Abstract:

Social media is becoming an important means of daily communication for people in general and for customers in particular. There is a lack of studies that have examined, in any depth, how users of social media interact with others' content (e.g. videos, photos, reviews and comments) and how this may affect their preference for a particular product. Thus, this paper will study customers' online engagement with a product during evaluating a product to prefer it and dislike it. The study was organised around one social engagement: users' comments/feedback about products. The study investigates how the use of social media might influence customers' engagement with a particular product (Smartphone).A quantitative approach was chosen. Online-survey (self-completion questionnaire) was designed by using Qualtrics software and conducted online by Qualtrics's team, to investigate the prevalence of this new engagement among Saudis who are already involved with social media and have active social media accounts. The survey was conducted among 264 Saudi participants from 27 cities in Saudi Arabia. The sample consists of 132 males and 132 females. Most of the participants were highly educated: 43.6% held a bachelor’s degree and were aged between 25 to 30 and 19 to 24 years old. Approximately 48% were employees in different sectors. The majority were from three cities: Riyadh, Jeddah and Mecca. In general, the findings demonstrate that evaluating the quality of a product highly depends on how others evaluate it. When customers engage with feedback and exchange information regarding a particular product on social media, it greatly influences their preference for a particular product. Finally, smart phones (e.g. i-Phone), were the most bought products by Saudi customers as a result of evaluating items through social media.