An empirical study examining an extended TAM model in the context of a Facebook event page

Tran Thi Kim Phuong ^* , Tran Trung Vinh

^*University of Economics, The University of Danang, Danang city, Vietnam. Corresponding author's email address: phuong.ttk@due.udn.vn

Keywords:Social media, Facebook event pages, Event marketing, Technology acceptance model (TAM), Arousal, Perceived relevance, Valence

ARTICLE HISTORY: Received:01-Jun-2019, Accepted: 31-Aug-2019, Online available: 01-Oct-2019

Contribution/ Originality

This study tested the TAM model in Facebook event page context. Moreover, relevant implications are provided for event organizers, event planners, and event marketers through theoretical and practical contributions as to how to better understand the inner-mechanism through which users accept the use of social media.

1. INTRODUCTION

Social media has become a popular medium with various forms such as blogs, podcasts and social networking sites (SNS), supporting companies to connect with their customers and affiliate themselves with other media. With the rapid spread of viral information and the power to attract more users (Keller, 2009; Oliver, 1999), social media has significantly influenced the web user's behavior (Kucuk and Krishnamurthy, 2007; Mangold and Faulds, 2009) and assisted companies in gaining direct access to their target market with the best personalization possible (Drury, 2008). Customers feel more confident about information sources deriving from social media than that of other traditional marketing media (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004; Karakaya and Barnes, 2010; Kietzmann et al., 2011). Moreover, social media is considered to be a useful and cost-effective tool as well as providing a great deal of opportunity and convenience regarding bilateral communication both between businesses and customers (B2C) and among customers (C2C) (Godes and Mayzlin, 2004; Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Therefore, social media is considered to be a powerful marketing strategy tool with which companies can engage with their loyal customers and stimulate the customer's positive experience toward the product-service. Consequently, customers can share experiences or information about a product-service, while companies can better understand their target market (Brodie et al., 2013; Lai and Li, 2005; Mangold and Faulds, 2009).

Social networking sites (SNS) are the most popular and well-known form of social media. People tend to interact, discuss and communicate more on SNS. Specifically, not only do users have accounts on different SNS, but enterprises are also apt to use SNS. This derives from the communicated messages about a particular brand or product-service that can be accurately conveyed to their target customers via greater ease of access and cost-effectiveness (Moise and Cruceru, 2014). This is evidenced by the increase in the number of SNS users worldwide (Lee et al., 2012). Particularly, users registered to use Facebook with about 1.4 billion, Google Plus with 1.1 billion, 347 million with LinkedIn and Twitter with 300 million in 2015. In event-marketing sector, SNS are recognized as a vital tool in marketing communication efforts of companies in the promotion of different types of events (Lee et al., 2012; Moise and Cruceru, 2014). Companies have utilized several formats (e.g. banner ads, classified ads, brand pages, advertising events and poll/survey ads) to target their brands to their customers (Cuauhtemoc and Torres, 2015). The main purpose is to convey information about company, product/service or idea which they are selling in order to persuade customers to buy or accept them. In addition, they also announce the different types of event which they organize or sponsor (Moise and Cruceru, 2014). The choice of social media to promote the event depends on the type and size of event as well as the total number of people attending the event (Moise and Cruceru, 2014). Events such as seminars, fairs, exhibitions, cultural events, sport events, and tourism events are all promoted through SNS. SNS help organizations to create a competitive advantage from the difference, clarity and support of positioning events in the mind of potential audiences (Tudor and Negricea, 2012).

