Did you tell me the truth? The influence of online community on eWOM
Jun Yang
University of Houston-Victoria
Enping (Shirley) Mai
East Carolina University
Joseph Ben-Ur
University of Houston-Victoria
Introduction
With the rapid development of online communities and social networks, marketers have started to use online opinion leaders to influence their social circles (Watts & Dodds 2007; Kozinets et al. 2010). Marketing strategies such as seeding campaigns (where companies give products to influential consumers and expect those opinion leaders will talk favourably to other consumers) and firms’ participation in online communities are commonly adopted in practice.
Though the influence...