The impacts of electronic word of mouth in social media on consumers` purchase intentions

The influence of Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) on consumers` purchase intentions has been known for a long time. However, eWOM has gained a new dimension with the advent of social media. Before this new phenomenon, people were able to talk with anonymous people on the Internet. Social media enable people to talk with friends and acquaintances, on the Internet. This new way of eWOM might be more powerful in terms of triggering purchase intention. This study discusses the electronic word of mouth within the context of social media. Particularly, this study examines the influence of eWOM in social media on consumers` purchase intentions. The research consists of two phases. First, survey will be conducted to understand the effect of eWOM in social media on purchase intention. Then interviews will be made to reveal that how eWOM in social media affects consumers` purchase intentions. The results should contribute to both researchers and practitioners

Efecto de la confianza en la lealtad y el eWOM en las comunidades virtuales de marca.

La confianza en la marca y en la Comunidad Virtual de Marca (CVM) pueden contribuir a la generación de lealtad a la marca y eWOM positivo. Sin embargo, no han sido muchos los estudios empíricos que han incluido ambos tipos de confianza en la evaluación de los resultados de las CVM. Por lo tanto, este trabajo tiene como objetivo explorar cómo la confianza en la marca y la confianza en la comunidad influyen en la lealtad y en el eWOM. Para ello se emplearon datos procedentes de una encuesta realizada a usuarios de CVM que fueron analizados mediante la técnica PLS. Los resultados confirman que la confianza en la marca influye en la lealtad y en el eWOM tanto directamente, como indirectamente a través de la confianza en la CVM. Además, la lealtad favorece la generación de eWOM. Las implicaciones para la práctica de marketing son comentadas.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

eWOM: the effects of online consumer reviews on purchasing decision of electronic goods

Internet has become the primary source of information for a large number of consumers and it has dramatically changed the consumer behaviour. One of the main changes in modern consumer behaviour has been the transition from a passive to an active and informed consumer. Internet enables customers to share their opinions on, and experiences with, goods and services with a multitude of other consumers. Online consumer reviews are used by prospective buyers of related products who are interested in obtaining more information from people who have purchased and used a product of interest. Word-of-mouth (WOM) is one of the most important information sources when a consumer is making a purchase decision. The arrival and expansion of the Internet has extended consumers' options for gathering product information by including other consumers' comments, posted on the Internet, and has provided consumers opportunities to offer their own consumption-related advice by engaging in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM can be defined as all informal communications directed at consumers through Internet-based technology related to the usage or characteristics of particular goods and services, or their sellers. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of, one type of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), the online consumer review, on purchasing decision of electronic products. This empirical study also focuses on the relationship between reviews and purchasing behaviour. An instrument was prepared to measure the proposed constructs, with questionnaire items taken from prior studies but adapted to fit the context of e-commerce. The survey was applied to academicians in Turkey through internet. The data was analyzed using the SPSS package. The results show that consumer reviews have a causal impact on consumer purchasing behaviour and they have an effect on choosing the products by consumer. Finally, the results and their implications are discussed

Impacts of WeChat on Millennials’ Perceptions and Consumption Behaviors in the Hotel Industry

Social media, known as interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications, has deeply changed and reformed interpersonal communication and business operation with the wide spread of Internet and the development of technology. In the past few years, since mobile apps are becoming more and more popular, the access of social media is not limited to tablet computers only, but is also available for almost all kinds of smart phone devices, such as iPhone, Android, Symbian and so on. The function of social media is not confined to real- time message transmission or information sharing any more. It has expanded to a widely range of features, such as online purchase and payment, e-commerce business, and service for different types of social events. Social media plays an increasingly important role in daily personal life as well as in business activities. People are not merely considered as social media users, but also the component of social media itself. As a result, it is very crucial for people to realize the importance and impacts of social media, especially for those business operators. WeChat (Weixin in Chinses, literally “micro message”) is a cross-platform instant text and voice messaging communication service for multiple mobile devices, developed by Tecent in China, first released in the January of 2011. It is claimed to provide “the new way to connect” and create “a way of life”. It is free to download, install and register, and support all kinds of smart phone platforms with multiple language versions, such as Chinese, English, Japanese, French, and Spanish. WeChat provides its users different ways to communicate and interact with friends innovatively through instant text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, group messaging, lively video sharing, location sharing, money transferring, and contact information sharing. Among all the WeChat users, Millennials is the majority. With the growing-up of Millennials, they are becoming more and more powerful and important to the society and will be the next target segmentation for most of the industries in the very near future. Especially for the hotel industry, the industry that urges to attract Millennials patrons for further substantial development, how to attract Millennials is becoming a critical issue for those hotel operators

Trust and reciprocity effect on electronic word-of-mouth in online review communities

