YOUNG SAUDI FEMALES AND SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING, An Impirical Study

Abstract

As social media continues to attract hundreds millions of users around the world, marketers see out to use social media as a venue for their marketing messages. It is important to understand what consumers on the receiving side of the ads think about those messages displayed on social media sites. This study examined social media usage, perceptions and behaviors of female students towards advertisements displayed on social media sites. A questionnaire survey was administered to 223 female undergraduate students at King Saud University. The study gave mixed results, that the majority of students as fully aware of advertising on social network sites. Almost half of the respondents stated that they follow; being a friend or fan of a company page and they mostly have a good perception about companies’ presence on social networks site. Credibility, entertainment and informativeness were identified as significant positive predictors of Saudi females’ attitude towards social media advertising while irritation have very minimum (non-significant) negative influence on the attitude towards social network advertising. Convenient sampling technique and the generalization are main limitations associated with the paper. Keywords: Social media marketing, consumers perception, consumers attitude, Saudi Arabia. Females.