Examining Social Media Dimensions among a Cohort of Generation Y Consumers in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa represents a microcosm of major global trends in social media among developing countries and this study presents various multi-dimensional constructs directed towards the intention to use social media tools among consumers. The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that affect the use of social media tools such as social networking sites, virtual worlds, microblogs and other Web 2.0 sharing applications. A quantitative study was followed using a structured questionnaire that incorporated existing scales. From the survey, 376 responses were returned, usable. Initially descriptive statistics such as frequencies were established with a view to understand the composition of the sample after which it was established that 58% (n=219) of the respondents were male while 42% (n= 157) were female. Thereafter, inferential statistics were employed through a factor analytical study which was applied using Principal Components Analysis with Varimax rotation. This analysis revealed four pertinent dimensions of social media usage. The reliability of the measuring instrument was assessed through Cronbach’s coefficient alpha and revealed high internal consistency among the four identified constructs, namely; enjoyment (0.855), usefulness (0.802), ease of use (0.847) and critical mass (0.810). The identified dimensions have important implications to marketing practitioners in terms of social media spending allocation and extension of the marketing communication strategy; with social media as a pivotal element. However, future studies that integrate more robust statistical applications such as structural equation modelling (SEM) may be useful in validating the efficacy of the factors that were identified in this study.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n14p329