Social media channels: the factors that influence the behavioural intention of customers

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the behavioural intention towards usage of social media channels. The research model and the hypothesis are constructed for this research which is evaluated by structural equation model (SEM). One of the primary theoretical foundations is the technology acceptance model (TAM). To build a more comprehensive model that presents the use of social media channels, this study also utilises other customer characteristics including accessibility, language, and trust of social media channels, along with the constructs in TAM. The results reveal that the total effect of the factors that influence the behavioural intention of customers to use social media channels is ranked as follows: perceived enjoyment (PE); accessibility (AC); perceived usefulness (PU); trust of social media channels (TSMC); perceived ease of use (PEU); attitude (A); social influence (SI); self-efficacy (SE). To investigate the hypotheses and research questions, a survey method using a convenience sample was employed. As populations of interest were all individuals in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) who use social media. The questionnaire was self-administered which was administered electronically using internet (docs.google.com). Total number of responses we got is 384, however only 289 (75.26%) were considered for this study, since 95 (24.74%) questionnaires were answered incorrectly.