“Like it or not” : Consumer responses to word‐of‐mouth communication in on‐line social networks

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how source, network, relationship, and message/content factors affect how consumers respond to a word‐of‐mouth (WOM) communication in an online social network. Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses were addressed using two online surveys. The first of these examined persuasive WOM communications on Facebook, the second investigated WOM communication on Twitter. Findings – It was found that closeness to the source of a persuasive communication may have less of an impact on message acceptance in online social networks compared to traditional WOM. The number of persons in a product network, as well as whether those members of a product network are also members of one's friend network, are important factors that determine message acceptance. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates differences between online versus traditional WOM, and has important implications for marketing practitioners.