ACCEPTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS INFLUENCE ON YOUTH PURCHASE BEHAVIOUR:(A STUDY OF SELECTED STUDENTS IN PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN OGUN STATE)

For organization to increase their sales and boost its overall performance, advertisers and marketers need to seek new ways to promote their goods and services to effect the purchasing decisions of their customers and targets. The general objective was to determine acceptance of social media and its influence on the youth purchase behavior among selected students in private universities in Ogun state. It also set to ascertain the relationship between Computer self-efficacy and information search on social media; establish the relationship between Perceived usefulness of social media and alternative evaluation of products on the platform, study the Perceived ease of use of the social media on the actual purchase of products on the media platform, study how perceived credibility of the social media assist to boost the purchase behavior of the Youth and lastly to investigate the relationship between Product awareness on social media and information search on some platform. However, despite the ample opportunities the social media present for business organizations to mark up their marketing game and build customer patronage and loyalty, not many businesses in Nigeria have tapped into this opportunity. Hence, the purpose of this project. A well-structured self-administered questionnaire was used as the main tools for data collection and was administered to 383 respondents out of which 212 were retrieved fully and appropriately filled. Reliability of the research instruments was calculated and the Crombach’s alpha coefficient was 0.939. Data was analyzed using regression and correlation analyses To analyze the collected data, statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version 21) was used .. From the hypothesis, the result indicate there was no relationship between computer efficacy and information search on social media (r =0.084, p >0.05, n = 212} while others show positive relationship as well as significant impact. The study recommend that management of organization and respective authority must pursue with all tenacity the provision of internet resources and create enabling environment that will encourage more on the usage of social media This study suggest future studies should look at more universities across Nigeria and probably carried out research that will compare the adult and the youth