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Journal ArticleDOI

Communication Channels and Word of Mouth: How the Medium Shapes the Message

01 Oct 2013-Journal of Consumer Research (University of Chicago PressChicago, IL)-Vol. 40, Iss: 3, pp 567-579
TL;DR: This article found that written communication gives people more time to construct and refine what to say, and self-enhancement motives lead people to use this opportunity to mention more interesting things.
Abstract: Consumers share word of mouth face to face, over social media, and through a host of other communication channels. But do these channels affect what people talk about and, if so, how? Laboratory experiments, as well as analysis of almost 20,000 everyday conversations, demonstrate that communicating via oral versus written communication affects the products and brands consumers discuss. Compared to oral communication, written communication leads people to mention more interesting products and brands. Further, this effect is driven by communication asynchrony and self-enhancement concerns. Written communication gives people more time to construct and refine what to say, and self-enhancement motives lead people to use this opportunity to mention more interesting things. These findings shed light on how communication channels shape interpersonal communication and the psychological drivers of word of mouth more broadly.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that word of mouth is goal driven and serves five key functions (i.e., impression management, emotion regulation, information acquisition, social bonding, and persuasion) and suggest these motivations are predominantly self-serving and drive what people talk about even without their awareness.

972 citations


Cites background from "Communication Channels and Word of ..."

  • ...Interesting products (e.g., night vision goggles) get more immediate (Berger & Schwartz, 2011) and online (Berger & Iyengar, 2013) word of mouth than mundane products (e.g., toothpaste) and more interesting or surprising New York Times articles are more likely to make the paper's Most Emailed List…...

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  • ...This difference in synchronicity, in turn, provides time to construct and refine communication (Berger & Iyengar, 2013; Chafe & Danielewicz, 1987; Redeker, 1984; Walther, 2007, 2011)....

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  • ...Consistent with this perspective, written communication, and asynchrony itself, leads people to talk about more interesting products and brands (Berger & Iyengar, 2013) Similarly, there is some indication that premium and differentiated brands receive more discussion online rather than offline…...

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  • ...Thus particularly in face-to-face interactions, accessibility may play a larger role in what people discuss (Berger & Iyengar, 2013)....

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  • ...Oral communication, however, should encourage people to talk about whatever is top of mind leading accessibility to have a greater impact on what is discussed (Berger & Iyengar, 2013)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conduct a meta-analysis of 1,532 effect sizes across 96 studies covering 40 platforms and 26 product categories and find that eWOM is positively correlated with sales, but its effectiveness differs across platform, product, and metric factors.
Abstract: The increasing amount of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has significantly affected the way consumers make purchase decisions. Empirical studies have established an effect of eWOM on sales but disagree on which online platforms, products, and eWOM metrics moderate this effect. The authors conduct a meta-analysis of 1,532 effect sizes across 96 studies covering 40 platforms and 26 product categories. On average, eWOM is positively correlated with sales (.091), but its effectiveness differs across platform, product, and metric factors. For example, the effectiveness of eWOM on social media platforms is stronger when eWOM receivers can assess their own similarity to eWOM senders, whereas these homophily details do not influence the effectiveness of eWOM for e-commerce platforms. In addition, whereas eWOM has a stronger effect on sales for tangible goods new to the market, the product life cycle does not moderate the eWOM effectiveness for services. With respect to the eWOM metrics, eWOM volume has a ...

669 citations


Cites background or result from "Communication Channels and Word of ..."

  • ...…we identify the characteristics of the platforms and their influence on eWOM effectiveness, thereby extending prior experimental findings (e.g., Berger and Iyengar 2013) and empirical work (e.g., Schweidel and Moe 2014) that highlights the role of channel characteristics in WOM communication....

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  • ...It is important to account for the characteristics of the channel in which eWOM is displayed (Berger and Iyengar 2013; Schweidel and Moe 2014)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of consumer engagement in social media can be found in this article, where a conceptual framework for future research on consumer engagement is proposed. But consumer engagement has not yet been identified as such, making it difficult for academics and practitioners to stay abreast of developments in this area.
Abstract: Purpose In “Social media’s slippery slope: challenges, opportunities and future research directions”, Schultz and Peltier (2013) asked “whether or how social media can be used to leverage consumer engagement into highly profitable relationships for both parties”. The purpose of this article is to continue this discussion by reviewing recent literature on consumer engagement and proposing a framework for future research. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews the marketing literature on social media, paying particular attention to consumer engagement, which was identified as a primary area of concern in Schultz and Peltier (2013). Findings A significant amount of research has been conducted on consumer engagement since 2010. Lack of consensus on the definition of the construct has led to fragmentation in the discipline, however. As a result, research related to consumer engagement is often not identified as such, making it difficult for academics and practitioners to stay abreast of developments in this area. Originality/value This critical review provides marketing academics and practitioners insights into the antecedents and consequences of consumer engagement and offers a conceptual framework for future research.

