(The Factors Effecting Perceived Comfort about use of Consumers’ Personal Data on Social Media by Companies)

Abstract

Purpose – The main purpose of this study was to investigate the individual’s comfort that was felt about use the their information posted (information posted publicly) on social media by companies for marketing purposes (targeted advertising, customer relationships, and opinion mining). Design/methodology/approach – In this study, convenience sampling method was applied and research data were collected via facebook. The data were analyzed by using SmartPLS statistic program and the model were tested through the partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis and importance-performance map analysis (IPMA). Findings – The results show that perceived risk towards social media has negative effects on marketing comfort that consumers feel about the use of their social media data by companies for marketing purposes. Perceived benefit toward social media has positive effects on the perception of marketing comfort while self-disclosure doesn’t have significant effect on perception of marketing comfort. Discussion – The perceived benefit variable, which has the greatest effect level, was examined in more detail with IPMA. The results of analysis indicate that consumers feel comfortable about the use of their social media data by companies, because of the benefits of recognizing new people and expanding their relationships on social media platforms.