E-WOM Intentions towards Social Media Messages

This study investigated the influence of a consumer’s online shopping motivation, attitude, and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) intention towards two social media messages while accounting for social media involvement. Using a fictitious brand and social media messages, data were collected through a snowballing technique by distributing a structured questionnaire on social media sites. It was found that a positive attitude toward task messages was influenced by both utilitarian and hedonic shopping motivations while attitude toward socioemotional messages were influenced solely by hedonic. Also, eWOM intention for both messages was influenced by attitude. Social media involvement had no moderating effect on the relationship between attitude and eWOM intention or a direct impact on eWOM intention. These findings indicate the importance of identifying key shopping motivations of customers who frequent a brand’s social media pages. In this way brands may fashion appropriate social media messages that may result in higher eWOM. Brands should also focus social media messages towards all social media followers not just those customers active on the social media pages, as a higher social media involvement does not necessarily indicate a greater likelihood of eWOM