282 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an empirical test of the Twitter effect, which postulates that micro bloggingging word of mouth (MWOM) shared through Twitter and similar services affects early product adoption behaviors by immediately disseminating consumers' post-purchase quality evaluations.
Abstract: This research provides an empirical test of the “Twitter effect,” which postulates that microblogging word of mouth (MWOM) shared through Twitter and similar services affects early product adoption behaviors by immediately disseminating consumers’ post-purchase quality evaluations. This is a potentially crucial factor for the success of experiential media products and other products whose distribution strategy relies on a hyped release. Studying the four million MWOM messages sent via Twitter concerning 105 movies on their respective opening weekends, the authors find support for the Twitter effect and report evidence of a negativity bias. In a follow-up incident study of 600 Twitter users who decided not to see a movie based on negative MWOM, the authors shed additional light on the Twitter effect by investigating how consumers use MWOM information in their decision-making processes and describing MWOM’s defining characteristics. They use these insights to position MWOM in the word-of-mouth landscape, to identify future word-of-mouth research opportunities based on this conceptual positioning, and to develop managerial implications.

280 citations


Cites background from "Communication Channels and Word of ..."

  • ...Despite significant recent growth in the number and heterogeneity of WOM channels, we do not know enough about the way in which the characteristics of each conversation channel shape how, when, and what type of WOM is used and how it influences consumer decision making (Berger 2012; Berger and Iyengar 2013)....

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  • ...The characteristics of each conversation channel shape how, when, and what type of WOM is used (Berger and Iyengar 2013)....

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  • ...…recent growth in the number and heterogeneity of WOM channels, we do not know enough about the way in which the characteristics of each conversation channel shape how, when, and what type of WOM is used and how it influences consumer decision making (Berger 2012; Berger and Iyengar 2013)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an empirical test of the Twitter effect, which postulates that micro bloggingging word of mouth (MWOM) shared through Twitter and similar services affects early product adoption behaviors by immediately disseminating consumers' post-purchase quality evaluations.
Abstract: This research provides an empirical test of the “Twitter effect,” which postulates that microblogging word of mouth (MWOM) shared through Twitter and similar services affects early product adoption behaviors by immediately disseminating consumers’ post-purchase quality evaluations. This is a potentially crucial factor for the success of experiential media products and other products whose distribution strategy relies on a hyped release. Studying the four million MWOM messages sent via Twitter concerning 105 movies on their respective opening weekends, the authors find support for the Twitter effect and report evidence of a negativity bias. In a follow-up incident study of 600 Twitter users who decided not to see a movie based on negative MWOM, the authors shed additional light on the Twitter effect by investigating how consumers use MWOM information in their decision-making processes and describing MWOM’s defining characteristics. They use these insights to position MWOM in the word-of-mouth landscape, to identify future word-of-mouth research opportunities based on this conceptual positioning, and to develop managerial implications.

259 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An overview of simple and multiple mediation is provided and three approaches that can be used to investigate indirect processes, as well as methods for contrasting two or more mediators within a single model are explored.
Abstract: Hypotheses involving mediation are common in the behavioral sciences. Mediation exists when a predictor affects a dependent variable indirectly through at least one intervening variable, or mediator. Methods to assess mediation involving multiple simultaneous mediators have received little attention in the methodological literature despite a clear need. We provide an overview of simple and multiple mediation and explore three approaches that can be used to investigate indirect processes, as well as methods for contrasting two or more mediators within a single model. We present an illustrative example, assessing and contrasting potential mediators of the relationship between the helpfulness of socialization agents and job satisfaction. We also provide SAS and SPSS macros, as well as Mplus and LISREL syntax, to facilitate the use of these methods in applications.

25,799 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on communication processes and understand how messages have an effect on some outcome of focus in a focus-based focus-oriented focus-set problem, which is the goal of most communication researchers.
Abstract: Understanding communication processes is the goal of most communication researchers. Rarely are we satisfied merely ascertaining whether messages have an effect on some outcome of focus in a specif...

7,914 citations


"Communication Channels and Word of ..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...We used biased-corrected bootstrapping (n p 5,000; see Preacher and Hayes 2008) to generate a 95% confidence interval (CI) around the indirect effect, where successful mediation occurs if the confidence interval doesn’t include zero (Hayes 2009)....

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Book
22 Dec 2014

4,258 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examine the effect of consumer reviews on relative sales of books at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com, and find that reviews are overwhelmingly positive at both sites, but there are more reviews and longer reviews at Amazon and that an improvement in a book's reviews leads to an increase in relative sales.
Abstract: The authors examine the effect of consumer reviews on relative sales of books at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. The authors find that (1) reviews are overwhelmingly positive at both sites, but there are more reviews and longer reviews at Amazon.com; (2) an improvement in a book's reviews leads to an increase in relative sales at that site; (3) for most samples in the study, the impact of one-star reviews is greater than the impact of five-star reviews; and (4) evidence from review-length data suggests that customers read review text rather than relying only on summary statistics.

4,180 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: The issues taken up here are: coordination of content, coordination of process, and how to update their common ground moment by moment.
Abstract: GROUNDING It takes two people working together to play a duet, shake hands, play chess, waltz, teach, or make love. To succeed, the two of them have to coordinate both the content and process of what they are doing. Alan and Barbara, on the piano, must come to play the same Mozart duet. This is coordination of content. They must also synchronize their entrances and exits, coordinate how loudly to play forte and pianissimo, and otherwise adjust to each other's tempo and dynamics. This is coordination of process. They cannot even begin to coordinate on content without assuming a vast amount of shared information or common ground-that is, mutual knowledge, mutual beliefs, and mutual assumptions And to coordinate on process, they need to update their common ground moment by moment. All collective actions are built on common ground and its accumulation. We thank many colleagues for discussion of the issues we take up here.

4,144 citations


Additional excerpts

  • ...Different modalities differ in their synchronicity (Clark and Brennan 1991; Morris and Ogan 1996)....

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