Lee et al. (2012) has shown that the most visited of all SNS is Facebook. Facebook was founded in 2004 and had attracted more than 1.23 billion registered users by 2016 (Facebook.com, 2016). Facebook users appreciate the interaction and intensive usage patterns of this application (Ellison et al., 2007). In addition, Facebook offers various features such as finding friends, creating contents on personal page, interacting with others through "liking" (images, status, clip, video) and commenting on others' pages; what's more, users can create and join in virtual groups related to special events or trending topics via now-popular Facebook fan-pages. Many companies today create Facebook event pages to advertise special events to potential audiences as well as to allow online fans to find event information, encourage discussion, establish connections and build relationships between companies and their members (Lee et al., 2012). Not only do people follow the events which they want to attend or have recently attended, they also spend a lot of time seeking out events which pique their curiosity (Moise and Cruceru, 2014). Furthermore, Facebook event pages offer the event-marking feature of when the event occurs and informs potential audiences or invites them to attend that event. In addition, via Facebook event pages, organizations can determine the size of the potential audience attending an event in order to assist event organizers in better planning that particular event.

In the event marketing domain, Facebook is the most frequent channel of SNS and an important medium in marketing activities. The crucial thing for event organizers in setting up and operating their official Facebook fan page is how to determine which elements relating to Facebook users affect the decision to join virtual groups, thereby influencing the intention of potential audiences to attend an event. However, the author recognizes that understanding of the inner-mechanism through which users could accept the use social media (e.g. Facebook event page) is unclear and aggregated. In particular, there is a lack of research on the factors relating to Facebook users which impact the intention to visit upcoming events. Therefore, this work is undertaken with the aim to provide to the extant literature the elements considered to fully explain the acceptance of Facebook users with regard to Facebook event pages. In order to do this, this study incorporated several previous research frameworks to derive a theoretical model that fully clarifies this phenomenon. As a result, our first paper entitled "proposing an extension of the technology acceptance model to explain Facebook user acceptance of Facebook event pages" was published. As a continuance of the first study, the authors conduct a follow-up study herein with two clear purpose. first, this work aims to examine a conceptual model via conducting an empirical research for a particular Facebook event page. This study adapts measurement items for the focal research concepts, and carries out testing to establish scales for a specific event page "Traveling Talent 2017". This work applied in the structural equation model (SEM), which has been commonly used in previous studies and in various fields (Hair et al., 2011; Hershberger, 2003) to simultaneously examine multivariate dependence relationships. Besides theoretical contributions, the second purpose of this study also contributes to practice by providing significant implications for event organizers, event planners and event marketers.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Extended technology acceptance model (extended TAM)

This work applied the Technology Acceptance Model (original TAM) developed by Davis (1989) as a theoretical basis. The TAM model provides explanations for users' intentions to adopt technology-based initiatives, and has an ability to explicate more than 40% of users' behavioral intentions to acquire a new technology (Legris et al., 2003; Cuauhtemoc and Torres, 2015). There are two variables in the TAM model: the perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU). Perceived usefulness is defined as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance", whereas perceived ease of use is defined as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort". Original TAM has confirmed that both PEOU and PU affect positively on the attitudes of users and their acceptance of technology (Davis, 1989), with the added understanding that PEOU has a positive effect on PU (Venkatesh, 2000).

This study has found that solely applying the original TAM model is not sufficient to explain the potential factors affecting user participation in the event page. Therefore, the study proposed an extended TAM model to provide a more complete and comprehensive explanation. Following the explanation of the relationships among factors in the expanded TAM models of previous studies (King and He, 2006; Moon and Kim, 2001; Wu and Li, 2007; Lee et al., 2012), this study expands upon the original TAM model by adding three factors:

The first factor is emotion. Following the Theory of Planned Behavior by Ajzen (1991), emotion is one key requisite variable in decision-making processes (Bigne et al., 2005); emotional stimulation can affect customer behaviors (Lee et al., 2012). Thus, this study proposed emotion as a prior variable following the proposed model of King and He (2006) and in line with the same viewpoint as the study of Lee et al. (2012). In particular, arousal and valence are two components of emotional factors. Arousal refers to "a continuum that varies from calm to excited (a change in intensity)", whereas valence refers to "a continuum that varies from positive to negative with neutral in the middle" (Dolcos et al., 2004; Lang et al., 1993; Russell, 1980).

