-and-error and imitation that SNSs employ to determine best 
practices in social design for achieving marketing objectives.
We have synthetically presented the results of our exploratory research in Table1. It is clear 
that SNS are organized according to most social influence principles (four principles out of six 
taken into consideration in our framework). However, we find that consistency and scarcity are 
under-represented in social design, we have found very few design features that trigger cognitive 
dissonance processes, as well as no permanent design features emphasizing scarcity.
The results indicates that the intuition of software designers has yet to come up with design 
features that relate to consistency and scarcity, as opposed to the other social influence principles 
which SNS application designers have applied almost unconsciously in order to model offline social 
interactions. These two very powerful social influence principles are necessary for motivating social 
interactions,  therefore  their  use  in  SNS  design  would  enhance  the  fulfillment  of  marketing 
objectives.
  
6. LIMITATIONS
A first limitation is, of course, the use of exploratory research. We need to continue this 
paper empirically by use of experiments for testing SNS design features. Secondly, we resume to 
the cross-comparison of only three SNSs. Though Facebook acts as a benchmark for most SNS 
product managers, it would be interesting to study other smaller networks to check for the use of 
consistency and scarcity principles.
7. CONCLUSIONS
In  this  paper  we  make  of  a   cross-comparison  of  the  design  features  of  the  three  top 
Romanian  Social  Networking  Sites  using  Cialdini's  social  influence  framework.  We  find 
convergence in social design, but also structural “holes” in SNS core application design on two 
social influence principles: consistency and scarcity.
Therefore,  SNSs need to design features that  trigger  user’s  psychological  need to  honor 
previous public commitments (Newsfeed) and user’s need to act in accordance to self image (as 
described  in  user  profile).  Also,  SNSs  need  to  design  permanent  design  functionalities  that 
accentuate rarity, since rare means valuable.
Given the convergence between SNS features, the development of these new features on 
consistency and scarcity is recommendable in order to gain a competitive advantage. Though the 
sustainability of the increased competitiveness is debatable, the development of these new features 
will  surely  increase  the  marketing  performance  of  SNSs  through  proper  mimicking  of  offline 
interactions.
8. CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE
We contribute to knowledge by providing a systematic approach to the integration of social 
influence principles into online networking sites design for increased market competitiveness. We 
hereby identify design gaps from a social influence perspective that are to be explored and exploited 
as a source of competitive advantage.  Moreover,  our paper adds to the literature by structuring 
social  design  features  under  a  relevant  theoretical  framework  derived  from  social  psychology 
(Cialdini’s six principles of influence), which is a novel  endeavor for this field of research. Not 
least, we offer a starting point for more relevant research on social networking sites.
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Patterns of social influence in social networking sites – a design perspective

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