A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: Segmenting Consumers by Facebook Profile Images Iris Vilnai-Yavetz ⁎ & Sigal Tifferet Department of Business Administration, School of Economics and Business Administration, Ruppin Academic Center, Emek Hefer, 4025000, Israel Abstract Conventional segmentation efforts usually focus on verbal or behavioral data while ignoring visual cues, which play a significant role in impression management. Drawing on theoretical work regarding motivations for impression management (need to belong and need for self- promotion), we propose that Facebook users differ from each other in the composition of visual elements they portray in their Facebook profile photos (PPs), and thus can be segmented based on this composition. In this exploratory study we present a methodological proof of concept for the visual segmentation of Facebook users. Using a randomly selected international sample of 500 Facebook accounts, we analyze data implicit in PPs and identify visual cues relevant to virtual impression management. Using these cues we segment users into types, and relate the types to demographics, Facebook usage, and brand engagement as reflected in the Facebook profile. At the theoretical level, the findings suggest that the current accepted motivations for Facebook impression management (need to belong and need for self-promotion) should be expanded to include a third motivation, need for self-expression. At the practical level, the findings demonstrate the utility of visual segmentation, which can later be implemented using computerized systems. © 2015 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc., dba Marketing EDGE. All rights reserved. Keywords: Facebook; Impression management; Photo analysis; Cluster analysis; Segmentation; Social presence Introduction Facebook is one of the two most popular Web sites in the world, second only to Google (Alexa Internet, Inc. 2013), with a reported 1.2 billion active users monthly and 725 million daily (Facebook 2013). Facebook is also the number one mobile app used in the United States, after passing the popular Google Maps in October 2012 (comScore 2013). As a result, Facebook is rapidly emerging as a platform for advertising and marketing: indeed, the Facebook business model is based on advertising income (Mourdoukoutas 2013). But while adver- tising indiscriminately to 725 million people is bound to produce a certain number of matches (i.e., the right ad being seen by the right person at the right time), it is not highly efficient. Marketers therefore have a strong interest in finding ways to segment Facebook users so as to target ads for goods and services more effectively. One of the key reasons people use Facebook is for purposes of impression management (Nadkarni and Hofmann 2012). Facebook users often employ verbal and nonverbal presenta- tion of preferred brands for this purpose (Chen, Fay, and Wang 2011; Hollenbeck and Kaikati 2012; Labrecque, Markos, and Milne 2011; Smith, Fischer, and Yongjian 2012), offering marketers a convenient way to match users with products and services they are likely to find appealing. Another rich source of information is the personal data that Facebook users post in their profiles, including both demographic data and information on the person's interests and activities. But Facebook profiles also contain implicit data, such as photographs, which are mostly overlooked. Facebook users upload 350 million new images every day (Henschen 2013), providing data that marketing researchers can use to understand impression management — and to design ways of targeting online ads more effectively. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: yavetzir@ruppin.ac.il (I. Vilnai-Yavetz), tifferet@ruppin.ac.il (S. Tifferet). www.elsevier.com/locate/intmar http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2015.05.002 1094-9968/© 2015 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc., dba Marketing EDGE. All rights reserved. Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Journal of Interactive Marketing 32 (2015) 53 – 69 INTMAR-00171; No. of pages: 17; 4C: