Introduction

Background

One of the formidable technology developments in recent years has been the emergence of social media. Social media is a term used to describe online platform that allow users to share idea, messages pictures and other sort of information (Vinerean, Cetina, & Tichindelean, 2013). Some of the most common social media include facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Flickr, among others.  Social media has   changed the ways people interact with each.

 The emerging of social media has drastically changed the ways company advertise their products and services. Social media give companies the platform to reach wide number of audiences in a cost effective manner. Other than the cost aspect side of it, Social media also allows the advertisers to engage and establish relationship with their   customers through instant feedback.  Moreover, there are quite a lot of information that are generated in the social media by user themselves that help advertisers/marketers understand their consumer behaviour hence creating content based on this information.

Due to the numerous advantages   social media has offered as marketing tools,   Traditional media has suffered heavily.    Research study by Gottfried and Shearer (2016) has shown that majority of company are now spending more on social media than on traditional media. What this mean is that more advertisement message s are being presented to social media audiences   every hour more than before.  As social media continue to grow in popularity and usage, it is expected that the numbers of advertisement on social media platform by companies will continue to increase      

Problem statement

 Social media have created a virtual environment for social interaction where people share content with each Others (Stoica & Ionas, 2014).   In addition, social media has been able to create a pool of users. For instance,   facebook has 1.79 billion monthly active users in 2016 ( Statista , 2016).   The ability of social media to attract large pool of people    has been one of the reasons why many companies are   jumping to social media marketing wagon.   Also, advertising in social media is less expensive that traditional mass media thus attracting large number of advertisers and marketers.  Over the recent year, Social media has over taken traditional media as the preferred advertisement and marketing platform for many marketers and advertisers.  As more marketers enter the social media platforms, consumers become overwhelmed with advertising/marketing contents. What is not well known in existing literature is whether social media advertisement /marketing do influences consumers’ behaviour.   A research that investigate the relationship between social media advertising and consumers behaviour is thus much needed as it will help marketer/advertiser

Research aim
The aims of the research will be to investigate the relationship between social media advertisement and consumer behaviour

 Research objectives

To achieve the research aims as highlighted above, the research will be guided by the following objectives

·       To determine   the relationship between attitude toward social media advertisement and consumers Behaviour

·       To determine  the relationship between  perceived credibility  of  social media advertisement and consumers behaviour 

·        To determine  the relationship between message appeal  of  social media advertisement and consumers’ behaviour

·       To determine the relationship between Interactivity of social media advertisement and consumers behaviour

·       To provide practical guideline for improving  effectiveness of social media advertisement