Precursors and Outcomes of Students' Attitude towards Social Media Advertising; the Case of the University of Semnan

 
Introduction: By the increasing expansion of the Internet on various issues of life, the way of exchanging transactions through the Internet is taken attention Very much by organizations and their customers. On the other hand, in today's business world, most marketers are trying to gain a better understanding of the attitudes and emotions of their customers. Attitudinal structures are useful tools for understanding the behavior of buyers and consumers in the market. The effect of advertising on customers is largely due to the attitude of consumers towards advertising, because it is believed that a strong attitude toward advertising affects consumer behavior. The paucity of research in the field of social media advertising that integrates attitudes and advertising and the implications and attitudes of consumers towards advertising is a challenge for individuals to understand the trends and criteria associated with these structures. Therefore, the present study seeks to identify and investigate the effective factors on the attitude toward social media advertising and its impact on informational and behavioral responses of consumers.
Theoretical Framework
Attitude is considered to be the expression of goodwill or the rejection of an object, idea or person. Also, attitude is described as a person's position based on his or her own assessment of the tendency or orientation towards a person, personality or object and depends on the experiences and motivation of the individual. In addition, the attitude is based on the motivation of the particular stimulus in the form of an idea, person or product is different, so that the formation of a highly dependent on situation of wanted phenomenon. Therefore, the individual learns from his or her attitude and influences from advertising, because it stimulates individuals to move their thinking towards an optimal attitude (Raza et al., 2018). The general attitude towards advertising is defined as the emotional response of the audience members to advertising. In marketing management, the attitude towards advertising is very important, because the attitude of consumers is a major factor in influencing consumers' buying intent (Can & Kaya, 2016). If customers have a positive attitude towards social media advertising, this will lead to customer shopping behavior (Mir, 2015). The degree to which an individual believes that with using the system of mental effort will be free is called the perceived ease of use (Hansen et al., 2017). However, habitude is used as a result of cognitive processes or harassing acts that apparently cannot explain irrational and uncontrollable aspects of media addiction (LaRose et al., 2009). Psychological Dependence expresses the severity of the links between a person and the social media (Park et al., 2010). In this research, we tried to identify and examine the factors influencing the attitude toward social media advertising. The current research model is a new model based on the reformations made to the previous models and tested for the first time. In the present research, informational and behavioral responses are considered as two consequences and the effect of attitudes toward social media advertising is considered.
Methodology
Considering the fact that here in this research we are attempting to test the factors affecting the University of Semnan’s students’ attitude towards social media advertising, informational and behavioral responses of users, and develops applied knowledge about the attitude toward advertising and the impact between variables, in terms of purpose, is an applied research. Also, this research is conducted in real-world situations and regarding this fact is a field research, and because of the causal relationship between perceived ease of use, habitude and psychological dependence, based on the data collection, the research is a correlation type. The statistical population of this study is 325 MSc & Ph.D. Student at Semnan University. To determine the sample size, the Cochran formula was used for a limited population.
 
Findings and Results
Some of the primary results indicate that the perceived ease of use has a positive and significant effect on the habitude and attitude towards social media advertising. Also, the habitude has a positive and significant effect on psychological dependence. However, no significant relationship was found between habitude and attitude. Finally, there was a positive and significant relationship between attitude toward social media advertising and informational and behavioral responses.
 
Conclusions and Suggestions
The attitudes of consumers and their behavior are in strong relationships.  This means that the impact of advertising on consumer attitudes has a number signals for consumer behavior how to act. As a result, people who have a more positive attitude toward social media advertising are more likely to click on ads. This means that users have a positive attitude towards social media advertising and are considered it to be a good phenomenon. Several studies have shown that consumers' attitudes toward advertising are the intermediary between the beliefs of consumers about advertising and their behavioral responses.  In addition, there is a strong relationship between attitude and behavioral responses to Internet advertising. Therefore, to the extent that the attitude towards Internet advertising is more positive, the probability of responding to a positive behavior toward advertising will increase. Therefore, research findings are recommended to social media users who are more focused on attracting attention to advertising texts and to receive relevant information from social media ads. According to research findings, social media users are advised to focus more attention on advertising text messages and to receive relevant information from social media ads. Also, social media users are advised not to miss the lack of attention in the media that are less prioritized. Therefore, it is suggested that when social media users find a good attitude toward social media ads, they are more likely to engage in advertising messages and obtain information about advertised products or brands.