Purpose of Word-Of-Mouth: a Conceptual Model

Susceptibility to social influence is expressed by inclination for fulfilling others’ expectations, as well as by tendency to acquire information on products through observation of other people’s behaviour, and collecting opinions from them in active way. Word-of-mouth communication (WOM) is a specific form of social communication. Harrison-Walker as well as Mazzarol, Sweeney i Soutar treat the word-of-mouth as the process embracing discussions carried out upon the organization and its offer, during which a recommendation can be formulated. The message transmitted in the WOM communication can be of positive, negative or neutral character. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between consumer susceptibility to social influence and the tendency to generate positive or negative message. In order to measure susceptibility to social influence the Interpersonal Influence Scale will be applied (Bearden, Netenmeyer, Teel 1989). After analyzing the literature, the following research hypothesis was formulated: the stronger the participant’s susceptibility to social influence, the weaker tendency to generate a positive message and the stronger tendency to generate a negative one. To verify the hypotheses the research based on CAWI method were conducted in the group of 1000 people (aged 15- 50), reflecting the structure of Poland’s population in terms of gender and place of residence, selected with random quota sampling. Only a minimal correlation was confirmed in case of the recommendation (positive opinion). There was no correlation between producing negative opinions and the susceptibility to social influence.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

Information sharing on social media [i.e., electronic word-of-mouth, (eWOM) and face-to-face word-of-mouth (fWOM)] plays an important role in message dissemination. This study investigates the effectiveness of group norms in motivating eWOM and fWOM. Drawing upon the psychological distance and construal level literature, this study tests the impact of group norms, the interaction effect of norms type (descriptive vs. injunctive norms), and the group distance on eWOMand fWOM. Based on one field study and three laboratory experiments, this study finds that normative cues in messages are impactful in driving WOM and the impact becomes especially stronger when the psychological distance of the social group is congruent with that of norms type tied to the group. Specifically, an interaction effect emerges, such as distant (close) group injunctive (descriptive) norms, are more impactful in driving WOM than close (distant) group injunctive (descriptive) norms. Contrary to the conventional ...

2005

Capturing, Analyzing, and Managing Word-of-Mouth in the Digital Marketplace

Online social networks (oSNS) enable users to construct strong relationships with friends, family, as well as strangers. They also enable users to share information concerning experiences and opinions about products, brands and companies via electronic word of mouth (eWOM). The unique nature of oSNS-eWOM relationship forms the basis of this research. The authors report the results of a research investigating six motivational factors for engaging in eWOM communication, investigated under three dimensions; producing, consuming and forwarding of content on oSNSs. Results reveal that eWOM production behavior on oSNS is mainly motivated by altruism, self enhancement, electronic social interaction and exhibitionism. The motivating factors of eWOM forwarding behavior showed up as electronic social interaction and exhibitionism, whereas the motivating factors for eWOM consumption behavior are altruism, electronic social interaction and need for intellectual engagement. Aversion of cognitive activities appeared to have a negative effect on consumption of eWOM communication.

Several researchers emphasize the importance of consumer self-confidence in the production of word of mouth (WOM). However, most focus has been on consumer self-confidence as a positive WOM predictor, and a possible negative relationship between consumer self-confidence and WOM remains largely unexplained. Here, we aimed to elucidate the possibility of both a positive and a negative effect of consumer self-confidence on WOM production, attributed to different dimensions of consumer selfconfidence. Our results support this idea, demonstrating a positive effect of social consumer confidence on WOM and a negative effect of personal consumer confidence on WOM. Furthermore, we identify unique personality roots for each of the two dimensions of consumer self-confidence that provide explanations for their differential effects on WOM. In addition, this study shows that the dual effects of social and personal consumer confidence on WOM happen due to a suppression effect. Hence, we provide a statistical explanation that could be crucial in understanding the relationship between the multiple dimensions of consumer self-confidence and WOM. The findings have implications for the targeting of consumers for WOM marketing campaigns.

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2011

The burgeoning interest in viral marketing and social media optimisation can be seen as a response to the growing and prohibitive clutter inherent in today's fragmented media landscape that leads to messages being attended to less reliably and exclusively. Research on predictors of viral marketing effectiveness is in its infancy, especially as it relates to the use of advertising as the primary vehicle for a viral campaign. We explore factors that prompt advertising sharing, and introduce a shareability scale, a tool to gauge the sharing potential of interactive marketing communications. Across a B2B and a B2C sample, we found remarkable similarity. Participants who were willing to share advertising information tended to be more mindful of others when processing the advertisement, to have a greater general tendency to share internet information, to be more highly involved in the product category, and, in the B2C sample, to be less concerned about source trustworthiness when passing along information found online. Implications for new media researchers and advertisers are discussed.

ACR North American Advances, 2005

2015

Metu Studies in Development, 2012

With a qualitative approach, this research aims to gain a deeper understanding of the motivations behind both opinion leadership and opinion seeking, in a nonwestern context. Findings show that no one is exclusively an opinion leader or a seeker and that both opinion leaders and seekers are motivated by deeper psychological needs, which may have a critical role in theory and practice. In addition to previously identified motivations and characteristics of opinion leaders and opinion seekers, new dimensions have been revealed. The diversity of motivations identified in this study suggests that managers must consider a broad range of reasons and deeper psychological needs that lead consumers to engage in word-of-mouth communication. Future research guidelines are provided which we hope will inspire additional empirical work.

2006

Word of mouth (WOM) is a concept of ever increasing importance to both marketing academics and practitioners. Despite the interest in WOM, no research to date has summarised the factors that contribute towards WOM's significance. Based on a synthesis of the literature, this paper develops a conceptual framework of the factors that contribute towards the significance of WOM. Eleven factors are identified that contribute towards WOM's significance. The eleven factors can be summarised under two headings: WOM's pervasiveness and persuasiveness, both of which are thought to be interdependent, rather than independent of each other. Introduction and Purpose Word of Mouth (WOM) is a concept of strong interest to both marketing academics and practitioners. From an academic perspective, WOM has attracted research attention during the past six decades (Gruen, Osmonbekov, and Czaplewski, 2006; Knapp, 1944). Last year alone nineteen academic articles were published with the term &qu...