An examination of personality traits as predictors of electronic word‐of‐mouth diffusion in social networking sites

Abstract

Nowadays, in the technological era, social networking sites (SNSs) have the capacity to influence, through electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM), consumers' attitudes towards brands and companies. Consequently, eWOM via SNSs has become an important marketing communication tool for facilitating consumer interaction, acquiring new customers, and enhancing customer loyalty. However, despite the extensive research conducted to identify and depict the antecedents of eWOM, the prediction of whether and to what extent brand‐related content will be shared on SNSs, based on consumers' personality traits, is still an area of marketing that needs further research. Grounded in the trait theory of personality, the current study's objective is to analyze the impact of SNS users' materialism, narcissism, self‐esteem, and extraversion on eWOM diffusion, both directly and indirectly, mediated by referral visit behavior and knowledge‐based validation. For this, an online survey was conducted among a sample of 301 Romanian Facebook users, data being analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Our findings reveal a high prevalence of eWOM among SNS users, more than one‐third of the investigated sample having a tendency to pass along information about products and brands in SNSs. The results show that eWOM diffusion in SNSs is positively predicted (directly and indirectly) by users' materialism, extraversion, and narcissism, while the total effect of self‐esteem on eWOM diffusion is insignificant. The research provides useful insights for online marketers, concerning psychographic segmentation and social media communication, as well as for SNS developers, with regard to improving the segmentation and targeting tools offered to online marketers.

Boosting eWOM through Social Media Brand Page Engagement: The Mediating Role of Self-Brand Connection

“…Secondly, our model does not take into account the potential moderating role of consumers’ psychographic characteristics. Previous studies (e.g., [ 31 ]) have suggested that personality traits (e.g., extraversion, self-esteem, etc.) have a significant impact on how consumers use social media, and on how they relate to brands within social networking platforms.…”

“…Compared to offline word of mouth, eWOM, especially if generated through social media, has a faster and larger penetration because individuals tend to have many more friends and acquaintances virtually than they do offline [ 31 ].…”

Determining the critical factors of eWOM about corporate social responsibility on social networking sites: End users’ perspective

“…According to Bhattacharyya and Bose (2020) , the concepts of environmental and social parameters are distinct from one another, but they are connected ( Matthes et al, 2020 ). According to Williams et al (2020) , people who give more weight to the importance of collective, or prosocial, values are more likely to be concerned about the environment and hold stronger pro-environmental beliefs ( Moisescu et al, 2021 ). According to the theory put forth by Tajvidi et al (2020) , for individuals to engage in pro-environmental behavior, they need to stop thinking only about themselves and start thinking about the larger society as a whole.…”

The influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors on e-WOM behaviour: The role of psychological impact during the time of COVID-19 crisis

“…Thus, materialism had an impact on the status perception of individuals on SNS [ 28 ]. Besides, recent research on trait materialism has also shown the influence on posting behaviour [ 29 ], e-WOM diffusion [ 30 ], and SNS intensity among users [ 31 ].…”