Factors Influencing User Perception on Mobile Social Networking Apps

Mobile social networking apps have become an integral part of our lives. In the recent past, social networking apps have experienced tremendous growth due to the high level of adoption of Smartphone among users. There are varieties of applications for Smartphone such as WhatsApp, Viber, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Hike, Google +, Hangouts etc., each one of them designed in their own unique ways. Most of these applications such as WhatsApp as well as Viber serve almost the same purpose and have almost similar interface. However the frequency of usage and the user perception towards these apps differs to a very significant level. This lead to a question of what are the factors that drive this perception and how significantly are they related to changing or shaping user perception towards these apps? This study proposes to investigate the influence of various factors in changing and shaping user perception and level of usage of various mobile social networking apps on their Smartphone. The study investigates the popularity and ease of use, preferred features etc. An online survey was conducted by posting the link of questionnaire on various social networking platforms such as WhatsApp, Hike and Facebook, 724 meaningful responses were collected. The result showed a significant difference among user perception on safety. Usage frequency was found to be different among age groups. There was also difference in preferred interaction groups and appealing features within different age groups and most preferred means of awareness being Friend's referral. They study found that users prefer WhatsApp the most because of the best In-built features, easy to use. The article discusses on the outcome and provides suggestion on how companies should further focus on specific features such as the instant message, group chat and safety. They study also recommends prospective features of these apps that can be added to further to improve their user base.