WOM vs eWOM : En komparativ studie av WOM vs EWOM

Sammanfattning: In this paper the perceived credibility of word of mouth (WOM) is compared with the perceived credibility of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) from a receiver's perspective. WOM can be described as verbal communication in trademarks, products and services where the transmitter does not have a profit motive. EWOM is all communications regarding brands, products and services that take place electronically over the Internet. The results of this qualitative study indicate that credibility is linked to the transmitter as a person rather than the message itself. Within WOM, the receiver usually has a relationship to the transmitter and therefore the credibility is to a large extent already given the recipient before the message is delivered based on past experience. Within eWOM the transmitter is often unknown or anonymous, which means that the receiver does not have a picture of the sender's credibility before the message is received. The receiver then creates a perception of the message and its sender based on language design. A language with certain qualitative characteristics tend to create greater credibility within eWOM. Another observation made in this study is that the quantity of messages affect the overall credibility of eWOM even when the messages alone are not considered to have high credibility from the recipient's perspective. The time aspect also proved to be of some importance for the credibility of the message in eWOM as older reviews were not as trustworthy as newer ones.