Abstract

Facebook has been one of the popular social network sites (SNS) in recent years. With an increasing number of consumer groups using SNS, an understanding of how it is perceived by consumers and consumer attitudes and behaviours towards its advertising becomes useful for businesses, in particular for those mobile phone companies that encounter consumer tastes in favouring technologically innovative products. Furthermore, greater attention needs to be paid to the function of online advertising in terms of influencing the purchasing process. The study in this chapter contributes to our understanding of consumer behaviours towards SNS advertising, by revealing that consumers response variously to Facebook advertising in the mobile phone purchase decision making process. The differing behavioural segments identified, show that Facebook advertising impacts on the pre-purchase stages of the consumer decision making process in mobile phone purchasing, a process analysed in this paper. In addition, Facebook advertising has the potential to influence other stages in the buying decision making process. Furthermore, our findings show that whilst social networking amongst peers is recognized as a key determinant of online engagement, formal networking enabled by technical mechanisms on Facebook can also be a key reason for using the site.