SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND ITS INFLUENCE ON AUDIENCE PREFERENCE ON SIMILAR PRODUCT A STUDY OF SOME SELECTED BUSINESS IN IBARAPA LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ERUWA, OYO STATE.

This study was aimed at ascertaining the link between consumer perception of social media advertisements and consumer behaviour; specifically the patronage of cosmetic products among university students. It was revealed in this study that among the 150 participates in the study, most of them that use social media platforms were between the ages of 18-30 years. with again most of them using WhatsApp more than the other platforms. WhatsApp thus, is a favourite for most of them. However, the study further revealed that, although many of them used social media platforms. with a favourite being WhatsApp, the objective for use of these social media platforms was not to see adverts or even buy online, but rather these platforms were used for other reasons like generating and maintaining friendships as well as to seek new knowledge. For this reason. most of the participants had the perception that sociaI media adverts were not helpful. On the theme of features of social media adverts (colours, pictures, videos and text) and their level of attractiveness, the study brought to light that most of the participants of this study were very much attracted to social media adverts by the videos in the adverts. Furthermore, most of them were very much influenced by the brands of whatever product or service being advertised.