How tourism companies could boost electronic word-ofmouth (eWOM) through Facebook strategies

KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC GIA CITA 2020 “CNTT VÀ ỨNG DỤNG TRONG CÁC LĨNH VỰC” How tourism companies could boost electronic word-ofmouth (eWOM) through Facebook strategies Nguyen Le Loc Tien 1 The Vietnam-Korea University of Information and Communication Technology, The University of Danang nlltien@vku.udn.vn Abstract. Using content analysis method, this study examines how tourism companies could boost eWOM using communication strategies through Facebook. With the sample of 500 posts from Facebook pages of five most popular tourism companies in Vietnam in 2019, the communication strategies are considered. The findings were that vividness becomes the largest influential factor on producing more eWOM, while interactivity shows no relations. From this result, certain implications are drawn for companies in tourism industry. Keywords: eWOM, communication strategies, Facebook strategies, tourism companies, content analysis 1 Introduction The use of Facebook to boost communication and interactions with consumers are no longer a strange activity to any companies [1]. With the trend of shifting from traditional communication channels to social media, companies have poured a massive number of efforts, including time and finance, to keep contact with consumers through social networking sites [2]. Most notably, more than 50% of social media users follow corporate pages. There are a number of factors leading to this figure, such as interacting with the companies, subscribe new information or just seek for entertainment [3]. In addition, thanks to the help of social media, consumers nowadays are becoming active information seekers and also critics [4]. They have the ability to express their opinions and experience, both positive and negative, which result in a large amount of eWOM on social media [1]. This eWOM behavior has the possibility to spread much more viral than any other of companies’ strategies within an extremely short period of time [5]. However, little is known about how eWOM is built. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to clarify this behavior by observing tourism companies in boosting eWOM of consumers through their communication strategies on these platforms. The eWOM on Facebook is assessed using the number of ‘like’, ‘share’ and ‘comment’. 2 Literature Review Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) eWOM is defined as comments, either positive or negative, created by potential or previous customers about anything, available to a large number of people with the help of the Internet [4]. This type of feedbacks has been shown to have a huge impact on attitudes and behavior of customers [3]. Therefore, the ‘comment’ function on Facebook is a way to express eWOM as customers can leave comment to express their evaluation of products [4]. Similarly, ‘like’ button is used to express interest or positivity toward the posts and ‘share’ function allows customers to add their personal messages to specific groups [4]. As a result, in this study, ‘like’ and ‘share’ are lowlevel eWOM while ‘comment’ is higher level [1]. There are a few studies that went insight into the topic of how to generate eWOM, which is shown in the table below. 102 Nguyen Le Loc Tien No Researchers Summary 1 De Vries et al. (2012) With 355 company Facebook messages, entertainment, information, vividness and interactivity influence the number of likes and comments a post on Facebook receive. 50% of the sample contains characteristics with vividness while 75% includes interactivity. 2 Swani et al. (2013) Using 1143 Facebook messages from 193 companies to find the differences between B2B and B2C, products and services. 3 Nair (2011) Customers prefer interpersonal communication with companies. 4 Sam & Park (2014) Interactivity on Facebook “permits a deep cognitive engagement to peripheral aspect of the message”. Table 1. Past research of how to generate eWOM Emotional and informational appeals These are the two common features that companies usually use in their communication strategies. It is assumed that emotional and information reasons are the main driving force behind the decision-making process [1]. Informational appeals, or sometimes referred to as functional or rational appeals, convince the target customers by employing logical arguments. Therefore, consumers of a particular products can process information and then make logical decisions [6]. Meanwhile, emotional appeals aim at arousing emotions or feelings with the products or services. Since that, they develop a certain attitudes towards the products or services, or even the company [7]. However, the attitudes could be positive or negative. On a regular basis, graphics, colours, celebrity endorsement or strong emotional messages are adopted to generate emotional appeals [1]. Until now, there has been no studies examining which is more effective: informational or emotional appeals. It is sometimes believed that posts with emotional features are more likely to produce positive attitudes and more memorable [1]. Consequently, it is stronger in boosting purchase intention than informational appeals. In terms of creating eWOM behaviour on social networking sites like Facebook, emotional appeals have the capability to generate more sharing behaviour and even activate various actions [3]. Therefore, this study proposes the first hypothesis: H1: Posts with emotional appeals are likely to have more likes, shares and comments than those with informational appeals. Vividness Web pages usually employ video, audio, graphics, images, etc. to create sensory perception and boost vividness of their posts [3]. Vividness is sometimes regarded as media richness. It hits the emotional aspects of viewers and has a strong influence on their attitudes [4]. In addition, it can even attract attention and reduce the efforts to process information on the Internet, particularly in this fast-paced world. Vividness also leaves long-lasting and accurate memories in viewers’ mind. De Vries et al. (2012) also emphasized that highly vivid posts online even got more ‘likes’ than posts without vividness. Therefore, this study proposes the second hypothesis: H2: Vividness in online posts are likely to have more likes, shares and comments than non-vivid posts. What about posts with emotional appeals and vividness? Vividness affects not only cognition but also emotional interest [8]. While few studies have examined the relationship between photos and emotions, those in psychology even demonstrated that music could convey deep and long-lasting emotions [9]. In a study, the positive relationship between perceived vividness of websites and intensity of emotions were found [10]. Therefore, visual vividness and emotional appeals have certain kind of relationship that may help to generate eWOM behavior. Therefore, the third hypothesis is proposed as follows: 103 KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC GIA CITA 2020 “CNTT VÀ ỨNG DỤNG TRONG CÁC LĨNH VỰC” Interactivity The concept of interactivity has created different debates on the topic. Steuer (1992) regarded interactivity as “the extent to which user can participate in modifying the format and content of a mediated environment in real time”. To Bucy (2004), interactivity is limited to face-to-face communication or human- to-computer interaction, while Rafaeli (1988) demonstrated that interactivity could happen in both faceto- face and mediated communication. In Coyle and Thorson (2001)’s study, the number of clickable links on the first page of the websites is a way to foster interactivity. Similarly, Sundar, Brown and Kalyanaraman (2003) examined interactivity through no extra links (low interactivity), informational links (moderate interactivity) and two additional links (high interactivity). This has shown that Facebook posts with hyperlinks can be regarded as more interactive than posts with only texts. H3: Posts with interactivity are likely to have more likes, shares and comments than posts with just texts. 3 Methodology Study overview This study uses content analysis to test the three communication strategies: appeal, vividness and interactity of posts on Facebook. Appeals include two aspects, namely emotional and informational appeals. Vividness is shown when a post has photos, images, videos or graphics while interactivity was operationalized as the appearance of hyperlinks. The number of likes, shares and comments for each post was adopted as outcome variables showing how likely consumers are to generate eWOM behavior. Sampling procedure The data was collected from five most popular tourism companies in Vietnam, which are Traveloka, Vietnam travel Mart, Saigontourist travel, agoda, Vietnam Airlines. 500 posts were collected and examined due to the time limit of this study, from the newest until post 500th had been reached. A screen shot of each post was saved. Companies’ Facebook accounts were identified through the official company website, or search engine on Facebook with the small blue check mark next to the name of the company to indicate this is the official page. Coding data After data collection, posts were coded for primary appeal, vividness and interactivity. Posts with a hyperlink was coded as “1 = interactive” and “0 = non-interactive” if there is no hyperlink. If a post had a photo, it was coded “1 = vivid” and “0 = non – vivid” if there was no photo recorded. The number of likes, shares and comments was recorded based on the information under each post. Finally, posts with emotional appeals were coded with “1 = emotional appeals”, which include storytelling, metaphor or provocative rhetoric, while those with informational appeals representing news or information or product benefits were coded with “2 = informational appeals”. 4 Results In general, an average post had 280 likes, 120 shares and 88 comments. Among 500 posts collected, about 70% had one or more hyperlinks, and 96% included photos in their posts. About 77.2% of the posts used informational appeal as the primary appeal, and 22.8% adopted an emotional appeal as their primary strategy in attracting appeal. To test the hypotheses, three ANOVA tests were carried out separately on the number of likes, shares and comments. Table 2. Estimations for analysis of variance Number of likes Number of shares Number of com- ments F p F p F p Appeal 63.02 .00 29.10 .00 74.03 .00 Interactivity .10 .76 2.23 .14 4.12 .04 Vividness 53.03 .00 33.54 .00 .07 .79 104 Nguyen Le Loc Tien From the results, appeal was shown to be significant in all three ANOVA tests: Like (p<.001), Share (p<.001) and Comment (p<.001). Likes, shares and comments were generated more from posts with emotional appeals compared to those with informational appeals. Therefore, H1 was accepted. The results from ANOVA also indicated significant impacts of vividness on the number of likes (p<.001) and shares (p<.001). In this way, a post with vivid features tended to receive more likes and shares than a non-vivid post. Thus, H2 was supported. However, similar things did not happen to interactivity. It is not statistically significant in terms of the effects on the number of likes (p = .76) and shares (p = .14). In this way, posts with a hyperlink had similar number of likes and shares to those without a hyperlink. In terms of comments, although the results showed significant statistics (p<.05), hyperlinks reduced the number of comments on posts, with a mean number of 59.72 for posts with interactivity and 132.10 for posts without this feature. Therefore, H3 was not supported. 