Week 4 - Word of Mouth Flashcards
Why is WoM important?
WoM in marketing is important as consumers’ interest in a company’s product or service is reflected in their ‘daily dialogues’.
Why is this (WoM) new in social media?
WoM is not new, however, the social web with its increasing connectivity (connecting with each other and sharing information) makes it more salient for consumers and for the researcher more measurable.
What are the two types of Word of Mouth?
- Organic word of mouth: People become advocates for a product and have a desire to share their views.
- Amplied word of mouth: Marketers launch campaigns designed to encourage or accelerate WoM in existing or new communities.
Why does SM word of mouth matter?
Consumers now spend more than 135 mins per day on social media.
• Social media sites contain a treasure-trove of decision-relevant information.
• Twitter is the main platform for opinion exchange.
Social Media fostered the growing importance of WoM.
Marketing Chief Marketing Officers think online WoM matters …
• Rationalized by consumer’s trust in online info from peers (Nielsen, 2013)
What 3 mechanisms are at play? - importance
- Awareness
- Buzz – anticipation - hype
- Social learning
Why does Tweet volume measure awareness and buzz?
• Awareness
o Introduceses new consumers to a product
o Reminds consumers about a product
o Reinforces traditional advertising -> First, you might see an ad about product X and then on social media you see people talking about product X.
• Buzz: expression of anticipation
o Increase in anticipation (new product) -> manifesting itself in an increase in the volume of posts
By consumers who want to act as opinion leaders, and reflect their interests, excitement, and expectations.
Generally, looks very neutral in sentiment.
Why does sentiment measure quality (social learning)?
The sentiment expressed tweet’s text provides means to measure quality.
• Tweet sentiment impacts sales via social learning
o Quality is revealed through interactions with their peers -> for instance, other people their experiences.
o Relevant if consumers use these reviews to decide what to attend
• It is important to control for other ways consumers learn about quality
o When doing research and you want to capture only twitter sentiment its important to control other ways of obtaining quality as average sentiment is a mixture of online and offline learning.
Why should we care about WoM?
• Social media can generate awareness, buzz and information diffusion that ultimately influences demand.
• Important when:
o Relying on ‘hyped release strategies’
o Uncertainty about a products’ quality
Most relevant for new products early in the release
What is senitment lexicon?
• Sentiment Lexicon:
o World list with semantic orientation: positive or negative.
o Strength of sentiment expressed.
What is VADER?
• VADER extents ‘standard’ lexicons for online language:
o Punctuation – exclamation marks strengthen sentiment.
o Capitalization – all caps strengthen sentiment.
o Emoticons.
