Chapter 2. Literature review

Chapter 1. Introduction

2.1 The relevance of blogs in consumer’s lives

WOM:

Word-of-mouth has been a topic of the disscussion of the academics and marketing practitioners for a long time (Gruen, Osmonbekov & Czaplewski, 2005). Thurau & Walsh (2003) has been defines Word-of-mouth as the verbal form of recommendation focused on the other customers reviews about the ownership, characteristics and feedbeck related to the goods or services. The erlier authors has demonstrated that information exchange and peer-to-peer (consumer-to-consumer) communication influence customers' purchasing desicion (Arndt,1967). However, other reserchers has argued that Word-of-mouth (WOM) not only affect customers' purchasing desicion but also has a huge impact on the pre-usage and post-usage product or services perception (Herr, Kardes, & Kim, 1991; Bone, 1995) as well as influence on the consumers product or services expectations and can even deform it sometimes (Anderson & Salisbury, 2003). Moreover, some authors claimed that peer-to-peer communication has much more pover on the consumers then advertising (Katz and Lazarfeld, 1955).

eWOM:

With the rapid change in the technological sector and appearance of the Internet WOM has been changed sharply. The Internet based democratization of the information made it available for the existing and potential consumers to create, correct and read information online(Asmussen, B. et al., 2013). With all this advancement of the Internet technologies the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) term appeared (Thurau, et al., 2004). In contrast to the WOM, eWOM is written or recorded form of the review or recommendation which is shared on the digital arena through the social networks such as web portals, Blogs and other media platforms. Moreover, eWOM has a bigger impact on the consumer perseption of the product or services as these written reviews can stay online for a long time in comperison to pear-to-pear communication which will disappear as soon as the conversation is finished. Futhermore, eWOM has a bigger impact and readability on the customer perception and loyalty to the product or brand then any marketers created tolls, as it seen as independent “professional” advice (Gruen, T., Osmonbekov, T., & Czaplewski, A., 2005).

A lot of issues around the blogs recommendation information reliability and truthworlds is under reserchers consideration. Although the reliability of the posted information on the social networks is “cloudy” people’s perception and importance of this issue depend on their motive to read and participate in using social media, as a source for advice.

 

EWOM for companies:

Any company can try to adopt brand managment strategye e.i. company can attempt to start eWOM or viral marketing communication, however, the outcomes might not be as predicted by company. Moreover, once the campaigns being or are released to «mass social media» it become uncontroled due to the little evailability or luck of tools to manage the content flow. (https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/twitter-power-tweets-as-electronic-word-of-mouth-SctiZU0Xnh) Furthermore, eWOM adopted by company seen as critical factor fo the company's reputation factor.

 

Motivation to Talk and read about the staff:

 

Why people write:

Why people talk:

However, how people can be sure that the written or recorded blog they are using is truthful and provide reliable information. Although the reliability of the posted information on the blog is “cloudy” people’s perception and importance of this issue depend on their motive to read and participate in using social media, as a source for advice.

 

Different authors outline the different motives existing for people. WOM motives are seen to be the similar to the eWOM motives (Thurau, T., Gwinner, K., Walsh, G., & Dwayne, G., 2004). According to Ditchet (1966) cited in (Thurau, T., Gwinner, K., Walsh, G., & Dwayne, G., 2004), the fore main communication motives are seen as product-involvement, self-involvement, other-involvement, and message-involvemen. However, later, his work was critisied due to the week information about development of his typology. Moreover, Sundaram et al. (1998) cited in (Thurau, T., Gwinner, K., Walsh, G., & Dwayne, G., 2004), explained four positive WOM communication motives, such as ltruism, product involvement, self-enhancement, and helping the company, and four motives for negative WOM communication such as altruism, anxiety reduction, vengeance, and advice seeking.

 

Motives of reading (Why people search online reccomendations):

In order to understand and examinate the influence of blogs on the consumers bying intention it is nesessary to identify the motives which incite consumers to search and participate in online product related discussions. Overall, motives can be defind as a general drivers which direct behavior of the consumer to achieve his or her personal needs (Internetional jornal of electronic commerce). Motives have segnificant impact on the consumers' behaviour and are one of the most reasonable explanation of why people read others consumers.

From the traditional consumer reserch there are several motivational drivers have been identified.

 

According to the Schiffman and Kanuk (), communication motives, self-involvment motivations, product-involvment motivation and other-involvment motivations are seen as the main factors which makes consumers to reed the product related information online.