The second factor is perceived enjoyment that is defined as an element suggested from other theories in the research model of King and He (2006) and as intrinsic stimulation following the framework of Wu and Li (2007). Perceived enjoyment is a major preceding factor which influences the attitudes and behaviors of users (Davis et al., 1992; Wu and Li, 2007; Zhang et al., 2008). According to Venkatesh (2000), perceived enjoyment indicates "beliefs that are shaped based on direct experience with the target system". The level of perceived ease of use positively impact on perceived enjoyment (Venkatesh, 2000). The study, therefore, proposed the perceived enjoyment into the TAM in line with the same perspective as the research model of Lee et al. (2012).

The third factor is the perceived relevance. Perceived relevance was defined as "an estimate of the appropriateness existing between information provided and information used as judged by a person" (Saracevic, 1970). Perceived relevance is determined as an element proposed from other theories in the research of King and He (2006) and a factor of information needing context in the model of Shih (2004). Previous studies used factor to examine information quality (Ahituv, 1980; Bailey and Pearson, 1983; Miller and Doyle, 1987; Srinivasan, 1985; Shih, 2004). From a user viewpoint, perceived relevance is assessed subjectively based on the necessity of various information which a user needs at work (Park, 1994) and relates to usefulness, ease of use, attitudes of judges and satisfaction (Schamber et al., 1990). Thus, this study proposes perceiving relevance into the TAM.

2.2. Relationships among research concepts

findings from previous studies confirmed the relationships between arousal and valence. In particular, a study by Lee et al. (2012) confirmed the positive effect of arousal of Facebook users on their valence. In addition, valence significantly effect on perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, also confirming previous studies (e.g. Saade and Kira, 2006; Venkatesh, 2000; Lee et al., 2012; Wu and Li, 2007), and perceived enjoyment (Lee et al., 2012; Wu and Li, 2007). When users easily achieve their goals by using new technology, they feel happy and satisfied, as a result, they express a positive attitude toward this technology (Briggs et al., 2008; Beaudry and Pinsonneault, 2010). Thus, three following hypotheses are established:

H1: Arousal has a significant positive direct effect on valence.
H2: Valence has a significant positive direct effect on perceived usefulness.
H3: Valence has a significant positive direct effect on perceived ease of use.
H4: Valence has a significant positive direct effect on perceived enjoyment.

The strong effect of perceived ease of use on perceived usefulness was confirmed in the original TAM (Davis, 1989). findings from previous empirical studies also revealed this relationship (Moon and Kim, 2001; Lee et al., 2012; Cuauhtemoc and Torres, 2015; Shih, 2004; Cheung and Vogel, 2013). In addition, there is a positive relationship between perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment in the Facebook event page context (Lee et al., 2012; Venkatesh, 2000). Perceived ease of use is an important element affecting a user's acceptance of a new technology (Davis, 1989). In other words, users almost always accept the use of a new technology when it is easier for them to use (Selamat et al., 2009). Previous studies (e.g. Moon and Kim, 2001; Stern and Taylor, 2007; Lee et al., 2012) have considered the perceived ease of use as an attitude predictor toward using social media (e.g. Facebook). From that, the following hypotheses are established:

H5: Perceived ease of use has a significant positive direct effect on perceived usefulness.
H6: Perceived ease of use has a significant positive direct effect on perceived enjoyment.
H7: Perceived ease of use has a significant positive direct effect on user attitudes.

The positive attitude of users towards technology system stems from a positive relationship between utilitarianism and perceived usefulness. (Calder et al., 2009; Cuauhtemoc and Torres, 2015). In addition, previous studies demonstrated that perceived usefulness has a direct positive impact on attitudes toward technology (e.g. Moon and Kim, 2001; Shih, 2004; Cheung and Vogel, 2013; Cuauhtemoc and Torres, 2015). findings of previous studies concluded that the positive effect of perceived enjoyment on user attitudes toward knowledge management programs or Facebook event pages (Wu and Li, 2007; Lee et al., 2012). Therefore, the following hypotheses were proposed:

H8: Perceived usefulness has a significant positive direct effect on user attitudes.
H9: Perceived enjoyment has a significant positive direct effect on user attitudes.

