Friends, Fans, and Followers:
Do ads Work on Social Networks?
How Gender and age Shape Receptivity
DaVID G. TaYLoR sacred Heart university taylord44@sacredheart. edu
JEFFREY E. LEWIN

social-networking sites (sNs) such as Facebook and Twitter are growing in both popularity and number of users. For advertisers and the sites themselves, it is crucial that users accept advertising as a component of the sNs. Anecdotal evidence indicates that social-networking advertising (sNA) can be effective when users accept

university of North Texas

it, but the perception of excessive commercialization may lead to user abandonment.

jeffrey.lewin@unt.edu

Empirical support for these propositions, however, is lacking. Based on media uses

DaVID STRUTToN

and gratification theory, the authors propose and empirically test a model of content-

university of North Texas

related, structural, and socialization factors that affect users’ attitudes toward sNA.

david.strutton@unt.edu

INTRoDUCTIoN

content but actively promoted it. Yet, according to

To generate brand awareness for its Old Spice fra-

one industry-sponsored study, only 22 percent of

grance line, Procter & Gamble invited Facebook

consumers had a positive attitude toward social

users to “Turn Up Your Man Smell” by becoming

media advertising—and 8 percent of consumers

“fans” of its products. Within a week, the brand’s

studied had abandoned an SNS because of what

fan page had more than 120,000 new fans (Morri-

they perceived as excessive advertising (AdReac-

sey, 2009). Not content merely to draw fans to its

tion, 2010). For example, although much of the

Facebook page, the Red Robin restaurant chain

decline in MySpace usage has been due to users’

enlisted Facebook users as “brand ambassadors,”

abandonment of the site in favor of the “next big