Premium
Why recommend a brand face‐to‐face but not on Facebook? How word‐of‐mouth on online social sites differs from traditional word‐of‐mouth
Author(s) -
Eisingerich Andreas B.,
Chun HaeEun Helen,
Liu Yeyi,
Jia He Michael,
Bell Simon J.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1016/j.jcps.2014.05.004
Subject(s) - word of mouth , salient , psychology , face (sociological concept) , significant difference , advertising , social media , risk perception , word (group theory) , social psychology , perception , business , sociology , linguistics , computer science , artificial intelligence , world wide web , social science , statistics , mathematics , neuroscience , philosophy
We examine the conceptual difference between consumer electronic word‐of‐mouth on online social sites (sWOM) such as Facebook and traditional face‐to‐face word‐of‐mouth (WOM). We find that consumers are less willing to engage in sWOM than WOM. Such a difference in willingness to offer word‐of‐mouth can be explained by social risk associated with different communication modes. We show that the difference between people's desire to engage in sWOM and WOM is mediated by perceived social risk and amplified when social risk is made salient. Furthermore, we show that consumers' need to self‐enhance mitigates the difference in willingness to offer sWOM versus WOM.