Gender Disparities in the Influence of Social Media Advertisements on Buying Decision in Nigeria

This article reports on a study that explored how gender influences social media users’ response to social media advertisements by using a survey of 384 (192 male and 192 female) respondents. The study tested five hypotheses that were derived from Alice Eagly’s social role theory of sex differences. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the data analysis for the study. The results showed that gender significantly influences the duration of engagement with social media advertisements with women spending longer time to engage with social media advertisements than men. Also, gender significantly influences users’ response to social media advertisements with women using the share option, while men click the like option. It was also found that gender significantly influences users’ views on product elements that make social media advertisements effective. While women are driven by product popularity, men are driven by product promise. Also, the results revealed that gender significantly influences users’ views on message elements that make social media advertisements attractive. Finally, it was found that even though social media advertisements influence the buying behaviour of both men and women, women are twice more influenced than men. The implications of these results were further explored.