Influence of social media advertising on consumer behavior : A quantitative study in Germany and Sweden

Abstract: Social media sites and platforms have been on the rise for the last decade. Especially sincethe start of the still on-going Covid-19 pandemic it reached an all time high. Over half of theworld’s population is using social media. Everyone knows Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,TikTok, Snapchat, and many more. This fact has not gone unnoticed by companies as theyincreasingly integrate social media into their portfolio. Social media advertising is nowadayseverywhere. There is not a single site without any ads. Regardless the research about it is stillvery scarce. This master thesis will investigate the influence of social media advertising on consumerbehavior. More detailed it will focus on how consumers react to advertisements. For thispurpose, a quantitative survey has been conducted. The base for this survey is a developedconceptual framework based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model and the Value-Belief-Norm theory model. Further factors of the survey include different values and beliefs onwhich the analysis is depending. The main value playing a role in this study is sociallyresponsible consumption behavior. This value tackles how much consumers care about theenvironment and the human society. Simply spoken, how sustainable and how social do theybehave. Furthermore, three beliefs have been chosen in tandem with this value: Self -confidence, impulsiveness, and interpersonal/group influence. All are believed to have animpact on how consumers are perceiving advertisements they see on social media. Eachconnection between the value, the beliefs, and the reaction to advertisements will be tested.Believed connections are between the sustainability value of the consumers and the threebeliefs as well as towards the video. Further, it is believed that the beliefs will have an effecton the reaction to advertisements from consumers. My study will indicate how companies cantake advantage of advertisements to gain more followers on social media and sell moreproducts. The outcome of this study will present a clear picture of the role of sustainable andsocially responsible behavior towards ads on social media as well as the impact of beliefs.