Measuring Customer Response to Word-of-mouth Messages on Social Media: Development of a Multi-item Scale

Abstract

Word of mouth (WoM) is increasingly becoming a key element of marketing communication and is being leveraged on social media for increasing customer engagement. Literature on WoM on social media (E-WoM) is still relatively scarce. From the existing body of work on WoM, a number of causes and drivers of WoM emerge but there is not much work done in studying the customer’s responses to E-WoM (or E-WoM outcomes) and a comprehensive scale covering all dimensions has not been developed. This article attempts to identify potential outcomes of E-WoM on social media and develop a multi-item scale for measuring the same. A list of 37 items of customer’s responses to E-WoM was generated based on the literature review and exploratory study. These items were tested through a survey administered to youth across four metro cities of India. EFA and CFA were conducted to identify the relevant dimensions. The research resulted in the development of a comprehensive 30-item scale measuring 7 dimensions of E-WoM outcomes on social media. The seven E-WoM outcomes measured by the scale are awareness and interest creation, information search online, online buzz generation, offline buzz generation, lead generation, liking and trial, and purchase intention.