Purpose Social media developments in the last decade have led to the emergence of a new form of word of mouth (WOM) in the digital environment. Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is considered by many scholars and practitioners to be the most influential informal communication mechanism between businesses and potential and actual consumers. The purpose of this paper is to extend knowledge about WOM in this new context by proposing a conceptual framework that enables a better understanding of how trust and reciprocity influence eWOM participation in ORCs. Design/methodology/approach This study applies non-probability convenience sampling technique to conduct a quantitative study of data from an online survey of 189 members of ORCs. Partial least squares (PLS) is used to analyse the correlations between individuals’ intention to seek opinion, to give their own opinion and to pass on the opinion of another within ORCs. Findings The data analysis reveals that opinion seeking within ORCs had a direct effect on opinion giving and opinion passing. Ability trust and integrity trust had a positive effect on opinion seeking, while benevolence trust had a direct positive effect on opinion passing. Reciprocity had a direct impact on opinion passing. While reciprocity did not affect opinion giving, the relationship between these two concepts was mediated by integrity trust. Research limitations/implications By studying the complexities that characterise the relationships between reciprocity, trust and eWOM, the study extends understanding of eWOM in ORCs. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of only a few papers that have examined the complex interrelationships between reciprocity, trust and eWOM in the context of ORCs

Electronic word of mouth in social media: The common characteristics of retweeted and favourited marketer-generated content posted on Twitter

Marketers desire to utilise electronic word of mouth (eWOM) marketing on social media sites. However, not all online content generated by marketers has the same effect on consumers; some of them are effective while others are not. This paper aims to examine different characteristics of marketer-generated content (MGC) that of which one lead users to eWOM. Twitter was chosen as one of the leading social media sites and a content analysis approach was employed to identify the common characteristics of retweeted and favourited tweets. 2,780 tweets from six companies (Booking, Hostelworld, Hotels, Lastminute, Laterooms and Priceline) operating in the tourism sector are analysed. Results indicate that the posts which contain pictures, hyperlinks, product or service information, direct answers to customers and brand centrality are more likely to be retweeted and favourited by users. The findings present the main eWOM drivers for MGC in social media.Abdulaziz Elwalda and Mohammed Alsagga

eWOM & Referrals in Social Network Services

If a few decades ago the development of the Internet was instrumental in the interconnection between markets, nowadays the services provided by Web 2.0, such as social network sites (SNS) are the cutting edge. A proof of this trend is the exponential growth of social network users. The main objective of this work is to explore the mechanisms that promote the transmission and reception (WOM and referrals) of online opinions, in the context of the SNS, by buyers of travel services. The research includes some research lines: technology acceptance model (TAM), Social Identification Theory and Word-of-Mouth communication in virtual environment (eWOM). Based on these theories an explicative model has been proposed applying SEM analysis to a sample of SNS users’ of tourist service buyers. The results support the majority of the hypotheses and some relevant practical and theoretical implications have been pointed out for tourist managers

Direction of future research in EWOM: issues of credibility, format and impact

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is an important tool for getting necessary useful information about a product or service. Although the concept of eWOM has attained substantial attention from the researchers, there are certain avenues of eWOM which have not been investigated thoroughly. The goal of this study is to highlight some of such avenues of eWOM where future researchers can focus on. For this purpose, three issues of eWOM were selected which are credibility of eWOM, format of eWOM and impact of eWOM. In recent years, credibility has become one of the most important issues regarding eWOM considering the widespread practice of counterfeit or fake online opinions. Format of eWOM is another important area because studies related to eWOM mostly focused on text-based eWOM. However, eWOM can be shared in different forms like text-based, video-based, mixture of text and visual etc. Very few studies have been undertaken to look into these diverse formats of eWOM. Impact of eWOM on different outcomes is the most extensively researched topic in eWOM literature. Despite this fact, impact of eWOM on some of the marketing related outcomes have received minimum attention from researchers as well as produced contradictory findings. Discussions about all three selected aspects of eWOM in this study shows the current state of literature as well as highlight the relevant literature gaps. Finally, some prospective research areas related to eWOM are presented which can be utilized by future researchers

Average Scores Integration in Official Star Rating Scheme

Purpose: Evidence suggests that electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) plays a highly influential role in decision-making when booking hotel rooms. The number of online sources where consumers can obtain information on hotel ratings provided has grown exponentially. Hence, a number of companies have developed average scores to summarize this information and to make it more easily available to consumers. Furthermore, official star rating schemes are starting to provide these commercially developed average scores to complement the information their schemes offer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the robustness of these systems. Design/methodology/approach: Average scores from different systems, and the scores provided by one rating site were collected for 200 hotels and compared. Findings: Findings suggested important differences in the ratings and assigned descriptive word across websites. Research limitations/implications: The results imply that the application of average scores by official organizations is not legitimate and identifies a research gap in the area of consumer and star rating standardization. Originality/value: The paper is of value to the industry and academia related to the examination of rating scales adopted by major online review tourism providers. Evidence of malpractice has been identified and the adoption of this type of scales by official star rating schemes is questioned.Peer reviewe

Tourists behavior during their trip: How they use and offer recommendations?

The rise of new technologies has changed the way tourists trust in eWOM to choose a restaurant. There is a growing use of opinion and price comparison websites, where opinions and ratings can be shared with other users. In addition, the spreading of false or paid comments has made this type of webs seek the generation and maintenance of trust. However, there are few studies that analyse how to generate trust in these webs and its effect in the intention of the consumer to participate in WOM behaviours, once the tourist is already in its tourist destination. Therefore, this research analyses the influence of recommendations on the generation of tourists’ trust in the review websites of restaurant industry while they are in the destination. A regression analysis of data from 439 tourists has revealed that the perceived credibility, the quality of the information and the quality of the web affect trust in review websites. This fact encourages the contracting of restaurant services and communication among consumers, both in a traditional way (WOM) and through the review websites (eWOM), while the tourist is in the tourism destination.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech