IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v137y2018icp27-39.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The rise of electronic social networks and implications for advertisers

Author

Listed:
  • Babutsidze, Zakaria

Abstract

The rise of modern digital communication technologies, most notably electronic social networks, transforms structures through which consumers interact with one another. In this paper we distinguish between two channels through which product promotion affects sales. The direct channel always positively affects consumers' pre-purchase valuation. The indirect channel goes through word-of-mouth (WoM) and can be either positive or negative. The sentiment contained in WoM is generated by the complex interaction process and depends on the aggressiveness of the advertising campaign. We investigate the implications of the current changes in social network architectures for the effectiveness of the indirect channel. We show that changes in social structures have increased the efficiency of WoM across a host of industries. Our results call for “smart” advertising policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Babutsidze, Zakaria, 2018. "The rise of electronic social networks and implications for advertisers," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 27-39.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:137:y:2018:i:c:p:27-39
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2018.06.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162517318619
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.06.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robin Cowan & Nicolas Jonard, 2007. "Structural holes, innovation and the distribution of ideas," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 2(2), pages 93-110, December.
    2. Park, Cheol & Lee, Thae Min, 2009. "Information direction, website reputation and eWOM effect: A moderating role of product type," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 61-67, January.
    3. Zakaria Babutsidze & Robin Cowan, 2014. "Showing or telling? Local interaction and organization of behavior," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 9(2), pages 151-181, October.
    4. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1986. "Price and Advertising Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 796-821, August.
    5. Arthur Campbell, 2013. "Word-of-Mouth Communication and Percolation in Social Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2466-2498, October.
    6. Yang, Jun & Mai, Enping (Shirley), 2010. "Experiential goods with network externalities effects: An empirical study of online rating system," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(9-10), pages 1050-1057, September.
    7. Kristine de Valck & Roberts V. Kozinets & Andrea C. Wojnicki & Sarah J.S. Wilner, 2010. "Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities," Post-Print hal-00458424, HAL.
    8. Réka Albert & Hawoong Jeong & Albert-László Barabási, 2000. "Error and attack tolerance of complex networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 406(6794), pages 378-382, July.
    9. d’Andria, D. & Savin, I., 2018. "A Win-Win-Win? Motivating innovation in a knowledge economy with tax incentives," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 38-56.
    10. Vijay Mahajan & Eitan Muller & Roger A. Kerin, 1984. "Introduction Strategy for New Products with Positive and Negative Word-of-Mouth," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(12), pages 1389-1404, December.
    11. Shin, Euncheol, 2017. "Monopoly pricing and diffusion of social network goods," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 162-178.
    12. Elberse, Anita & Anand, Bharat, 2007. "The effectiveness of pre-release advertising for motion pictures: An empirical investigation using a simulated market," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3-4), pages 319-343, October.
    13. Nelson, Philip, 1974. "Advertising as Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 729-754, July/Aug..
    14. David Godes & Dina Mayzlin, 2004. "Using Online Conversations to Study Word-of-Mouth Communication," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 545-560, June.
    15. Itay P. Fainmesser & Andrea Galeotti, 2016. "Pricing Network Effects," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(1), pages 165-198.
    16. Dellarocas, Chrysanthos, 2003. "The Digitization of Word-of-mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Working papers 4296-03, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    17. Guerini, Mattia & Moneta, Alessio, 2017. "A method for agent-based models validation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 125-141.
    18. Grazzini, Jakob & Richiardi, Matteo, 2015. "Estimation of ergodic agent-based models by simulated minimum distance," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 148-165.
    19. Zakaria Babutsidze, 2012. "How Do Consumers Make Choices? A Survey Of Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 752-762, September.
    20. Duncan J. Watts & Steven H. Strogatz, 1998. "Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6684), pages 440-442, June.
    21. Ruth N. Bolton & Katherine N. Lemon & Matthew D. Bramlett, 2006. "The Effect of Service Experiences over Time on a Supplier's Retention of Business Customers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(12), pages 1811-1823, December.
    22. Frank M. Bass, 1969. "A New Product Growth for Model Consumer Durables," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(5), pages 215-227, January.
    23. Chrysanthos Dellarocas, 2003. "The Digitization of Word of Mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(10), pages 1407-1424, October.
    24. Bharat N. Anand & Ron Shachar, 2011. "Advertising, the matchmaker," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(2), pages 205-245, June.
