Innovations and communication through innovative users: An exploratory mechanism of social networking website

The study focuses on which users to target and why and how to inspire their participation by applying combination of von Hippel's lead user and user innovation toolkits with Rogers’ innovation diffusion theories. After an investigation of a social networking website, this study finds that individuals with large number of hits are highly active users of new functions. Moreover, they are likely to use toolkits to customize their personal uses and respond to others’ problems. Therefore, they garner appreciation from others in return, achieve higher ranks in the top hit parade, and obtain better-expected benefits from the website's incentive compensation. This study also evaluates the toolkits’ efficacy in the Web 2.0 context and finds that they are not equivalents. This research offers insights useful for web service providers to target innovative users and create an environment using web toolkits to induce user-generated innovation and achieve better effect of innovation communication.

Research highlights▶ Online innovative users in the social networking websites can play as the role of innovator and innovation communicator. ▶ Searching for the innovative users can be achieved by means of supporting Web 2.0 toolkits with a program of incentive campaign. ▶ The toolkits of trial-and-error and module library are most powerful inducements for innovative users to innovation and communication in the social networking websites.