The Influence of Social Media on University

Students’ Spending Habits

Do BYU-Idaho students perceive that social media advertising influences their buying habits?

Christian Evans
Allison Garrett
Hailley Peterson
Annie Pierce
David Priebe
Maddy Quast

Brigham Young University-Idaho

Lane Williams

Comm 280

December 2, 2017
Abstract

The number of people using advertising to purchase things on social media is growing rapidly,
experts say. The study was started to find out if BYU-Idaho students rely on advertisements on
social media to make purchasing decisions.

A random email survey went to 300 BYU-Idaho students, of which 49 responded. The survey
asked respondents nine questions about their social media buying habits.

Questions included how many hours respondents spent on social media sites, how often they
clicked on social media advertisements and how much money they were willing to spend on
products they see on social media advertisements. Two questions were demographic questions
about gender and year in school.

The results found that BYU-Idaho students perceive that they are influenced by social media
advertising. A majority of students reported spending money on a product they saw advertised on
social media.
Background & Method

The amount of advertising on social media is increasing. In social media advertising, promotions
are mixed with organic, or user-created, content. Businesses believe that this mixing of paid
advertisements and user-created content is effective in selling products. According to a study
from the academic journal Psychology & Marketing, advertisers spent $121 billion on internet
advertising in 2014.1

This study began with the simple meta-question, “Does social media advertising influence
buying habits?” As society becomes increasingly anchored to social media, understanding the
effects it may have on consumers becomes more important. Social media is a relatively new
medium. Depending on its definition, social media has only existed for 10 years, and in its short
lifespan it has grown to be a ubiquitous part of everyday life.2 Compared to the longer history of
print, radio and television, social media is still a relatively young medium, yet has potential to
affect consumers more profoundly than traditional media.

Nearly all social media platforms are free for users, profiting from advertisements paid for by
various companies and organizations. This concept may stem from the old idea that
advertisements should be placed anywhere people will see them, or it may be that advertisers
believe social media is especially effective. In either case, knowing how social media advertising
influences consumers is useful to businesses.

This survey attempted to answer the specific question, “Do BYU-Idaho students perceive that
social media advertising affects their buying habits?” The question was also phrased to measure
how BYU-Idaho students believe social media advertising influences their buying habits, rather
than measuring how it actually affects their buying habits.

Some of the questions asked to BYU-Idaho students included how many hours respondents spent
on social media sites, how often they clicked on social media advertisements and how much
money they were willing to spend on products they see on social media advertisements. Two
questions were demographic questions about gender and year in school.3

The survey was conducted using Qualtrics, an online service for creating and distributing
surveys. After the survey underwent an institutional review, 300 student emails were randomly
selected from the population of BYU-Idaho students. The survey was distributed to the students

1
Mao, En; Zhang, Jing. "From Online Motivations to Ad Clicks and to Behavioral Intentions: An Empirical Study
of Consumer Response to Social Media Advertising." Psychology & Marketing, Volume 33, Issue 3, 2016, 155-164.
2
"The History of Social Media: Social Networking Evolution!" History Cooperative, 16 June 2015,
http://historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/.
3
Appendix, Pages 21-29
via email on two occasions, three days apart. Forty-nine students responded to the survey; 33
females and 16 males.

Many of the respondents to this survey asserted that they do not like advertising, yet advertisers
continue to spend a significant amount of money to publish online advertisements on social
media every year. The goal of this study was to see if BYU-Idaho students perceived that they
were influenced by these published advertisements on social media sites.
Finding 1

Students perceive that advertising on social media is annoying to them.

Figure 1

Students at BYU-Idaho were asked to rate, on a Likert scale (from very unlikely to very likely)
on if advertising on social media is annoying to them. 11 percent of the students stated they were
not annoyed by advertisement on social media. 89 percent of the students stated they were
annoyed by advertisement on social media.
Finding 2

The majority of those that agreed social media advertising was annoying to them were
female.

Figure 2

According to the data in Figure 2, 61 percent of female respondents answered that they were at
least somewhat likely to agree social media advertising was annoying to them. Only 24 percent
of male respondents answered that they were at least somewhat likely.