5 Discussion Implications This study examined three communication strategies on Facebook of five popular tourism companies in Vietnam, in terms of emotional appeal, vividness and interactivity. Using content analysis to analyse 500 posts from these companies’ official Facebook page, it was found that emotional appeals are more significant in creating eWOM. This result is in line with Berger and Milkman (2012) study, which found similar influence of emotional appeals on generating eWOM. Therefore, emotional appeals are the most important and effective communication strategy to spread eWOM on social media that companies need to take into account. Vividness were shown to have some effects on the number of likes and shares, but not on comments. This is also in line with De Vries et al. (2012) research, where likes and shares are considered as low-level eWOM. This has demonstrated that using photos make posts outstanding on user’s news feeds, draw much more attention and consequently lead to more likelihood of generating eWOM. However, contrary to previous studies in similar topics, interactivity was shown to have no significant effect on the number of likes and shares. In addition, posts with hyperlinks also received fewer comments than those without this feature. This may have something to do with low motivation and engagement of users when using Facebook. As users usually browse Facebook for pleasure, they may not have enough time to process company posts carefully. Limitations and future research It is admitted that this study has some certain limitations. Firstly, using content analysis could not take into account users’ motivation and engagement while browsing Facebook. Therefore, we do not know if the results of interactivity in this study were caused by motivation or not. Secondly, the number of likes, shares and comments may change after the post was sampled for the purpose of this research. Finally, hyperlinks are not the only way to trigger interactivity as other methods such as form fillings should have been taken into account. Therefore, future studies could consider these aspects to develop more hypotheses relevant to the topic. Conclusion This study has investigated the use of communication strategies on Facebook of five tourism companies in Vietnam in terms of emotional appeals, vividness and interactivity. These communication strategies have certain effects on generating eWOM on social networks. Significant impacts are found from emotional appeals and vividness while interactivity has insignificant impacts on the number of likes, shares and comments, thus giving no clear relationship to the possibility of creating eWOM on social media. 105 KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO KHOA HỌC QUỐC GIA CITA 2020 “CNTT VÀ ỨNG DỤNG TRONG CÁC LĨNH VỰC” References [1] L. DeVries, S. Gensler and P. S. H. Leeflang, "Popularity of brand posts on brand fan pages: An investigation of the effects of social media marketing," Journal of Interactive Marketing, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 83-91, 2012. [2] J. Berger and K. Milkman, "What makes online content viral?," Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 192-205, 2012. [3] S. Sams and H. W. Park, "The presence of hyperlinks on social networking sites: A case study of Cyworld in Korea," Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 294-307, 2014. [4] S. Weisfled-Spolter, F. Sussan and S. Gould, "An integrative approach to eWOM and marketing communications.," Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 260- 274, 2014. [5] K. Swani, G. Milne and B. P. Brown, "Spreading the word through likes on Facebook: Evaluating the message strategy effectiveness of Fortune 500 companies," Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 269-294, 2013. [6] M. Lwin and I. Phau, "Effective advertising appeals for websites of small boutique hotels," Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 18-32, 2013. [7] P. S. Kapoor, K. R. Jayasimha and A. Sadh, "Brand-related, consumer to con- sumer, communication via social media.," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 43-59, 2013. [8] R. E. Nisbett and L. Ross, Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment., Engle-wood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1980. [9] J. A. Sloboda, "Music structure and emotional response: Some empirical findings," Psychology of Music, pp. 110-120, 2 1991. [10] M. Lai, W. Y. Wu and S. M. Lin, "The effects of website design on female's emotional arousal and e-satisfaction," The Business Review, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 243-249, 2009. [11] Y. Liu and L. J. Shrum, "What is interactivity and is it always such a good thing? Implications of definition, person, and situation for the influence of interactivity on advertising effectiveness," Journal of Advertising, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 53-64, 2002. [12] M. M. Nair, "Understanding and measuring the value of social media," The Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 45-51, 2011. [13] J. Steuer, "Defining virtual reality: Dimensions determining telepresence," Journal of Communication, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 79-93, 1992. [14] E. P. Bucy, "Interactivity in society: Locating an elusive concept.," The Information Society: An International Journal, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 373-383, 2004. [15] S. Rafaeli, "Interactivity: From new media to communication," in Advancing communication science: Merging mass and interpersonal processes, Newbury Park, Sage, 1988, pp. 110-134. [16] J. R. Coyle and E. Thorson, "The effects of progressive levels of interactivity and vividness in web marketing sites," Journal of Advertising, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 65-77, 2001. [17] S. S. Sundar and S. B. S. Kalyanaraman, "Explicating web site interactivity: Impression formation effects in political campaign sites.," Communication Research, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 30-59, 2003. 106