The Effect of Social Media Usage Characteristics on e-WOM, Trust, and Brand Equity: Focusing on Users of Airline Social Media

Abstract

Brand equity is a valuable intangible asset for companies, yet is increasingly difficult in managing in an era with hard to control social media. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of social media usage characteristics on electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM), trust, and brand equity by dividing the characteristics to personality, social, and information. A survey was administered to 430 respondents who had experience of using airline social media and the collected data was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that the personality and informational characteristics from social media usage had statistically significant effects on e-WOM. It was found that the e-WOM had significant effects on trust and also on brand awareness. The trust was shown to have a statistically significant effect on brand awareness and brand image. Therefore, this study categorizes social media usage characteristics into three characteristics: personality characteristics, social characteristics, and information characteristics, and each of these usage characteristics present a strategy to improve actual brand equity of airline through e-WOM and trust in empirical methods. The findings of this study are expected to provide fundamental data for the development of strategies related to airline social media. In addition, this study has implications for suggesting to improve brand equity through e-WOM and trust.

The Relationship of Sustainability Communication on Social Media with Banking Consumers’ Loyalty through e-WOM

“…Hence, in this reciprocal process, they spread positive WOM for the bank on social media. This finding of the present study is in line with the findings of extant researchers who noticed a positive link between CSR and e-WOM [22,37,47].…”

“…Hence, the importance of WOM is without any doubt. The rise of social media further adds to the importance of WOM because it provides an interactive medium through which consumers exchange their product-related views with their social media peers [37].…”

Employer Ratings through Crowdsourcing on Social Media: An Examination of U.S. Fortune 500 Companies

“…Compared to traditional WOM, a large volume of updated e-WOM is available to anyone and can be accessed over time. Accordingly, e-WOM itself creates virtual communities in which crowdsourced information has more influencing power than other information sources regarding recommendations for purchasing specific services or products [38], as well as different employer ratings on Glassdoor that are generated from the employees' real experience, which includes every interaction that occurs along with their employer [8]. Therefore, we argue that even the ranking conducted by a third-party publication (e.g., the U.S. Fortune 500) can significantly influence overall employer ratings, but it has less predictive power for overall employer rating than other specific employer ratings on Glassdoor. In line with signaling theory and a comparison of WOM versus e-WOM, the last two hypotheses are proposed as follows (Q3):…”

What Makes Consumers Purchase Mobile Apps: Evidence from Jordan

“…WOM is broadly viewed as one of the most critical factors driving consumer behavior [40]. As a result, WOM is recognized by various researchers [41,42] as the most significant source of information in terms of consumer buying decisions. Abubakar and Ilkan [43] point out that the emergence of online platforms has resulted in extending WOM to electronic WOM (eWOM), which is now regarded as one of the most significant information sources on the Web.…”