The success of website design and personal performance on the World Wide Web come from the quality of information (D'Ambra and Rice, 2001). The perceived relevance is used to assess the quality of the information system (Froehlich, 1994; Gefen and Keil, 1998). Furthermore, there is a positive impact of perceived relevance on perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and user attitudes toward technology, as saw in an empirical study by Shih (2004). Thus, this work proposed the three following hypotheses:

H10: Perceived relevance has a significant positive direct effect on perceived usefulness.
H11: Perceived relevance has a significant positive direct effect on perceived ease of use.
H12: Perceived relevance has a significant positive direct effect on user attitudes.

Previous studies (e.g. Davis, 1989; Cheung and Vogel, 2013) confirmed that attitude and subjective norms have a significant impact on individual intention. An empirical study by Lee et al. (2012) in Facebook event page context also concluded that user's intention to attend an event is affected by their attitudes toward Facebook event pages. Therefore, this study proposed the following hypothesis:

H13: User attitudes has a significant positive direct effect on a user's intention to attend an event.

As a result, an integrative model (Figure 1) has been established with eight constructs showing the relationships among research concepts.

Figure 1: Conceptual framework

Adapted from Tran and Tran (2017)

3. METHODOLOGY

3.1. Study context

This work selected Facebook event pages as a study context as derived from the numerous advantages of such pages. firstly, event organizers will identify highly interactive channels to promote their events, especially music, cultural, sports and tourism events. Facebook is a far-reaching social networking site whose platform attracts active users while providing the very latest information. As such, it meets the essential goal of event marketing (Martensen et al., 2007). Secondly, through contents presented on Facebook event pages, event organizers desired that it makes arouse or appeal the positive emotions of users (Martensen and Gronholdt, 2008). Thirdly, when event organizers create an environment motivating high interaction among Facebook users on their event pages, from there, it contributes to increasing the number of visitors to a specific event page.

The empirical study was conducted regarding Facebook fanpage "Faculty of Tourism, University of Economic", under the official management of the Faculty of Tourism, University of Economics, University of Danang, Vietnam. This fan-page was established in 2013, and as of December 2018 has attracted about 8000 members to join the page. The Facebook event page "Traveling Talent 2017" was created from "Faculty of Tourism, University of Economic". This event page was created expressly to promote the contest titled "Traveling Talent 2017" organized by the Faculty of Tourism at the University of Economics. This is a biennial competition open to all students from universities in Danang City, Vietnam. When referring to the "Traveling Talent" contest, students will immediately think of the Tourism Department of the University of Economics. It can be said that promotion via event fanpage will reach out quickly to potential audiences, perhaps 50 times faster than traditional channels. It can be explained that if Facebook users join a fanpage as members, they will receive all announcements about that event. With the total number of 8000 members subscribing to the fanpage, the posts related to the "Traveling Talent 2017" event will be sent to the all members, whether or not they are interested in Facebook fanpage events or not. Through the event fanpage, event organizers can know to what extent an event is attracting the numbers and interest of a potential audience. Specifically, managers can ascertain the feelings, sharing patterns and comments of Facebook users who are interested in the event when they post or share information related to the contest.

3.2. Content validation

After proposing the research model, this study analyzed the specific characteristics of the event page "Traveling Talent 2017" and adapted items of factors from previous studies. In particular, there are four items for arousal, four items for valence, three items for perceived usefulness, three items for perceived ease of use, three items for perceived enjoyment, four items for attitude toward using a FB event page and three items for the intention to attend the event, as adapted from Lee et al. (2012), with the three measurement items used to assess perceived relevance adapted from Shih (2004).

