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

摘要

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.