The Effect of Emotional Intelligence on Social Media Advertising Perception

: Changing technological conditions are reflected in our lifestyles and online shopping has become more common day by day. In this case, social media tools used sparingly have become a powerful marketing tool. The combination of advertising is the theory of communication and is done with the aim of making them take the purchasing action. The motivation that forms the beginning of purchasing is heavily influenced by emotions. The concept of emotional intelligence, which is becoming more important day by day, has achieved the success it deserves within the discipline. The purpose of this study is to measure whether emotional intelligence has an impact on marketing or prospective customers' perceptions of advertisements they have observed on social media. Depending on the situation of the study, it has been observed that emotional intelligence has a statistically significant effect on social media advertising perception.


Introduction
The concept of emotion is the most difficult to understand but is very effective in guiding behaviour.Skills such as recognizing and managing emotions and empathy come to the fore both in the field of management and in other departments of businesses.Advertisements target emotions and users' emotional reactions.Social media advertisements with details such as establishing an emotional bond, analysing the target audience well, using the power of visuals well, and storytelling can be supportive of brand image and value as well as product sales [1,2].Emotional intelligence can be defined in the broadest sense as being aware of one's own emotions, recognizing them, managing their emotions, managing their relationships, having the ability to empathize, and being able to apply all these skills in daily life [3,4,5].Advertising is also an organizational communication tool.Paul Argenti and Alan Belasen Issues such as organizational image, organizational identity, media relations, organizational advertising, crisis communication are closely related to advertising and organizational communication [6,7].In their study, Riel and his colleagues mentioned the effect of integrated media advertisements on organizational communication [8].
In this study, the effect of emotional intelligence dimensions of customers or prospective customers on social media advertising perceptions was examined.The data obtained through the online survey were analysed in the SPSS program and it was observed that emotional intelligence had an effect on social media advertising perception.

Emotional Intelligence
The concept of emotional intelligence was introduced by Daniel Goleman in 1995 [9].Establishing healthy relationships in both business and social life is of great importance for a person's success and psychological health.Thanks to emotional intelligence skills, individuals can cope with issues such as coping with stress, doing effective team work, communicating effectively or resolving conflicts.When the literature is examined, it is observed that the concept of emotional intelligence is generally grouped under five subheadings.These are briefly as follows: Relationship management: Skills in resolving conflicts, healthy communication, leadership, etc. skill in the subject [10,11,12].Empathy: It is the ability to understand the feelings and perspectives of people with whom we communicate [13,14,15,16].The criteria of emotional intelligence regarding empathy with the other are the basic criteria that should be sought in the relations between the East and the West.However, it is a clear fact that a relationship with high emotional intelligence will enable the formation of societies that truly understand each other [16,17].Managing emotions: It is the successful management of especially negative emotions [16,17].There are different techniques for managing emotions.These can be listed as follows:  Thinking positively [18]. Stress management [19]. Communication [18]. Empathy [20]. Social support [21]. Self-care [13]. Problem solving [22]. Awareness development [13].
Being aware of one's own emotions: It means recognizing one's own emotions, being aware of one's emotional state, and being able to express it [18,23].People should take some steps to understand the importance of their own emotions and improve their emotions.These can be briefly summarized as follows: Making time for emotional needs: It means allocating time for one's own care.Activities such as meditation or regular exercise are examples of this [24,25].Developing empathy: Trying to develop skills to understand the emotional states of other people.Understanding other people's emotions also helps a person understand his own emotions [18,23].Introspection: One should observe one's emotional states and reactions.It is important to understand the reasons for emotional reactions in some situations [26].Recognizing triggers: Identifying what triggers emotional reactions.Any person, situation or event can trigger emotions.Identifying triggers is important for the individual to understand his or her own emotions [27].Naming emotions: It is the process of trying to describe one's emotions by naming them [28].Keeping a diary: It is especially important to write down our feelings to recognize them [29].Application: It is the integration and application of emotional intelligence skills into daily life [9,10,15].

Advertising, Social Media Advertising And Perception
Perception is a way of interpreting the environment [30].The process of acquiring, interpreting and giving meaning to information is shaped by perception.Perception, which is a concept that can be shaped according to people's value judgments, beliefs and attitudes, enables people to understand the situations around them and has a significant impact on human behavior [31].Perception has a number of basic components.These; It can be grouped under four subheadings: interpretation, organization, selectivity and sensors [32].Perception is a very important issue for the marketing discipline and plays an important role in creating marketing strategies [33,34].Advertising perception is about how consumers interpret the advertising.Advertising is done to persuade the purchase of products, to increase brand awareness, and to create a positive impact about the product or brand [35,36].Ad perception is important in terms of knowing how the message contained in the advertisement is perceived, what effect the advertisement has on the consumer, and how the advertisement is processed in the consumer's mind [36,37].How advertisements are perceived can directly affect purchasing behavior.When the factors affecting advertising perception are examined, the following headings emerge:  Individual experiences and characteristics [38,39]. Cultural influences [40]. Advertising content [39].
Social media advertisements are the execution of the advertising process through social media.It can be customized according to the characteristics of the target audience [41] and provides easier access to the target audience in today's technological conditions [42].It has advantages such as determining the target audience [43], providing stronger interaction [41], monitoring reactions [44], more diverse visual content [43], receiving real-time feedback [1], and the possibility of users sharing the ad [39].