All measuring items of any scales need to ensure the reliability (Allen and Yen, 1979) and internal consistency (Nunnally, 1978). In addition, content validity must be confirmed before examining a theory (Hair et al., 2010). Thus, the research has done preliminary research gathering ideas from the targeted respondents to test the scales and modify them, if needed. Once the measuring items are verified in terms of requirements and content, they will be incorporated into the questionnaire. first, this study consulted the admins of the event page "Traveling Talent 2017". Specifically, regarding the items of the factors, respondents were requested to assess the importance of measuring items of each scale according to a Likert-type scale with five levels, ranging from "very unimportant" to "very important". As a result, all items are in an average value greater than 4, which implies that respondents agreed with the scales and measuring items of each scale given by this study. This work conducted a pilot survey of 20 respondents who became members of event page "Traveling Talent 2017" to check the questionnaire. With Cronbach's alpha values of all factors are greater than 0.7, the result showed that all dimensions acquiring good reliability (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994).

3.3. Research instruments

This study designed the survey question including the eight dimensions of 27 items. A Likert scale that is developed by Likert (1932) is used for the answer in this study. Six dimensions (perceived usefulness; perceived ease of use; perceived enjoyment; perceived relevance; attitude toward using an FB event page; intention to attend an event) used The Likert scale with five levels, from 1 - totally disagree to 5 - totally agree. In addition, this work also chose a five-point semantic differential scale to evaluate items of arousal and valence. The questionnaire was developed in English to ensure the meaning of all measuring items, then converted to Vietnamese to facilitate data collection. Part 1 and Part 2 of the survey asks for respondent information and the respondent's behavior toward the event page "Traveling Talent 2017". Part 3 to Part 10 is used to assess eight research concepts of the research model. Questions for Parts 3 to 10 are listed in Table 1.

Table 1: : Measurement items for the dimensions

This study collected empirical data from respondents who are online fans of the event fanpage "Traveling Talent 2017". Data collection is done through online surveys. The questionnaire was created on Google Docs, then the questionnaire was shared on Facebook and Google Plus. The questionnaires were distributed over the course of one month, from March 2017 to April 2017. After finishing the process of data collection, 323 validly questionnaires were used for analysis. Among the valid 323 respondents, males accounted for 56.97% of the sample. The most common age range of the respondents was 18-20 years old (accounting for 57.28%). The majority of respondents were now studying at University of Economics, University of Danang (accounting for 93.19%). Most of the respondents were second-year students (44.27%) and first-year students (34.06%).

3.4. Analysis techniques

This quantitative study used SPSS 18 and AMOS 21 tools to analyze the collected data. In order for acquire respondent's information, this work performs a descriptive analysis. Next, this study also was conducted exploratory factor analysis, reliability test and confirmatory factor analysis. finally, we applied SEM to verify the hypotheses.

4. RESULTS

4.1. Behavior of respondents

With regard to respondents' behavior in using Facebook event pages, as respondents looked for information on the "Traveling Talent 2017" contests, they primarily sought out posts/announcements on the event page "Traveling Talent 2017" (accounting for 77.7%). In addition, they were introduced to and received communication about the contest via their friends who created groups if they intended to participate in this contest (accounting for 71.8%). Moreover, their friends often shared posts, mini games, and videos related to the contest on their Facebook pages, which also helped respondents to acquire more information about this contest.

There are different ways for respondents to become members of an event page, as evidenced by the case in question. Firstly, they found this event page by themselves, and they became members through "liking" this page (accounting for 56.04%). Alternatively, Facebook users who had become members of this fanpage invited their friends to join this event page in order to be able to form a contest team (accounting for 43.96%).