Twenty-seven percent of females and 7 percent of males were somewhat likely to agree. Sixteen
percent of females and 13 percent of males were likely to agree. Eighteen percent of females and
4 percent of males were very unlikely to agree.

Nine percent of female respondents answered that they were somewhat unlikely to very unlikely
to agree. Four percent of male respondents answered that they somewhat unlikely to very
unlikely to agree.

Seven percent of females and two percent of males were somewhat unlikely to agree. Two
percent of females and zero percent of males were unlikely to agree. Zero percent of females and
two percent of males were very unlikely to agree.

Two percent of females and zero percent of males answered neutral.

Finding 3
Students say they are not willing to click on advertisements on social media.

Figure 3

The students at BYU Idaho were asked if they were willing to click on advertisements on social
media. The data in Figure 3 shows that 70 percent of the students stated they would not click on
the advertisements on social media, and 30 percent of the students stated they would click on
advertisements on social media.
Finding 4

Overall, both males and females were not willing to click on advertisements on social
media.

Figure 4

Male and female students were asked if they click on advertisements they see on social media.
Figure 4 shows that overall men and women were unlikely to click on advertisements they see on
social media. Out of the 49 students that participated in the survey, 44 percent of women and 26
percent of men do not click on advertisements.
Finding 5

Students say they are unwilling to spend any money on advertisements they see on social
media.

Figure 5

BYU-Idaho students were asked how much money they were willing to spend on advertisements
they see on social media. Figure 5 shows 29 percent of students are not willing to spend any
money on products they see on advertisements on social media.

Twenty-seven percent are willing to spend $11 to $20 and under $10 on advertisements they see
on social media. Out of all the students surveyed, only six percent were willing to spend over
$51 on advertisements they see on social media. Out of the six percent of students that were
willing to spend over $51, thirty-three percent of them were male students.

Finding 6
Female respondents are more willing than male respondents to spend money on products
they see on social media.

Figure 6

According to the data shown in Figure 7, 76 percent of female respondents are willing to spend
money on products they see on social media, whereas 24 percent were not willing to spend any
money. Sixty-two percent of male respondents are willing to spend money on products they see
on social media, whereas 38 percent are not willing to spend any money.

Nineteen percent of male respondents and 30 percent of female respondents are willing to spend
under $10. Thirty-one percent of male respondents and 24 percent of female respondents are
willing to spend between $11 and $20.

Zero percent of male respondents and 18 percent of female respondents were willing to spend
between $21 and $30. Thirteen percent of male respondents and three percent of female
respondents were willing to spend $51.

Finding 7

Nevertheless, most BYU-Idaho students have purchased items based on advertisements on

social media.
Figure 7

As Figure 7 illustrates, the results from the survey indicate that 54 percent of participants had
purchased a product based on a social media advertisement. Forty-six percent had not purchased
a product based on a social media advertisement.

Finding 8

Female BYU-Idaho students are more likely to have bought something based on social
media advertising than male BYU-Idaho students.
Figure 8

As Figure 8 shows, of the 54 percent of respondents who said they bought something based on
social media advertising, 37 percent were female, and 16 percent were male. In contrast, 30
percent of females and 16 percent of males said they had not purchased anything from a social
media advertisement.

Finding 9

The longer people are on social media, the less likely they are to say they click on a social
media advertisement.

Figure 9.1
Figure 9.2

Figure 9.1 shows that the longer students are on social media, the more likely they are to say that
they did not click on ads. The r-squared value is 0.054, meaning there is a limited correlation
between the two variables.

Figure 9.2 shows this data further. Those who stated they clicked on ads spent an average of 3.6
hours weekly on social media. The ones that stated they did not click on ads spent an average of
5.7 hours weekly on social media. The t-test shows that the difference is 0.054, which means that
the data is statistically significant.

Finding 10

BYU-Idaho Students ranked clothing as the number one most appealing product they see
in social media advertisements.

Figure 10
In the survey, students were asked to rank five general product categories (clothing, beauty
products, technology, services, and electronics) from one to five according to what was most
appealing to them. Clothing ranked number one, with 54 percent of students saying it was the
“most appealing” out of the products listed.

