Effect of WhatsApp Promotional Messages on Audience Interest in Accessing News
Dadi Ahmadi, Septiawan Santana Kurnia, Firmansyah, Doddy Iskandar

Fakultas Ilmu Komunikasi, Universitas Islam Bandung, Bandung, Indonesia

Abstract

Marketing communication on social media requires a lot of consideration in adjusting promotional messages based on the intended target segmentation target. In promoting its news products, the online media prfmnews.id carries out a strategy of spreading news website links through broadcast messages on the WhatsApp (WA) application to its target audience. This study describes the effect of promotional messages on Whatsapp social media on audience interest in reading news products. The research method uses a positivist paradigm with a survey method. The survey was conducted on 125 respondents who have criteria as readers of prfmnews.id in West Java and are the target recipients of promotional messages on Whatsapp. To measure the effect, it is determined as an independent variable, namely promotional messages, while the dependent variable is audience interest. The analysis uses simple linear regression analysis by measuring how strong the influence of the x variable on the y variable is. The results showed that the promotional message factor is one of the strong factors in creating interest in reading news in the audience. The results show that 54.1% of the audience^s interest in accessing news is influenced by the WhatsApp message promotion variable. While the remaining 45.9% is influenced by other variables. Based on these results, it is concluded that promotion strategies through social media such as WhatsApp can be effectively used by mass media that require audience visits to news sites.

Keywords: Influence, Promotion, WhatsApp, Interest, News

Topic: Information Engineering