A persuasive eWOM model for increasing consumer engagement on social media: evidence from Irish fashion micro-influencers

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to find how can fashion micro-influencers and their electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) messages increase consumer engagement on social media, focusing on micro-influencers’ influence, typology, eWOM content and consumer engagement. Design/methodology/approach A total of 20,000 microblogs were collected from Irish fashion micro-influencers and analyzed through keyword classification and content analysis in NVivo. The determinants of eWOM persuasiveness for consumer engagement on social media were investigated based on Sussman and Siegal’s information adoption model. Findings The study finds that among the four types of micro-influencers, market mavens and their eWOM messages have the highest impact on consumer engagement on social media, and it presents a repetitive and persuasive eWOM model of market mavens to increase consumer participation. Also, the study discovers that micro-influencers’ occasion-related microblogs have an increasing impact on consumer interactions whereas microblogs with brands have a decreasing engagement with consumers on social media. Originality/value This study advances prior studies on the relationship between influencers’ eWOM messages and consumer participation on social media by the development of a persuasive eWOM model of micro-influencers to increase consumer engagement and fill in the lack of relevant literature. Also, findings provide actionable insights for marketing communication practitioners to persuade consumers to participate in eWOM communications and establish strong consumer-brand relationships on social media.

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“…Sixth, recent research findings indicate that learning and marketing communication needs to be a set of two‐way and active interactions instead of one‐way and passing learning (see Wang, 2021 for an overview). Therefore, for WOM‐based learning, future research needs to comprehensively investigate the active role of customer participation and engagement in WOM (Mostafa, 2021; Shen, 2021; Wang, 2021) and how these influence learning outcomes. We urge researchers to undertake research that investigates the impact of interactivity and two‐way communication on user learning outcomes, as suggested in extant literature (e.g., Wang, 2021).…”

“…Lee and Koo (2012) argue that in this cognitive processing stage, users decide whether to depend on their prior product knowledge (i.e., internal information) or the information obtained from the SOR (i.e., external information). Recent research further indicates that persuasive cues in the user's online information environment lead to greater engagement and participation (Mostafa, 2021; Shen, 2021). We represent this cognitive processing as internal–external information, i.e., whether the users rely on prior knowledge from their memory or new SOR information from the environment.…”