Indian Consumers' Beliefs, Attitudes and Behavioural Responses towards Advertising on Social Networking Sites

Advertising is an important facet of marketing of a product or a company. The marketers are using myriad ways to influence the consumers’ purchase behaviour. One of the latest trends is advertising on social networking sites. This study is an attempt to examine the beliefs, attitudes and responses towards advertisements on social networking sites. For this study, structured questionnaire was administered on a sample of 150 post-graduate students. Structural Equation Modeling was employed to analyze the factors and relationships among them. The research revealed a positive impact of informativeness, entertainment, credibility and user-generated-content belief factors on attitudes and behaviour of respondents. The findings also suggested that user-generated content had significant impact on attitude and behaviour responses towards advertising on social networking sites. It was also found that attitude towards advertising on social networking sites played a mediating role between social media advertising beliefs and behavioural responses of consumers.