THE EFFECT OF MICROBLOGGING WORD-OF-MOUTH ON NEW TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION

Abstract

Microblogging word-of-mouth (MWOM), which takes the form of comments, posts, public pages, combines the real-time and personal influence of traditional word of mouth with electronic word of mouth’s ability to reach large audiences. The sharing of MWOM opinions from early adopters significantly influences product adoption of later consumers. This study adopts the Elaboration Likelihood Model as the theoretical basis, seeking to understand how tweet quality, source credibility, and tweet valence are related to young adults’ information adoption of new products on the Twitter network, and how individual difference(prior knowledge and involvement) influence these relationships. This study used an experimental method, which was designed to examine how consumers process online tweets. The study revealed that argument quality and source credibility play key roles in information adoption on social media, yet personal involvement and prior knowledge do not necessarily influence the relationships. It was found that argument quality has a stronger effect on information adoption when the tweets are positive than negative. This study suggests that when it comes to the promotion of a new electronic product like IPhoneX, high-quality positive tweets could achieve most persuasion efficiency and should be encouraged, yet low-quality positive tweets should be avoided.