Friends, Fans, and Followers: Do Ads Work on Social Networks? How Gender and Age Shape Receptivity

Social-networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter are growing in both popularity and number of users.

Friends, Fans, and Followers: Do Ads Work on Social Networks? How Gender and Age Shape Receptivity

David G. Taylor

Sacred Heart University

Jeffrey E. Lewin and David Strutton

University of North Texas

INTRODUCTION

To generate brand awareness for its Old Spice fragrance line, Procter & Gamble invited Facebook users to “Turn Up Your Man Smell” by becoming “fans” of its products. Within a week, the brand’s fan page had more than 120,000 new fans (Morrisey, 2009). Not content merely to draw fans to its Facebook page, the Red Robin restaurant chain enlisted Facebook users as “brand ambassadors,”...

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