The impact of referral rewards systems for online content creation
Yu, Guopeng (2016-12-16)
Yu, Guopeng
Åbo Akademi - Åbo Akademi University
16.12.2016
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https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-12-3481-1
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-12-3481-1
Tiivistelmä
User-generated content (UGC) has become increasingly important for our everyday life as it can directly reflect our social interactions with other people. This importance is more apparent when travelers and tourists search and produce information about destinations. Previous studies have already found out that UGC plays an important role in consumers’ different phases of travel. However, little effort is made to explore what kind of UGC will have an impact on consumers’ likelihood to purchase tourism products and services, and their intentions to make recommendations for others, and their attitudes toward destinations. Answers to these questions cannot be more critical to tourism service providers, because their ultimate goal is to generate more revenue by enhancing the online presence of their products and engaging more customers.
On the other hand, more importantly, not all consumers would like to share their feelings and experience of destinations after their trips. This, to a great extent, will create barriers for tourism service providers when they want their product information to be transmitted online.
Consumers’ online sharing behavior is driven either by social norms (e.g., altruism) or individual rationality (e.g., to obtain the greatest amount of benefits). The former is an unintentional behavior, whereas the latter is an intentional behavior which can be motivated by extrinsic rewards (e.g., money). In fact, in word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing, pioneering practitioners have already used extrinsic rewards to increase customers’ referrals for their products. The systems, which are capable of motivating influential customers to spread positive WOM, are called “referral rewards systems (RRSs)”. Given that WOM and UGC are quite similar in nature, we propose that RRSs might also be effective to motivate tourists to create content online.
In the study, three experiments were carried out to examine the impact of RRSs on travelers’ and tourists’ likelihood to use social media, their behavioral intentions, and their attitudes toward destinations; and then to explore what kind of UGC is influential on tourists’ and travelers’ likelihood to use social media, their behavioral intentions, and their attitudes toward destinations.
The results show that using RRSs to motivate tourists (sharers) to share will have an impact on their peers’ (i.e., tourists’ and travelers’) use of social media, WOM and purchase intentions, and on their attitudes toward destinations. In particular, it was found that rewarding sharers who attempted to “obtain the maximum number of likes” and sharers “who perceived a large social distance from peers” would help tourism service providers design more cost-effective and efficient RRSs. In addition, using a social mechanism will yield better outcomes than using direct rewards.
Further, the results also demonstrate that positive emotions (especially high-positive emotions ), interesting, credible, useful, and desirabilityconcerned content, and content with environmental factors and price cues are influential on travelers’ and tourists’ likelihood to be active on social media, on their purchase and WOM intentions, and on their attitudes toward destinations.
The study contributes to methods and tools developed for the tourism industry by showing service providers how to use RRSs to motivate tourists to share their insight and experience on social media. It also sheds light on how to design successful tourism viral marketing campaigns and how to craft contagious content.
On the other hand, more importantly, not all consumers would like to share their feelings and experience of destinations after their trips. This, to a great extent, will create barriers for tourism service providers when they want their product information to be transmitted online.
Consumers’ online sharing behavior is driven either by social norms (e.g., altruism) or individual rationality (e.g., to obtain the greatest amount of benefits). The former is an unintentional behavior, whereas the latter is an intentional behavior which can be motivated by extrinsic rewards (e.g., money). In fact, in word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing, pioneering practitioners have already used extrinsic rewards to increase customers’ referrals for their products. The systems, which are capable of motivating influential customers to spread positive WOM, are called “referral rewards systems (RRSs)”. Given that WOM and UGC are quite similar in nature, we propose that RRSs might also be effective to motivate tourists to create content online.
In the study, three experiments were carried out to examine the impact of RRSs on travelers’ and tourists’ likelihood to use social media, their behavioral intentions, and their attitudes toward destinations; and then to explore what kind of UGC is influential on tourists’ and travelers’ likelihood to use social media, their behavioral intentions, and their attitudes toward destinations.
The results show that using RRSs to motivate tourists (sharers) to share will have an impact on their peers’ (i.e., tourists’ and travelers’) use of social media, WOM and purchase intentions, and on their attitudes toward destinations. In particular, it was found that rewarding sharers who attempted to “obtain the maximum number of likes” and sharers “who perceived a large social distance from peers” would help tourism service providers design more cost-effective and efficient RRSs. In addition, using a social mechanism will yield better outcomes than using direct rewards.
Further, the results also demonstrate that positive emotions (especially high-positive emotions ), interesting, credible, useful, and desirabilityconcerned content, and content with environmental factors and price cues are influential on travelers’ and tourists’ likelihood to be active on social media, on their purchase and WOM intentions, and on their attitudes toward destinations.
The study contributes to methods and tools developed for the tourism industry by showing service providers how to use RRSs to motivate tourists to share their insight and experience on social media. It also sheds light on how to design successful tourism viral marketing campaigns and how to craft contagious content.
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