A STUDY ON HOW ELECTRONIC WORD-OF-MOUTH THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES IS AFFECTING CONSUMERS

Abstract

Word of mouth (WOM) marketing refers to the use of informal communications among networks of consumers to promote products, brands, or services. It has been widely accepted by researchers, companies as an essential marketing activity, since it is extremely effective in moulding consumer’s attitude and behaviour. Nowadays, Internet has become inseparable part of peoples’ life, attracting millions of people around the world. This has resulted into shift of word of mouth to a digitalized world and development of a new term called Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM has been recognized to generate the same benefits to companies as word-of-mouth. Growth in the internet & social networking sites has enabled Electronic word-of-mouth with a power to reach millions of people at a time & therefore is perceived more influential than other ways. This makes electronic word-of-mouth along with social networking sites, two concepts to acknowledge. Thus, for companies to make the most out of them, they need to gain the required knowledge. This study mainly deals with the effect of eWOM on consumers in Indian context. The hypothesis & questionnaire in the present research has been adopted after a thorough study of the research paper on EWOM through social networking sites (Hodza, Papadopoulou & Pavlidou, 2012) which was conducted in European context. There are two purposes of this research. The first one is to analyse how electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites affect consumers’ product perceptions i.e. whether an opinion or recommendation about a product on social networking site influences their understanding & perception about the product. The second purpose is to understand the impact on purchase intentions i.e. whether a positive comment on social networking sites motivates them to buy the product hence influences their buying behaviour. As per the study it was found that electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites has a direct positive effect on both consumers’ product perceptions and purchase intentions. In addition, age was found to have a moderating effect on the relation between electronic word-of-mouth through social networking sites and purchase intentions.