Do they “like” the library? Undergraduate students' awareness, attitudes, and inclination to engage with library social media

Factors influencing intentions to use library social media marketing accounts: taking the example of WeChat

Purpose

This study aims to explore the factors influencing intentions to use library social media marketing accounts from users’ perspectives to help libraries use social media to provide targeted information services to users to meet their information needs.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is based on the technology acceptance model and theory of planned behaviour and uses WeChat as an example to build the model of factors influencing intentions to use library social media marketing accounts. It takes college students as the research object, performing empirical research through questionnaire surveys and structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results show that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control have a significant positive impact on library social media marketing – attitude exerts the most significant effect while the impact of perceived usefulness is nonsignificant. Notably, attitude completely mediates perceived usefulness and use intention, while perceived usefulness partially mediates perceived ease of use and attitude. However, birthplace plays a negative moderating role between attitudes and use intention.

Originality/value

This study integrates the theory of planned behaviour and technology acceptance model, discusses the factors influencing intentions to use library social media marketing accounts from the users’ perspectives and proposes strategies and methods for the optimization of library social media marketing. The study helps enhance the effects of library social media marketing by improving the comprehension of current circumstances and influencing factors relevant to this issue.