4.2. Exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha analysis

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was employed to extract the dimensions of factors. Using the method of principal component extraction with VARIMAX rotation, eight research concepts explained 70.648% of the total variance (> 50%), KMO = 0.764 (> 0.5) and Sig = 0.000 (< 0.05). Thus, eight variables were maintained. According to Hair et al. (1998), twenty-six items with a scale loading greater than 0.5 were kept, while one item (AT4) with a factor loading less than 0.5 was excluded.

This study was conducted a reliability test to check the suitability and reliability of all factors. The results show that Cronbach's alpha of arousal, valence, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, perceived relevance, attitude toward using a FB event page, and intention to go to event were 0.822, 0.809, 0.797, 0.789, 0.885, 0.858, 0.843, and 0.797, respectively. Moreover, each measuring items having the item-to-total correlations were greater than 0.3. This study has been confirmed ensuring the reliability of basic research when all dimensions have an alpha coefficient higher than 0.7 (Nunnally and Burnstein, 1994; Hair et al., 1998).

4.3. Confirmatory factor analysis

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to examine the quality of all measurement models of an SEM. It includes convergent validity and discriminant validity. The fit statistics of the measurement model through model CFA (X2 (271) = 558.529) were as follows: X2/df = 2.061(< 3), p < 0.01; Ifi = 0.923 & TLI = 0.906 (> 0.9); PNfi = 0.717(> 0.5); and RMSEA = 0.057 (< 0.08). Thus, the goodness of fit of measurement models is verified.

Convergent validity is checked via assessing item reliability, construct (composite) reliability and the average variance extracted (Hair et al., 1998). The result of item reliability (Table 2) was expressed by standardized loadings equal to or greater than 0.7, but standardized loadings greater than 0.5 were allowable (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988); square multiple correlations (SMC) equal to or greater than 0.5 and t-values associated with each of the standardized loadings were found to be signifcant (p < 0.01), assuring item reliability (Hair et al., 1998). Hair et al. (1998) proposed constructing reliable estimates as being equal to or greater than 0.7 and the average variance extracted which measures the amount of variance explained by the construct should be above 0.5. In this study, the construct reliability (CR) and the average variance extracted (AVE) of all constructs exceeds the recommended level, indicating that the reliability and validity of items are guaranteed.

Table 2: Convergent validity of the measurement model

Note: *** denotes p < 0.001

Discriminant validity was tested to make sure there was adequate discrimination among variables. The AVE method in Fornell and Larcker (1981) was applied to achieve this, with the discriminant validity between any two constructs being shown when the correlation between them is smaller than the AVE of both constructs. Accordingly, findings shown in Table 3 indicated the sufficient discriminant validity of all constructs.

Table 3: Discriminant validity of the measurement model

4.4. An assessment of the structural model

The theoretical model was examined through the structural equation model (SEM) with eight constructs and a correlation matrix among the twenty-six measuring items. SEM results are depicted in fig. 2 are X2= 605.316 (p = 0.00), df = 286, X2/df = 2.116 (< 3), Ifi = 0.914 & TLI = 0.901 (> 0.9), PNfi = 0.747 & PCfi = 0.803 (> 0.5), and RMSEA = 0.059 (< 0.08). The results suggest that the goodness of fit of the proposed model is confirmed.

