Özet:

Social networking sites affecting millions of users worldwide have become an important part of the business strategies. This situation reveals a better understanding of the behaviors, expectations and interactions in the social networking sites of the young adults between 18 to 24 ages that are the most important user group of social networks and expected to become active consumers in the near future. This study aims to classify social networking sites users between 18-24 ages based on their gratifications obtained from these sites and define the profiles of each cluster. The study was conducted in Anadolu University with 447 college students and the gratifications obtained from the social networking sites are grouped under 11 factors based on the Uses and Gratifications Theory including socialization, entertainment, status seeking, convenience/easy access, benefit from marketing/sales promotions, coordination, escape, seeking information, making/seeking friends, share, learning friends’ life. Based on the cluster analysis using these 11 factors the young adults were classified under four groups named “addicts, haunters, communicators and distants”. Significant differences were found between the clusters’ on the gratifications obtained and activities in the social networking sites.

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