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http://dx.doi.org/10.9708/jksci.2016.21.3.073

The Usage Characteristics of Twitter, and Their Relationship with Gender, Age, and Brand Preferences  

Ahn, Hyung Jun (School of Business, Hongik University)
Abstract
With the increasing popularity of social network services (SNSs), there have been many attempts to analyze the users of SNSs. By doing so, the characteristics and preferences of the users can be understood, which can help companies provide personalized information and services that they need or are relevant for them. This study aimed to analyze the usage behavior of Korean Twitter users from various perspectives to deepen the understanding of it. For this research goal, an online survey was conducted for the users of Twitter and the data about their actual usage were collected using the open API of Twitter. Factor analysis of the data revealed five factors that explain about 69.3% of the usage variables. It was also investigated how the factors are related to gender, age, and brand preferences. The results showed that the usage behavior of Twitter is largely affected by age (p<0.001), and also by gender through an interaction effect (p<0.05). Also, the factors showed significant statistical correlations with the brand preferences of the users.
Keywords
SNS; Twitter; brand preference; user characteristics;
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