Figure 2: The SEM finalized model and results

The path relationships between constructs in the proposed model were examined through p-value. As showed in Table 4, all paths were significant at p < 0.05, which means that hypotheses H1 to H13 are accepted. As hypothesized, arousal of Facebook users expressing on a Facebook event page has a positive impact on their valence (SEs = 0.273; p < 0.001), consistent with previous studies (e.g., Lee et al., 2012; Aylesworth and MacKenzie, 1998). The valence of Facebook users positively directly affects perceived usefulness (SEs = 0.239; p < 0.001), perceived ease of use (SEs = 0.249; p < 0.001), and perceived enjoyment (SEs = 0.225; p < 0.001), also confirming previous research (e.g., Saade and Kira, 2006; Venkatesh, 2000; Lee et al., 2012; Wu and Li, 2007). Findings also confirm that perceived ease of use has a positive direct influence on perceived usefulness (SEs = 0.220; p = 0.002) and perceived enjoyment (SEs = 0.276; p < 0.001), as seen in previous studies (e.g., Moon and Kim, 2001; Lee et al., 2012; Cuauhtemoc and Torres, 2015; Shih, 2004). Facebook user attitudes toward FB event pages have been impacted by perceived ease of use (SEs = 0.296; p < 0.001), perceived usefulness (SEs = 0.197; p = 0.003), and perceived enjoyment (SEs = 0.202; p < 0.001), as identified by previous studies (e.g., Moon and Kim, 2001; Stern and Taylor, 2007; Cuauhtemoc and Torres, 2015; Shih, 2004; Wu and Li, 2007). In addition, perceived relevance has a positive effect on perceived usefulness (SEs = 0.213; p = 0.001), perceived ease of use (SEs = 0.193; p = 0.003), and Facebook user attitudes (SEs = 0.241; p < 0.001), also in line with Shih (2004). finally, results demonstrates that user attitudes strongly positive affect the intention to go to an event (SEs = 0.325; p < 0.001); this is similar to the previous study of Lee et al. (2012).

Table 4: Results of hypothesis testing

Note: *** denotes p < 0.001

5. CONCLUSION

There are about 3.5 million event pages designed per month (Facebook.com, 2016). By offering its users a wide range of features on their event pages, Facebook has become a vital marketing tool for business, especially event planners who wish to attract more people to their event at a low cost. In particular, individual event pages having compelling interactive features allow event companies, organizers and planners to showcase their product-service to their customers and potential audiences. This study is aimed at providing a deeper understanding of the inner-mechanism through which users accept the use of social media (e.g. Facebook event page) via extending the TAM model by adding three factors: emotion, perceived enjoyment and perceived relevance. This empirical study is conducted to collect 323 respondents who are members of the event page "Traveling Talent 2017". This work applied structural equation modeling (SEM) to test 13 hypotheses. Empirical results confirmed that the theoretical framework fits with the data. In addition, this study provides important implications for event organizers, event planners, and event marketers through theoretical and practical contributions. In particular, it is built on discovering how the arousal and valence of Facebook users as well as perceived enjoyment and perceived relevance impact their acceptance of Facebook event pages, and then how the mechanism of their acceptance affects their intention to visit the event.

The emotions of customers in the process of service delivery impact their satisfaction and loyalty to a particular product-service (Bigne et al., 2005). This is important when considering emotional factors in building models measuring the attitude and satisfaction of consumers with a product-service, specifically events and festivals (Mattila and Enz, 2002). In addition, perceived relevance is also defined as a key component impacting user's attitude toward social media because it plays an important role in contributing to the success of information systems from the user's viewpoint (Shih, 2004). Users perceive the usefulness of social media when it supports them to seek out and acquire more information as they need it. findings from this study also form consensus with the results of previous studies, implying that user emotions as expressed on Facebook event pages and perceived relevance have a positive impact in increasing perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment, thereby affecting the individual's intention to go to a particular event.

findings demonstrate that arousal has stimulated the valence of users, as saw in empirical studies such as Bigne et al. (2005) and Lee et al. (2012). It can explains that the higher the level of arousal, the more frequents the use of social media. Moreover, if users are excited about the benefits of the new information system, they will have a higher positive attitude toward using that information system than others who have normal emotions. In addition, users' excitement also promotes their creative behavior to attain the information they need as well as help them achieve their goals in a more meaningful way (Isen et al., 1987; Beaudry and Pinsonneault, 2005; Kim et al., 2004).