In addition, 8 percent of respondents said that beauty products were the most appealing product
to them on social media advertisements, 20 percent said technology products, 5 percent said
services, and 13 percent said electronics.

Finding 11

The most appealing products differed between the genders.

Figure 11
In the survey, BYU-Idaho students were asked to rank five general product categories (clothing,
beauty products, technology, services, and electronics) from one to five according to what was
most appealing to them.

For those who responded that clothing was their most appealing product, 90 percent were female
and 10 percent were male. 100 percent of those who responded with beauty products were
women, yet on technology 88 percent were male (with only 12 percent of the respondents being
female). Those who cited services as their number one most appealing product were split evenly
between males and females, and 56 of the respondents who selected electronics were female (the
remaining 44 percent being male).
Conclusion

This survey and analysis began with one question: Does social media advertising have an
influence on the buying habits of college students? Numerous studies, including on completed at
University of Colorado Boulder, would show that “social media is becoming a large influencer in
the lives of millenials and beyond, influencing everything from word choices, sleep habits,
chosen cohorts, and purchases.” 4 The results of this survey support the findings of the
University of Colorado study. Social media does indeed have an effect on the purchasing habits
of college students at BYU-Idaho, at least by the student’s perceptions.

Social media is an ever growing impact in the lives of millenials (and for our purposes,
university students). A 2010 study published in the International Journal of Integrated
Marketing Communications suggested that millennials consume an ever increasing amount of
social media daily, far more than any other age group studied.5 Results from the BYU-Idaho
survey found that students reported spending as much as 9 hours a day on various social media
sites. This behavior has begun to influence buying habits (at least from the perception of the
consumers themselves), and corporations are beginning to notice and change their business
models accordingly.

A 2013 study on the effect of advertising on Facebook stated that “the emergence of social media
has dramatically changed the strategies used to communicate with and engage consumers,” and
that “viral advertising campaigns” are the beginning of a new revolution in advertising.6 This
data illustrates that advertising on social media does work in gaining customers, increasing the
quantity of transactions, and converting advertising into profit. This model is especially effective
when the target audience is between the ages of 18 and 30, though it is effective in other cohorts
as well. From a business standpoint, this information is invaluable when deciding where to
allocate funds for marketing and online advertising. More and more businesses are beginning to
convert their marketing strategies to reflect the shift from traditional media advertising to online
targeted advertising.

The results of the BYU-Idaho study concluded that social media does influence the purchasing
habits of college students—at least within students studying at BYU-Idaho. However, another
observation showing how these advertisements are perceived by the consumers contradicted the
original ideology behind this study. The initial hypothesis postulated that engagement with an

4
Gangadharbatla, H., Bright, L., & Logan, K. (2014). Social Media and News Gathering: Tapping into the
Millennial Mindset. The Journal of Social Media in Society, 3(1). Retrieved from
http://thejsms.org/tsmri/index.php/TSMRI/article/view/63
5
Sago, B. (2010). The Influence of Social Media Message Sources on Millennial Generation Consumers.
International Journal Of Integrated Marketing Communications, 2(2), 7-18.
6
Chu, Shu-Chuan. “Viral Advertising in Social Media.” Journal of Interactive Advertising, vol. 12, no. 1, 2011, pp.
30–43., doi:10.1080/15252019.2011.10722189.
advertisement, such as clicking on a link, would be a sure sign of strong potential for purchase.
The natural order of events would include initial exposure to the advertisement, some sort of
engagement with the advertisement (such as watching a video, clicking on a link, or other
“further action” beyond simply viewing the ad), and an eventual purchase. Ultimately, the data
collected did not support this hypothesis.

The information related in Finding 3 showed that many BYU-Idaho students said they do not
click on social media advertisements, but they do purchase items online based on advertisements
they have seen on social media. As Figure 3 shows, 32 percent of the respondent answered
affirmatively to the question “Do you click on advertisements on social media?” Yet, 54 percent
of the same respondents said that they had purchased something based on an advertisement they
had seen on a social media site (as shown in Finding 7).

