Measuring the Impact of Social Media Advertising Content on Consumers’ Purchasing Intention towards Health and Beauty Products Online

Abstract

This study seeks to measure the impact of various social media advertising contents on consumers’ intentions to purchase health and beauty products online. After reviewing the literature, the researcher found that prior studies considered visual content, user generated content, interactivity content, text-persuasive content, and text-informative content to be significant substance to be placed in social media ads. These substances make consumers attentive to the viewed advertising. Accordingly, the researcher developed a proposed conceptual Model that consist of two phases: phase one focuses on the substance of social media content that creates attentive advertising; phase two focuses on the ad attentiveness impact on consumers purchase intention. Six hypotheses emerged according to the model to be tested through a quantitative research approach. This study is considered conclusive research, with a cross-sectional design and a descriptive purpose. Distribution of online questionnaires is conducted to collect the needed data. Each of the variables is measured using a 5-point Likert scale (the number of the items varied in each scale). A non-probability sampling technique is applied. The studied population in this research is youth and young adults (20 to 35 years old) basically residing in different regions of Egypt as this is the common age of social media audience based on the official statistics made by the Hootsuite in January 2019. Out of 500 self-administrated questionnaires, 412 are returned complete and accurate, yielding a response rate of 82%. Once the needed data is collected, the researcher uses the SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) program to carry out several analyses needed to develop empirical insights, such as the reliability analysis, validity analysis, descriptive analysis, frequency analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. Based on the hypotheses testing, the researcher discovered that: in order for health and beauty care products social media advertising to capture consumers’ attention, there should be text-persuasive content, interactivity content and text-informative content. Visual content and user generated content is insignificant in capturing consumers attention. This study shows that there is a relationship between consumers’ attentiveness with social media advertising and their intentions towards purchasing the promoted health/ beauty products.