The results of this study also reveal that the valence of a user positively effect on perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment. In addition, perceived ease of use has a positive impact on perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. Regarding user's positive emotions toward using technology, they feel happy when they need very little effort but can achieve satisfactory goals via the information technology (Briggs et al., 2008; Beaudry and Pinsonneault, 2010). Without much effort, Facebook event pages connect users and help them easily find out about events. Also, those benefits stimulate users and make them happier, thereby helping them form positive attitudes toward using Facebook. In addition, the findings from this work obtained a high consensus with previous studies (Lee et al., 2012; Sas et al., 2009) in proving that a Facebook user's most memorable experiences are the positive emotions (valence) of interacting and connecting with others (perceived usefulness) and enjoying themselves (perceived enjoyment). findings have also been confirmed from previous studies (Saade and Kira, 2006; Venkatesh, 2000) in announcing that emotion affects the perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment. This suggests that event organizers should design and post interesting contents on their event pages to create stimulation and positive emotion for visitors, as a result, it directly contributes to the joy and happiness of Facebook users. In particular, event page's admin could create video messages to advertise the exhilaration of preceding event attendees who may inspire potential audiences to attend the event. Event organizers may also consider having online fans capture happy moments on film, then post these photos on Facebook as well as enabling photo-tagging of photos posted on the event page.

The results also showed the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment all have a clear impact on Facebook user attitudes towards Facebook event pages. Similar to websites in general, social media (e.g. Facebook) is seen as an informal social environment. Simply put, Facebook users can create a connecting network in the process of interacting with each other and finding fun and useful experience on Facebook event pages. Empirical results from the study also confirm that perceived relevance is a strong determinant of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and user attitudes towards Facebook event pages. Therefore, if a Facebook fanpage provides information users with what they need, they perceive that the use and membership of Facebook fanpages are useful. finally, results supported a positive relationship between user attitudes and the intention to attend events advertised on Facebook event pages (e.g., Traveling Talent, 2017). It is confirmed that the higher the positive attitude of users towards information technology, the greater the probability of attending an event.

5.1. Managerial implications

The findings from this study provide an in-depth look at how individuals (Facebook users) with high emotional levels related to arousal (cheerful, enthusiastic, surprised) and valence (happy, satisfied, joyful) can be led more easily to becoming a member of event pages. Furthermore, the results also let know why online fans with high arousal and valence tend to investigate the varying functions of Facebook event pages, having positive attitudes toward using event pages and higher intentions to visit events.

Moreover, some implications are proposed for event planners trying to use social media to advertise their events. In particular, social media (e.g., Facebook event pages) are seen as the best marketing channels that users are allowed to achieve in a variety of forms and fascinating content (for example, event page "Traveling Talent 2017" is not only known by students at University of Economics, but also students from other universities). Facebook event pages are particularly useful in cases involving local cultural festivals because potential participants often assume that they can only with difficulty get specific information about special events (Becker et al., 2009). In addition, compared to searching for websites, Facebook event pages are capable of stimulating higher levels of user emotions through interactions and sharing among users. It can be said that the link between the purpose of the event and the needs of the audience will enhance user emotions regarding their feelings to join fanpages as well as attend events. Therefore, the admins of event pages must exert greater efforts in improving the positive emotions of users by encouraging them to create content (memorable markings or experience). Using Facebook event pages and examining the acceptance of users regarding events promoting on event pages is also ways to attract sponsors due to the measurement of the level of interest and intention of attending potential audiences. This study can also be applied to event organizers who are considering whether to accept the use of social media compared to other official media.

5.2. Future research

This research was performed in an event page context of the "Traveling Talent 2017" Facebook fanpage via the Faculty of Tourism, University of Economics on a small scale within Facebook. In the future, additional research should be carried out to gain a deeper understanding of whether the proposed relationships in the research model still exist when larger-scale events are international.

In addition, future studies should also integrate the investigation of various events in the same study. Moreover, it is necessary to focus on integrating other tools such as Twitter, YouTube, etc. into the promotion process of events and festivals.

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