This information could mean that students see social media advertisements of products they want
to buy, but look to other online sources to purchase them. It could also mean that consumers
don’t necessarily need more than the initial image or video they see on social media to be
convinced to purchase. Further engagement, such as link clicks or comments on the post could
be superfluous when gauging success in the business model. If this is the case, online
advertisements would need to be instantly visually appealing, captivating, engaging, and not
require any further action on the part of the consumer in order to be most effective.

If corporations and organizations can understand not only that advertisements on social media
are effective in gaining customers, but how to most effectively use them, the world of marketing
will continue to move forward in the online sector. Further research on this topic is required for a
full understanding, yet even a basic comprehension of the consumer psyche and behaviors will
advance the marketing model of any given business, potentially pushing their sales above those
of their competitors. Ultimately, advances in social media marketing will make business smarter
and more profitable, and afford customers a more customized shopping experience.
Appendix

Part 1: Survey Questions and Answers

1. Approximately how many hours do you spend per day on the following social media
sites? (Sliding Scale starting at 0 and going to 10+)
a. Facebook
b. Instagram
c. Twitter
d. YouTube
e. Pinterest
f. Tumblr
g. Reddit
h. Other

2. Do you click on advertisements (defined as paid or promoted posts, buying-and-selling

pages, product promotion, etc.) on social media?
 a. Yes
b. No (if answer no, skip to question 4)

3. Approximately how many ads per day do you click on?

a. 1-10
b. 11-20
c. 21-30
 d. 31+
e. I don’t ever click on ads

4. Have you ever bought something based on an advertisement you have seen on a social
media site?
a. Yes
b. No
5. What is the amount of money you are willing to spend on a product you see in a social
media advertisement? (This question was only shown if the participant answered “yes” to
the fourth question)
a. Under $10
b. $11-$20
c. $21-$30
d. $31-$50
e. $51+
 f. I’m not willing to spend any money

6. Which of the following products appeal to you most? (Rank order)

a. Electronics
b. Clothes
c. Beauty products
d. Technology (software, gaming, etc.)
e. Services
f. Other (write in option)
7. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements statements? (On a
1-7 Likert scale: Very unlikely, unlikely, somewhat unlikely, neutral, somewhat likely,
likely, very likely)
a. “I have bought things I otherwise would not have because of an advertisement I
saw on social media.”
b. “If a friend posts a promotion of a product, I am more likely to purchase it.”
c. “Advertising on social media is annoying to me.”
d. “Advertising on social media is helpful to me.”
8. Are you male or female?
a. Male
b. Female
9. Which year in school are you?
a. Freshman
b. Sophomore
c. Junior
d. Senior
Part 2: Email Invitation

“You have been randomly selected to take a brief survey about the effect of social media on
buying habits. You will be asked questions about your social media habits and online purchases.

This survey will take approximately 3 minutes to complete. Your answers will remain
anonymous. You do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to and can stop the survey
at any time. Results from this survey will be presented publicly at the Creative Works
Conference. For further info or questions, please email qua16005@byui.edu. Thank you for your
participation.

Click on the link to begin the survey.”

For the 2nd email, the following line was inserted before text from the first email.

“To those who have taken this survey already, thank you. You may disregard this email.”
 Works Cited

Chu, Shu-Chuan. “Viral Advertising in Social Media.” Journal of Interactive Advertising, vol.

12, no. 1, 2011, pp. 30–43., doi:10.1080/15252019.2011.10722189.

Gangadharbatla, H., Bright, L., & Logan, K. (2014). Social Media and News Gathering: Tapping

into the Millennial Mindset. The Journal of Social Media in Society, 3(1). Retrieved from

http://thejsms.org/tsmri/index.php/TSMRI/article/view/63

Mao, En; Zhang, Jing. "From Online Motivations to Ad Clicks and to Behavioral Intentions: An

Empirical Study of Consumer Response to Social Media Advertising." Psychology &

Marketing, Volume 33, Issue 3, 2016, 155-164.

Sago, B. (2010). The Influence of Social Media Message Sources on Millennial Generation

Consumers. International Journal Of Integrated Marketing Communications, 2(2), 7-18.

"The History of Social Media: Social Networking Evolution!." History Cooperative, 16 June

2015, http://historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/.