onnected with your friends and even stay in touch across the globe. People are able to interact with social networking website in many methods such as blogs, directories, links and videos. However, the major types of social networking websites are those which contain directories of some categories.
Facebook, Hi5, Youtube and Twitter which respond to different activities are prominent instances of popular social network sites. Both profit and non-profit organizations are able to use social networking websites as an advertising tool to promote their products and services. For instance, Burger King applied marketing communication via social networking websites by launching marketing promotion on Facebook. Facebook users could exchange ten accounts of friends for a whopper coupon. This promotion of Burger King attracted many social networking users to join this interesting campaign (“Famous brands with Facebook,” 2009).
Putting ads in front of Facebook users is like hanging out at a party and interrupting conversations to hawk merchandise. (Newsweek, October 10, 2008). Advertising is the essence of Facebook’s business. (Time Magazine, July 24, 2008). Social media is especially important because consumers interact with these platforms differently than traditional media. Social media encompass an inherent shift of informational power from the advertiser to the consumer, in which consumers decide which content to ignore and which to pass along to others in their network.
Many consider this sharing of online content as powerful as word of mouth marketing. Moreover, other analysts point out, that users of social networking website tend to spend a lot of time on those sites, providing an attractive platform for advertisers to promote their brands, especially if preferences are tracked. (Advertise on Twitter? Meredith L, 2009). In summary, online social networks are here to stay and will continue to gain traction and offer users more interactivity than other media. Advertisers are going to need to take some responsible risks in the new channel. Frank Gruber, 2006). However, they encounter the severe risk that members will feel exploited if the sites suddenly appear overrunning with ads (Mesure and Griggs, 2007). A 2008 report by IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads (eMarketer, 2009) Online advertising is widely used by companies and advertisers to promote their products and services (Kaye and Medoff, 2001). As social networking sites have a high potential for advertising to users, users’ attitudes toward advertising should be considered in order to design content for appropriate on-line advertisements.
Consumers’ beliefs and attitudes toward advertising are important indicators of advertising effectiveness (Mehta, 2000). Participation in social networking sites (SNS) is growing, with 63. 1 % of Taiwanese maintaining their own social networking profiles and engaging with various forms of social media. According to the statistics on checkfacebook. com (2011), Facebook has more than nine million members in Taiwan. Although social networking sites are so popular in Taiwan there are few studies about the users’ attitudes toward social networking advertisement.
The aims of this study are to investigate the attitudes of internet users towards advertising on social networking websites through qualitative research and analyze how do social networking websites users in Taichung view on-line advertisements. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The aim of this study focuses on the following research questions. 1. What are the overall attitudes of social networking sites users towards advertisement? 2. How do social networking sites users in Taichung view advertisements in term of informativeness, usefulness, entertainment value, reliability and product value? 3.
What factors affect the overall attitudes of social networking sites users in Taichung towards advertisement? OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The purposes of this study are as following: 1. To investigate and find out the overall attitude of social networking sites users towards