Communication Channels and Word of Mouth: How the Medium Shapes the Message

Abstract

Consumers share word of mouth face to face, over social media, and through a host of other communication channels. But do these channels affect what people talk about and, if so, how? Laboratory experiments, as well as analysis of almost 20,000 everyday conversations, demonstrate that communicating via oral versus written communication affects the products and brands consumers discuss. Compared to oral communication, written communication leads people to mention more interesting products and brands. Further, this effect is driven by communication asynchrony and self-enhancement concerns. Written communication gives people more time to construct and refine what to say, and self-enhancement motives lead people to use this opportunity to mention more interesting things. These findings shed light on how communication channels shape interpersonal communication and the psychological drivers of word of mouth more broadly.C onsumers communicate through a variety of different channels. They talk face to face, chat over the phone, and text back and forth. Further, the advent of social media has led more and more people to communicate with others via Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other online channels.But while it is clear that people communicate frequently with others, and that such communication has important implications for consumer behavior, less is known about how the medium might shape the message. Does the particular channel consumers communicate through affect what they talk about and share, and if so, how?

Does Twitter matter? The impact of microblogging word of mouth on consumers’ adoption of new movies

“…The characteristics of each conversation channel shape how, when, and what type of WOM is used (Berger and Iyengar 2013).…”

“…Despite significant recent growth in the number and heterogeneity of WOM channels, we do not know enough about the way in which the characteristics of each conversation channel shape how, when, and what type of WOM is used and how it influences consumer decision making (Berger 2012;Berger and Iyengar 2013).…”

The science of sharing and the sharing of science

“…Although not focused on science, past research has explored the psychological drivers of sharing content ranging from news articles to new products (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14). We briefly summarize this work and use our data on scientists' discoveries to examine whether insights from other contexts also apply to the sharing of science.…”

“…First, people are more likely to share surprising, interesting, or otherwise entertaining content. Interesting products (e.g., night vision goggles) receive more online word of mouth than mundane products (e.g., soap) (12). Similarly, more interesting and surprising news articles are more likely to make the New York Times' most emailed list (4); more interesting and surprising urban legends are more likely to spread (6); and more interesting advertisements receive more views.…”

Negative Word-of-Mouth: Exploring the Impact of Adverse Messages on Consumers’ Reactions on Facebook

“…Recent studies have paid increasing attention to this topic, some of the main conclusions being that emotional response to product or service performance evokes WOM directly (Engel et al, 1969) and WOM spreading intention is correlated with the customer's perceptions of value and quality (Hartline and Jones, 1996). Berger and Iyengar (2013) have conducted laboratory experiments to find out how the medium shapes word-of-mouth and they concluded that written communication leads people to mention more interesting products and brands, but also gives them time to construct and refine what to write. Advertising can also generate WOM, if it shows uncertainty about the product, so it's vital to create advertisement high in conversational value (Buttle, 1998).…”