Spaniards and Americans use social media and how companies use it to target their consumers. The company's use of social media increases consumer satisfaction, customer loyalty and consumer awareness of brands. A culture's propensity for addiction affects their use of social media and subsequently their consumer behavior.
5 SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media incorporates aspects of multiple communication theories, including: one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. Social media is not often a one-on-one platform, as the people on it have many different 'followers' and interactions with other people. The biggest shift that social media has brought about in social communication is the shift from One-to-Many to Many-to-Many (Ngai, et al., 2015).
9 ADDICTION THEORY
Although there are different types of addiction, the type most related to social media addiction is called process addiction. For example, if the Spanish are a more activity-based culture, they may be more likely to be addicted to the activity of surfing and posting on social media. The genetic theory could have a place around social media addiction through the claim that people who are more self-aware and dependent on others are more likely to be addicted to the internet and media.
19 SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION
A person can surf social media for hours, but they are not considered addicted until they are dependent on it. Mild addiction occurs when someone uses social media excessively, i.e. several times a day, but there are no negative consequences in their life yet. In addition to measuring the satisfaction that driving social media and internet use, the study also found a negative correlation with “aesthetic experience,” meaning users become addicted regardless of the website's appearance or aesthetic factor.
Studies have been conducted to monitor an individual's behavior on these social media sites and whether it is related to addiction (Radha, et al. 2016). The conclusion of this study was that most of the WhatsApp users are addicted to the app. The scale was originally designed exclusively for Facebook, but was later adapted to other social media, including Twitter and Instagram (Andressean, 2017).
The Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale uses the Likert scale from "Very Rarely" to "Very Often" for participants to add up a final score of all their numbers. This scale was used in a study on the relationship between addiction to social media and video games with symptoms of psychiatric disorders. Along with the link between social media addiction causing symptoms of these disorders, past studies have led to the idea that psychiatric disorders can lead to media addiction. Social media addiction is hard to specifically define and even harder to pin down, but it is becoming a more common phenomenon.
The true definition of social media addiction is when a person allows it to get to the point where it affects their life.
24 HOW BUSINESSES USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO INFLUENCE
CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
As mentioned earlier, it is impossible to control the negative effect that social media will have on a person. This creates feelings of distrust and annoyance among social media consumers and can be bad for brands (Arnaboldi, 2016). The restaurants posted competitions and vouchers on their social media sites to encourage users to visit.
Restaurant managers were interviewed and found that they had not focused on the potential of social media marketing. Companies aim to understand why their social media marketing is more popular and engaging with consumers. Each channel is influenced by different social media sources and affects separate departments.
This channel can be particularly difficult to budget and control because it is based solely on consumer perception of the company's and the company's social media pages (Paniagua, 2014). Social media still has the highest potential for revenue creation than other media channels (Paniagua, 2014). Corporate social networking refers to internal networking and the use of social media for the company's employees.
User-generated content is content created by consumers of social media and not by the company itself (Paniagua, 2014). A social media reference to a company can influence consumers' interpretation of the information and ultimately affect the company's stock price. Business use of social media and consumer interaction with social media has had a permanently changing impact on the market.
38 CULTURAL COMPARISON: SPAIN AND AMERICA
This has to do with how Spaniards and Americans use social media, as the small power distance in the United States could create more freedom of speech and use of social media. This dimension could have a major impact on social media use and business use of social media because of how new social media is. Hispanics may be less likely to jump on social networks or social media trends than ever-changing Americans.
Social media plays a big role in social monitoring as it is used to collect data on. This dimension is one of the most important for addiction and social media use, as it determines the extent to which a member of society will try to control their impulses to use addictive substances. The dimensions revealed some key differences in Spanish and American culture that could influence social media use, addiction, and consumer behavior.
Americans are more likely to accept social media and its newfound influence in the business world because of their lower levels of uncertainty. This would indicate that Americans are also more likely to be addicted to social media. This dimension led to the idea that Americans would be more likely to use social media to find their own interests or needs, a potential difference in consumer behavior from Spaniards.
This self-esteem issue is also known to be associated with excessive social media use, another potential spike in addiction.
48 OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH
But during the months of January and July every store in the country has huge sales, with for example goods 50% or 70% off. Since Pull & Bear's store is aimed at younger women, who use social media more often, I looked around the store for signs of social media promotion. The labels on the clothes had no signs of social media, but the company's website did.
When you are in the stadium, that one hour of commercial breaks is used for corporate promotions and matches. Although Camp Nou didn't have any of this, it did have free Wi-Fi, meaning it's common for people to want to use the internet on their phones in the stadium. The biggest difference I noticed was that it was much less common for Spaniards to text or scroll through their phones in the same way as Americans.
At the restaurants I ate at, I again looked for signs of social media use, as it is common for Americans to engage in social media activities during their time at a restaurant. Of the 9 teenagers at the party, 4 of them were on their phones, specifically on Snapchat. The observations I made about Spaniards and their phone use compared to Americans made me start to wonder if social media had infiltrated their society in the same way it had permeated America's.
In Spanish culture, it is not impolite to stare or watch someone while they are doing something.
56 CONCLUSION
Social media is a relatively new aspect of communication, and therefore the Spanish have not adapted to it as quickly as the Americans have. Without the constant use of social media for marketing and promotion, Spaniards are also exposed to it less, leading to a smaller effect on consumer behavior and a lower likelihood of addiction. Additional primary research on the American side of this study would help increase understanding of use and addiction.
It would also be recommended to conduct interview research on the use of social media in Spain, as sometimes observational research does not get a full picture. For example, if Spaniards used social media all the time at home, it was not in my ability to observe. I believe this study can be further strengthened by researching data to support the observations.
It would be extremely beneficial for someone to look at actual cases of social media addiction and try to find a correlation with online shopping or other consumer behavior. These correlations can be compared between the different countries to dig deeper into what kind of basis the cultural aspects play in the situation.
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