Advertising in The Context Of Organizational Communication Theory
Organizational communication theories provide theoretical frameworks for understanding communication and interaction processes in any organization.Advertising strategies are promotions aimed at selling products and branding [45].Organizational communication, which focuses on efforts to establish both internal and external communication in an organization, creates the image of the brand against the outside world with advertising strategies, while also helping internal communication employees perceive the institution, brand and products better [46].One of the main goals of both organizational communication theories and advertising is to create brand image and value [47].In this context, creating a good brand image perception is important for internal and external communication.Advertising strategies are shaped towards the target audience and use different communication tools for this purpose.Organizational communication theories explain how to effectively coordinate and manage communication processes in this process.According to Argenti and Belesan, who have studies on organizational communication, advertising has a significant impact on creating the image of the organization [6,7].Riel and his colleagues examined organizational communication under three subheadings.These; management communication, consistency and marketing communication, and advertising has an important place in marketing communication [8].
Similarly, in Joseph Cornelissen's organizational communication theory, organizational advertising constitutes one of the foundations of organizational communication [48].

Material and Methods
The aim of the study is to reveal whether emotional intelligence has an effect on the perception of media advertisements.Advertising perception scale and emotional intelligence scale were used in the research.

Hall's Emotional Intelligence Scale and Advertising Perception Scale
The emotional intelligence assessment scale was developed by Hall in 1999 [49].A Likert-type scale consisting of 30 items was used, with a Likert answering system ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 6 (Strongly Agree).The scale has five subscales, each consisting of six items.These dimensions are as follows: Dimension 1: Being aware of your emotions.Dimension 2: Controlling your emotions.3rd Dimension: Self-motivation.Dimension 4: Empathy.Dimension 5: Social skills.Calculation of subscales is done as in Table 1:

Advertising Perception Scale
Advertising perception scale is a 10-item unidimensional scale used by Şenel in his study in 2008.The scale consists of 10 Likert-type items and is scored as 5: absolutely true, 4: true, 3: neither true nor not true, 2: not true, 1: absolutely not true.High scores from the survey indicate high advertising perception.

Results and Discussions
When the demographic characteristics of the customers were analyzed in the study (Table 2), it was seen that the majority of the participants were women (55.4%), 64.5% were between the ages of 41-50, 41.6% had a master graduate degree and 66.5% were single.The average scores that can be obtained from the emotional intelligence assessment scale are shown in the table below.When the scale dimensions were examined, it was determined that the lowest score that could be obtained in total was 30 and the highest score was 180.Table 3 shows the sub-dimension averages of the participants.Table 4 shows the comparison of the demographic characteristics of the participants with the emotional intelligence assessment scale averages.When the total score average was examined according to the table (125.81±32.71), it was determined that it was higher for male participants.It was determined that the difference between the gender status of the customers and the average score of the Awareness of Emotions, Self-Motivation, Empathy sub-dimensions was statistically significant (p<0.05),while the difference between the sub-dimension averages of Controlling Emotions, Social Skills and the total score was not statistically significant.(p>0.05).It was determined that the total score average (126.59±42.72) of the participants in the age group of 42 years and above was higher than other age groups.It was determined that the difference between the age groups of the participants and the scale subscale score averages and total score averages was not statistically significant (p>0.05).
It was found that the total score average (141.24±23.59) of postgraduate participants was higher than the other groups.It was observed that the difference between the educational status of the customers and the subscale average scores of Awareness of Emotions, Empathy, Social Skills and the total score was statistically significant (p <0.05).It was determined that the total score average of married participants (125.76±34.98)was higher than that of single participants.It was determined that the difference between the marital status of the customers and the scale subscale score averages and total score average was not statistically significant (p>0.05).The relationship between the advertising perception scale score average and the Emotional intelligence evaluation scale score average is seen in Table 5.It was determined that there was a statistically significant positive relationship between the emotional intelligence assessment scale subdimensions of "Being Aware of Your Emotions", "Motivating Yourself", "Empathy" and the total score average (p<0.05).There was no statistically significant difference between the sub-dimensions of the emotional intelligence assessment scale, Controlling Your Emotions and Social Skills, and the average score of the Advertising Perception scale (p>0.05).

Conclusions
As can be seen from the study results, emotional intelligence can help understand the emotional reactions of the target audience and turn this thought into behaviour.In other words, emotional intelligence that can be integrated effectively has the power to significantly affect the perception of social media ads.In this way, marketers can create content that suits the emotions of the target audience, and this helps the brand to be perceived in the desired direction.By recognizing and responding to their target audience's emotional cues, advertisers can encourage active engagement, leading to increased brand visibility and a positive brand image.Thanks to emotional intelligence, customer feedback will be responded to the emotions of the target audience, and this is important in terms of creating loyal customers.

Author Statements:
 Ethical approval: The conducted research is not related to either human or animal use. Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper  Acknowledgement: The authors declare that they have nobody or no-company to acknowledge.

Table 1 .
Scoring of the Emotional Intelligence Assessment Scale

Table 3 .
Distribution of Possible and Average Scores Received from the Emotional IntelligenceAssessment Scale

Table 4 .
Comparison of Participants' Demographic Characteristics with Emotional Intelligence Assessment Scale Averages

Table 5 .
Determination of the Relationship Between the Advertising Perception Scale Average Score and the Emotional Intelligence Assessment ScaleAverage Score The authors declare that they have equal right on this paper. Funding information: The authors declare that there is no funding to be acknowledged. Data availability statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.