Several studies have investigated a variety of factors affecting use of social networking sites (SNSs), but the investigation of these factors is still under development. In this study, we aim to contribute to the literature by extending and testing an existent conceptual model in a new context, including Life Satisfaction as an independent variable to explain the intention (We-Intention) to use Facebook. The previous models has Subjective Norm, Group Norms, Social Identity, Purposive Value, Self-Discovery, Maintaining Interpersonal Interconnectivity, Social Enhancement, Entertainment Value and Social Presence as the predictor variables. An online survey with Brazilians (n = 1111) was conducted. Our structural equation modeling reveals that Life Satisfaction influence on We-Intention is mediated by Subjective Norm, Group Norm, Social Identity, Entertainment Value, and Maintaining Interpersonal Interconnectivity (R-squared value is 0.36). Our findings, while consistent with existing literature in terms of theories, reveal different arrangements among factors influencing Brazilian consumers’ behavior.
Companies are using SNSs with little knowledge about how and why consumers join these sites. With the growth of SNSs, it is essential for any company to optimize its marketing strategy in social media (Souza, 2013), and understand the motivations of consumers to use SNSs is therefore important (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010). It has been proven that the need of communication motivates the use of SNSs such as Facebook (Ross et al., 2009). In general, research on this regard produce insights about predictors of use, users’ practices, and consequences of the use SNSs, doing the knowledge to evolve quickly (Smock, Ellison, Lampe, & Whon, 2011).
From a behavioral perspective there are two types of factors affecting consumer decisions (Anderson & Kleiner, 1995): psychological (i.e. personality, perception, attitudes, motivation and learning) and sociological (i.e. socio-economic class, ethnic groupings, family and peer groups). A variety of variables have been studied (i.e. age, gender, personality and utility) in prior studies about SNS use, nevertheless, there are other theories that could be useful to explain the use of SNSs (Cheung, Chiu, & Lee, 2011). Therefore, in this paper, we aim to explain some psychological and sociological factors affecting the intention for using SNSs by people in Brazil. For this purpose, we use four theories: Life Satisfaction (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffins, 1985), Uses and Gratifications (Katz, 1959), Social Influence (Kelman, 1958), Social Presence (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976).
Orkut dominated in Brazil (Marshall et al., 2008, Wang et al., 2011 and Zubcsek and Sarvary, 2011) until August of 2011, when the growing of Facebook surpassed Orkut in number of users (Barbosa, 2011). The particular social character of Facebook (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), and lack of studies on the use of SNSs in other environments, outside Asia and North America (Cho & Park, 2013) emphasize the relevance of the proposed objective: to analyze the factors psychological and sociological as motivators for the intention to use Facebook in Brazil. In this study, a survey was conducted using part of the proposed model by Dholakia, Bagozzi, and Pearo (2004) for Virtual Communities in the United States, then extended and tested by Cheung et al. (2011) for a SNS in Hong Kong. The focus of the research was on Facebook and young Brazilians. We extended those models, including Life Satisfaction as an independent variable to explain intention to participate in this social network.
