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Companies are interested in engaging consumers in spreading the word about their products or brands. Although more and more studies are analysing word of mouth marketing (WOMM), the topic is still very recent, thus very little is known about how to develop a WOMM campaign effectively. This chapter develops a literature review on WOMM in social media for better understanding on how to manage WOMM.

The studies reviewed have allowed us to identify the main decisions that should be taken when planning a WOMM campaign: the selection of the seed, the type of message and the inclusion of incentives.

We identify the two types of objectives that companies can follow with WOMM: information diffusion or consumers’ persuasion. Depending on the campaign objectives, the strategy to be used in order to be successful is different.

This chapter can be useful to both, marketers, by showing them how to develop a WOMM campaign effectively; and researchers, by showing them the main gaps on WOMM that should be addressed in future studies.

This is one of the first attempts to review the literature and organize knowledge on WOMM. Concepts that have been treated as synonymous by many researchers such as opinion leaders, market mavens, innovative consumers, and hubs are clarified and distinguished one from the other which may help in improving previous knowledge on this field.

Industry publications abound with tips on how to create and nurture customer evangelism. Scholarly publications note the effects of evangelism to firms. Consultants promote evangelism creation as part of their skill set. Yet the existence customer evangelism and its effects remain unsupported by empirical evidence. The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively explore customer evangelism.

This paper takes one of the first steps towards empirical analysis of customer evangelism by using a formative composite latent variable model to identify customer evangelists from a survey population. The authors then compare customer evangelists against non-customer evangelists on key characteristics, as per the claims in the qualitative literature, to verify the accuracy of the selection model.

The analysis demonstrates that key claims in the qualitative literature in regard to customer evangelists are supported by quantitative data in this study, namely that customer evangelists are focused on authenticity, cultishness and sharing knowledge, and have a deep emotional and spiritual connection to the brand. They also have higher intentions to purchase the product in future than do non-customer evangelists. However, other claims in the qualitative literature – such as that customer evangelists are more socially oriented, knowledge-seeking, experientially oriented or idealistic than are non-customer evangelists – are not supported by the data in this study, or are inconclusive.

This study is one of the first to attempt to empirically identify customer evangelists, and is part of a movement to study consumer religiosity in an empirical context. This study paves the way for further empirical research into customer evangelism, consumer religiosity and consumer collectivism.

This chapter is a descriptive study of digital marketing to stimulate electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) through the social impact of content creation. This chapter firstly introduces the background, concept, and development of e-WOM. Secondly, discuss the relationship between digital marketing and e-WOM. Finally, make recommendations for the business. In the discussion of the relationship between digital marketing and e-WOM, this chapter expounds the social impact of content-generating, one of the essential means in digital marketing. It discusses the relationship between social impact and e-WOM. This chapter can provide references and the basis for exploring the relationship between digital marketing and e-WOM.

This research reviews numerous studies of the relationship between consumer knowledge and external search in conventional marketing channels to investigate differences among these studies that have produced conflicting results. The findings provide a benchmark for future researchers and practitioners seeking to gain insight into consumer information search processes unfolding in the new environment of online, mobile, and social networking channels.

A meta-analysis of an extensive array of empirical studies of the relationship between consumer knowledge and external information search was conducted. Regression analysis was used to test whether certain characteristics in the studies can explain variability in the effect sizes in which effect sizes are entered as dependent variables and moderators as independent variables.

Objective and subjective knowledge tend to increase search, while direct experience tends to reduce search. Consumers with higher objective knowledge search more when pursuing credence products. However, they search relatively less when pursuing search products. Consumers with higher subjective knowledge are much more likely to search in the context of experience products, but as is the case for objective knowledge having little effect on search for experience products, subjective knowledge has no significant effect on information seeking for search products. In addition, objective knowledge facilitates more information search in a complex decision-making context while higher subjective knowledge fosters more external information search in a simple decision-marketing context. Finally, the findings indicate that the knowledge search relationship reflects strong linkage in the pre-Internet era.

Relatively little is known about how the relationship between knowledge and information search varies across different types of products in simple or complex decision-making contexts. This study begins to fill this gap by providing insight into the relative importance of objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, and direct experience in influencing consumer information search activities for search, experience, and credence products in simple or complex decision-making contexts.

The aim of this paper is to suggest some potential linkages between Consumer Culture Theory (CCT hereafter) and the evolving Service-Dominant logic (S-D hereafter) propounded by Vargo and Lusch in a series of publications (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2006a, 2006b). I begin by discussing why this alliance makes sense. To do this, I review the CCT roots of several foundational propositions for the S-D logic Vargo and Lusch (2004) offer. Then I offer a suggestion for rethinking the notion of consumer itself. And finally, I discuss some potential changes in preferred constructs that I believe are necessary to fulfill the theoretical promise of the CCT perspective, and follow on from embracing a CCT/S-D perspective.

This chapter describes tenets of complexity theory including the precept that within the same set of data X relates to Y positively, negatively, and not at all. A consequence to this first precept is that reporting how X relates positively to Y with and without additional terms in multiple regression models ignores important information available in a data set. Performing contrarian case analysis indicates that cases having low X with high Y and high X with low Y occur even when the relationship between X and Y is positive and the effect size of the relationship is large. Findings from contrarian case analysis support the necessity of modeling multiple realities using complex antecedent configurations. Complex antecedent configurations (i.e., 2–7 features per recipe) can show that high X is an indicator of high Y when high X combines with certain additional antecedent conditions (e.g., high A, high B, and low C) – and low X is an indicator of high Y as well when low X combines in other recipes (e.g., high A, low R, and high S), where A, B, C, R, and S are additional antecedent conditions. Thus, modeling multiple realities – configural analysis – is necessary, to learn the configurations of multiple indicators for high Y outcomes and the negation of high Y. For a number of X antecedent conditions, a high X may be necessary for high Y to occur but high X alone is almost never sufficient for a high Y outcome.

From the supplier firm's perspective, a referral is a recommendation from A (the referrer) to B (the potential customer) that B should, or should not, purchase from C (the supplier firm). Thus, as referrals are for a specific supplier firm, they should be viewed as part of the supplier firm's marketing and sales activities. We recognize three types of referrals – customer-to-potential customer referrals, horizontal referrals, and supplier-initiated referrals – that have critical roles in a potential customer's purchase decision. We develop the concept of referral equity to capture the net effect of all referrals for a supplier firm in the market. We argue that supplier firms should view referral equity as a resource that has financial value to the firm as it affects the firm's cash flows and profits. We offer strategies firms can use to manage referrals and build their referral equity and suggest a research agenda.