Information Diffusion with Content Crossover in Online Social Media: An Empirical Analysis of the Social Transmission Process in Twitter

Social media has attracted attention as an information channel for content generated in heterogeneous Internet services. Focusing on social media platforms, we examine the factors behind social transmission with content crossover from other services through hypertext link (URL). We investigate the effects of source influence and peer referrals on diffusion outcome and address their variations in the case of content crossover. Using 3,504,831 diffusion processes identified from real transaction data in Twitter, we demonstrate the existence of source and peer effects on content diffusion. These effects vary when shared content is linked with an external service by a URL. Source influence and peer referral have a positive impact on cascade size in the content dissemination process. In the case of content crossover, the impact of source influence decreases. However, the impact of peer referrals increases in the process of external content dissemination. Implications for researchers and managers are discussed.