Intrinsic vs. Image-Related Utility in Social Media: Why Do People Contribute Content to Twitter?
Open accessAbstract
We empirically study the motivations of users to contribute content to social media in the context of the popular microblogging site Twitter. We focus on noncommercial users who do not benefit financially from their contributions. Previous literature suggests that there are two main types of utility that motivate these users to post content: intrinsic utility and image-related utility. We leverage the fact that these two types of utility give rise to different predictions as to whether users should increase their contributions when their number of followers increases. To address the issue that the number of followers is endogenous, we conducted a field experiment in which we exogenously added followers (or follow requests, in the case of protected accounts) to a set of users over a period of time and compared their posting activities to those of a control group. We estimated each treated user's utility function using a dynamic discrete choice model. Although our results are consistent with both types of utility being at play, our model suggests that image-related utility is larger for most users. We discuss the implications of our findings for the evolution of Twitter and the type of value firms may derive from such platforms in the future.
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- Authors
- Toubia, O., & Stephen, A. T.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- ORCID
- Toubia, Olivier
- Venue
- Marketing Science
- Published
- 2013-05
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 368-392
- ISSN
- 0732-2399 (ISSN-L)
- 1526-548X
- OpenAlex
- W2119192275
- Semantic Scholar
- 8a71fd10e8cc21917acd01d357e1feaa7c15d257
- Cited by
- 484
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 52 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 38 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 97.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- autopapers.ssrn.com
- Locations
- Marketing Science (publishedVersion)
- D-Scholarship@Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) (acceptedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Marketing and Social Media
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Media and Digital Communication
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Digital Platforms and Economics
- Keywords
- Twitter, microblogging, follower count, motivations for social media use, dynamic discrete choice, field experiments, user posting behavior
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