Word-of-Mouth of Cultural Products through Institutional Social Networks

Abstract

Recently, a number of cultural institutions such as museums, galleries, art auctions, events, and performance centers have been utilizing social network sites (SNS) for promoting and marketing their culture, art content, and events. The online social space is appropriate for cultural products to be viral, since users of SNS mainly share personal interest and spread hedonic consumption with close friends and acquaintances. If viral content drives strong emotions such as joy, arousal, pleasure, sorrow, or horror, it will be transmitted to more people, and rapidly. This study investigates how a certain type of motivation for using a social network service such as Facebook influences trust in art and culture exhibition information providers and the content of the information itself. Results show that people who have an informational motivation for using social media expressed a higher degree of trust in exhibition information provided by institutions such as museums. On the contrary, those who have relational motivation for using social media credited acquaintances such as friends, families, and colleagues more. Trust in the information provider resulted in trust in the content itself, and hence, increased the possibility of word-of-mouth for the corresponding information. An empirical survey was implemented, using followers of the Facebook page of a national museum and users who clicked "Like" on postings of exhibitions. Finally, the potential applications of the result for promotion and marketing of exhibitions of art and culture for public will be discussed.

Examining Consumers’ Attitudes toward Gmarket Online Shopping

“…Word of mouth is an important factor affecting the consumption before purchase and influences consumers' attitudes [25] (p. 4). The Internet extends consumers' ability to gather information about products and services from other consumers worldwide [55] (p. 4) and provides the consumers with an opportunity to offer consumption-related advice by posting online comments which results into electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) [25,56]. Any statement, negative or positive, made by actual, potential, or former customers about a company, its products, or services, which can be accessed on the Internet for anybody to read is referred to as the electronic word of mouth [56].…”

“…Online trust can be looked at as a multi-dimensional construct [4,25,60]. Several scholars have supported the multifaceted nature of online trust [60,63,66].…”

“…Customers post online comments about their experiences with online retailers' websites [55] (p. 4). When online retailers meet customers' expectations, positive eWOM results [25] (p. 4). Because of fast Internet technology in Korea, there is a large number of consumers who use eWOM communication.…”

The Role of Individual- and Contextual-Level Social Capital in Product Boycotting: A Multilevel Analysis

“…In a similar vein, scholars argue that trust may affect consumer behavior through its role in responding to information about products and firms [27,33,34]. According to such a view, consumers with higher levels of trust should be more likely to believe that a call for protest is motivated by the good intentions of the people who launch it, in turn enhancing boycott participation.…”

Foodservice in a UNESCO Site: The Restaurateurs’ Perception on Communication and Promotion Tools

“…However, although different positions have been taken as its use, its power and collateral effects, it is generally considered a reliable and credible tool supported by a friendly evaluation [101][102][103][104][105][106]. The innovation in technologies and the increased popularity and diffusion of the use of Internet has led to the emergence of a new form of WOM, the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) [107][108][109][110][111].…”