The Effect of Facebook Users’ Arousal and Valence on Intention to go to the Festival: Applying an Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model
This is the Author’s Accepted Manuscript of an article by Lee, W., Xiong, L., & Hu, C. (2012). The effect of Facebook users’ arousal and valence on intention to go to the festival: Applying an extension of the technology acceptance model. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(3), 819-827. The version of record is available from the publisher at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278431911001629#. doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2011.09.018 Printed with permission. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract
The rapid development of social media has challenged event managers to rethink how this trend will shape traditional marketing practices. Given the rise of these technologies, the current breed of special event “fan” has started to take advantage of and venture into this social space for possible benefits. For event managers, the fundamental issue becomes how to uncover the process through which special event consumers come to accept social media marketing. This paper reviews social media marketing literature, the characteristics of event marketing, and highlights the emotional aspect of social media applications. An extended TAM (technology acceptance model) is adopted to explain the mechanism by which social media marketing influences attitudes toward Facebook event pages. The authors find that users’ emotions exhibited on the Facebook event page do have a significant impact on the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment of such social media marketing. However, only the last construct significantly influences users’ attitudes and intentions toward an event. Implications and insights were provided to event practitioners and were discussed accordingly.