    25. Joe A. Dodson, Jr. & Eitan Muller, 1978. "Models of New Product Diffusion Through Advertising and Word-of-Mouth," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(15), pages 1568-1578, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xu, Zhen & Islam, Tahir & Liang, Xiaobei & Akhtar, Naeem & Shahzad, Mohsin, 2021. "‘I'm like you, and I like what you like’ sustainable food purchase influenced by vloggers: A moderated serial-mediation model," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    2. Martin Užík & Roman Warias & Jozef Glova, 2022. "Management of Transfer Prices in Professional Football as a Function of Fan Numbers," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(16), pages 1-13, August.
    3. Meadows, Maureen & Merendino, Alessandro & Dibb, Sally & Garcia-Perez, Alexeis & Hinton, Matthew & Papagiannidis, Savvas & Pappas, Ilias & Wang, Huamao, 2022. "Tension in the data environment: How organisations can meet the challenge," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    4. Yang, Xiaoping & Cao, Dongmei & Andrikopoulos, Panagiotis & Yang, Zonghan & Bass, Tina, 2020. "Online social networks, media supervision and investment efficiency: An empirical examination of Chinese listed firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    5. Lamrhari, Soumaya & Ghazi, Hamid El & Oubrich, Mourad & Faker, Abdellatif El, 2022. "A social CRM analytic framework for improving customer retention, acquisition, and conversion," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7eeckjdtj29ncak518t23a2j25 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/7eeckjdtj29ncak518t23a2j25 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Zakaria Babutsidze, 2012. "If you love it I'll probably hate it : local interaction among consumers of information goods," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2012-24, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    4. Roma, Paolo & Aloini, Davide, 2019. "How does brand-related user-generated content differ across social media? Evidence reloaded," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 322-339.
    5. Marchand, André & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten & Wiertz, Caroline, 2017. "Not all digital word of mouth is created equal: Understanding the respective impact of consumer reviews and microblogs on new product success," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 336-354.
    6. Yogesh V. Joshi & Andres Musalem, 2021. "When Consumers Learn, Money Burns: Signaling Quality via Advertising with Observational Learning and Word of Mouth," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(1), pages 168-188, January.
    7. Tingting Nian & Arun Sundararajan, 2022. "Social Media Marketing, Quality Signaling, and the Goldilocks Principle," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 540-556, June.
    8. Hailin Zhang & Xina Yuan & Tae Ho Song, 2020. "Examining the role of the marketing activity and eWOM in the movie diffusion: the decomposition perspective," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 589-608, September.
    9. Kick, Markus, 2015. "Social Media Research: A Narrative Review," EconStor Preprints 182506, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. Akbari, Morteza & Foroudi, Pantea & Zaman Fashami, Rahime & Mahavarpour, Nasrin & Khodayari, Maryam, 2022. "Let us talk about something: The evolution of e-WOM from the past to the future," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 663-689.
    11. Yucheng Zhang & Zhiling Wang & Lin Xiao & Lijun Wang & Pei Huang, 2023. "Discovering the evolution of online reviews: A bibliometric review," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-22, December.
    12. Xiang Hui & Meng Liu, 2022. "Quality Certificates Alleviate Consumer Aversion to Sponsored Search Advertising," CESifo Working Paper Series 9886, CESifo.
    13. Arthur Campbell & C. Matthew Leister & Yves Zenou, 2020. "Word‐of‐mouth communication and search," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(3), pages 676-712, September.
    14. Rishikesh Bhaiswar & N. Meenakshi & Deepak Chawla, 2021. "Evolution of Electronic Word of Mouth: A Systematic Literature Review Using Bibliometric Analysis of 20 Years (2000–2020)," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 10(3), pages 215-231, September.
    15. Heng Tang & Xiaowan Lin, 2019. "Curbing shopping cart abandonment in C2C markets — an uncertainty reduction approach," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(3), pages 533-552, September.
    16. Grunewald, Andreas & Kräkel, Matthias, 2017. "Advertising as signal jamming," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 91-113.
    17. Ahmet Bayraktar & Emine Erdogan, 2015. "What Makes Offline Word-Of-Mouth More Influential Than Online Word-Of-Mouth?," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 9(2), pages 95-107.
    18. Koji Ishida & Lisa Slevitch & Katia Siamionava, 2016. "The Effects of Traditional and Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Destination Image: A Case of Vacation Tourists Visiting Branson, Missouri," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-17, September.
    19. Pyle, Martin A. & Smith, Andrew N. & Chevtchouk, Yanina, 2021. "In eWOM we trust: Using naïve theories to understand consumer trust in a complex eWOM marketspace," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 145-158.
    20. Haoyan Sun & Jianqing Chen & Ming Fan, 2021. "Effect of Live Chat on Traffic‐to‐Sales Conversion: Evidence from an Online Marketplace," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(5), pages 1201-1219, May.
    21. Raassens, N. & Haans, Hans, 2017. "NPS and online WOM investigating the relationship between customers’ promoter scores and eWOM behavior," Other publications TiSEM 931e7761-7c6e-40ee-8976-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    22. Nick Hajli, 2018. "Ethical Environment in the Online Communities by Information Credibility: A Social Media Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(4), pages 799-810, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:137:y:2018:i:c:p:27-39. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.