Why People Use Social Media Platforms: Exploring the Motivations and Consequences of Use Petri Hallikainen Abstract This paper proposes a value based view to analyze the motivation to use social media platforms. A research model exploring the motivations and conse- quences of the use of social media platforms is developed. The model includes the perceptions of the social capital and the social rewards as consequences of the use of social media platforms. Understanding the use motivations becomes increasingly important when more and more businesses and not-for-profit organizations start using these platforms as part of their daily business processes. 1 Introduction The use of social media platforms, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, has become widespread over the recent years. For many, the use of these social media platforms has become daily routine. Particularly for younger generations social media has become an integral part of their social life. For others, these platforms don’t seem to be so interesting or they might be interested in using them for a purpose, such as for searching information. Businesses have become interested in social media, too, and are establishing their presence in platforms, such as Facebook. Researchers have been able to indicate that social media can be used successfully e.g. for marketing processes [1, 2]. However, for many businesses the application of social media is still in its infancy and more about presence than integrating it as part of daily business processes, and the businesses are likely to move through different stages regarding their social media maturity [3]. Under- standing why people use social media platforms would provide organizations with guidance when designing services for their clients. Why do people use social media platforms? It’s all about social interaction. Or is it? There is still a rather limited understanding of why people use social media platforms or why would they use them in the future. The reasons might also be P. Hallikainen (*) Business Information Systems, The University of Sydney Business School, Merewether Building H04, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia e-mail: Petri.Hallikainen@sydney.edu.au © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 L. Mola et al. (eds.), From Information to Smart Society, Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation 5, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09450-2_2 9