The Online World of Advertising and Marketing by Simon N. Reynolds

Social Networks’ Sway May Be Underestimated – Washington Post

Smoking is a very social activity, people pick up smoking from their friends, they use it as an excuse to socialise at work.. And quiting smoking will depend largely on people around you quitting aswell..

A study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that online social networks can play a prominent part in people quitting smoking. A person’s desicion to quit is affected by people in their social network and even people they do not know.

Sucessfulness of quitting smoking is often deterimed by social pressures, people tend to quit smoking in groups.

If a spouse quit smoking, the other spouse was 67% less likely to smoke.

If a friend quit, a person was 36% less likely to still light up.

Siblings who quit made it 25% less likely that their brothers and sisters would still smoke.

Co workers were also quite influential especially if the individual works at a small firm.

But people were influenced even when individuals saw other people they don’t even know were quitting, This is were social networks come in..

People who are trying to quit smoking should try to socialise with others who are quitting smoking, and social networks can be an platform for this. Facebook Groups, Forums etc..

UPDATE:

WOMMA Word Blog Covers how social networks change smoking behaviour aswell.

Here are the interesting parts:

* Over the course of 30 years, the number of smokers in the network dropped from 45% to 21%
* Closer relationships (family, co-workers in small companies, etc..) had more influence and impact
* Yet a single person’s quitting seemed to have an effect at least through 3 degrees of separation

Using Social Networks for Social Marketing

The implications of the study on social marketers’ use of social media and social networks is great. Can behavior change experts embrace the use of new digital networks to accelerate the spread of social norms and word of mouth? They will need to let go of some control – a lot of control – to do so but we may just find a way to produce behavior change in something under thirty years.

The report confirms the usefulness of engaging influential groups within a network:

“Moreover, medical and public health interventions to encourage people to quit smoking might be more cost-effective than initially supposed, since health improvements in one person might spread to others. Finally, the isolation of smokers within social networks suggests that blanket policy approaches (e.g., advertising and taxation) may be usefully supplemented by interventions targeting small groups.”