INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING ON PURCHASE INTENTION OF GENERATION Y IN KURUNEGALA DISTRICT

Abstract

Internet and social networking have become a part of people’s daily lives all around the world. Social media has inspired the people by providing tremendous benefits to ease their day to day activities. People in the world use at least one form of social media. Among them, youngers (age range 20-29) is more attracted towards the social media and spend more time on social media sites. Generation Y is more familiar with internet and social networking and represent the highest social media usage in Sri Lanka. The present study investigates the influence of informativeness, interactivity, entertainment and credibility of social media advertising on purchase intention. This descriptive study was conducted using 384 respondents from Kurunegala district, representing generation using convenience sampling and data was collected through questionnaires. Cronbach alpha values for all the variables were more than 0.7 therefore, there’s a higher internal consistency of research and the questionnaire. Based on the correlation analysis, it indicates that there is a higher positive association between the variables. Base on the regression the present study found that there is significant positive impact of those four factors on purchase intention of Generation Y in Kurunegala District. Therefore, the researcher recommends corporations to utilize four types of social media platforms which are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn for enhancing purchase intentions, as social media advertising is more effective for the organization which sell, and manufacturing goods and services mostly consumed by young men and women because majority of the social media users tend to be younger.