Sharing of Sponsored Advertisements on Social Media: A Uses and Gratifications Perspective

Abstract

Organisations are increasingly utilising social media to advertise to, and interact with, consumers. Sponsored advertisements embedded into targeted users' social media feeds appear less invasive than standalone advertisements but, unlike organic postings, incur financial cost. Given that friends' posts attract most attention, this research employs Uses and Gratifications theory to determine salient motivations for users' intentions to share sponsored advertisements, framed in the tourism context. Survey data was collected (n = 487) and analysis revealed altruism, entertainment, socialising, and information seeking to be significant positive drivers of intention to share tourism-related sponsored advertisements on Facebook. Notably, information sharing was found to have a negative effect, while self-expression had no significant effect. In addition, the motivations were not found to significantly differ between males and females. This study contributes to theoretical understanding of users' intentions to share sponsored advertisements within the social media environment and provides practical recommendations to help tourism marketers maximise reach.

Fake news and COVID-19: modelling the predictors of fake news sharing among social media users

“…This indicates that when people seek information and news, an altruistic person is always eager to share such news to help without expecting any recompense in the future. The altruistic behaviour has been well tested and documented in knowledge, information and news sharing studies ( Plume and Slade, 2018 , Ma and Chan, 2014 , Fang and Chiu, 2010 ). For instance, Ma and Chan (2014) revealed that altruism is positively associated with the voluntary gathering and dissemination of information, suggesting that users of social media would assist without expecting remuneration.…”

“…Altruistic behaviour occurs when individuals share with others without thinking of any reward. Relating this to news sharing, altruism could be described as the act of disseminating news and information without expecting a reward for such an act ( Plume & Slade, 2018 ). An altruistic person constantly has the mind to serve others.…”

Investigating the Determinants of Consumers’ Attitude towards Social Media Marketing: Moderating Role of Gender

“…The present study is based on Uses and Gratifications Theory and Theory of Reasoned Action to understand the interplay between motives, trust on social media retailers and attitude towards social media marketing. Uses and Gratifications Theory is considered as one of the most prominent and popular theories to understand underlying consumers' motives and their subsequent impact on attitudinal and behavioral outcomes (Plume & Slade, 2018). Originally, UGT was applied to study the media users' interest in the traditional forms of media like newspapers, television, radio, and telephone but now its applicability has also been expanded to other areas of research (Corkindale, Ram, & Chen, 2018;Thongsri, Shen, Bao, & Alharbi, 2018).…”

“…The main purpose of Uses and Gratifications Theory is to explain the reasons on the basis of which individuals choose a particular medium over other alternative media (Dolan, Conduit, Fahy, & Goodman, 2016) . It is considered as a well-known and highly valid theory because its principles are generally accepted and can be applied in many situations (Liu, North, & Li, 2017;Plume & Slade, 2018). UGT is a comprehensive framework that identifies consumers' motivations and has evolved over the years (Hossain, 2019;Mishra, 2019;Zong, Yang, & Bao, 2019).…”

Social Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

“…Notably, information sharing was found to have a negative effect, while selfexpression had no significant effect. Results also determined that there were no significant differences in motivations between males and females (Plume and Slade 2018).…”