Page 144 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

136 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

Without such social media, these interactions would not occur as quickly
and might not happen at all. Next, we will focus on research that addresses
the impact of weak and strong ties in actual marketing scenarios.

Social Media and the Strength of Weak Ties

Many writers in business and in academia have weighed in on the impor-
tance of weak ties as a facilitator in the spread of WOM over the Internet.
For example, Watts and Dodds (2007) argued that despite a wealth of
studies documenting the effect of opinion leaders and other influencers on
the spread of WOM, “such individuals are only modestly more important
than average individuals” (p. 442). Using a series of formal models of dif-
fusion based on a mathematical representation of the social science litera-
ture, the authors found that “it is generally the case that most social change
is driven not by influentials but by easily influenced individuals influenc-
ing other easily influenced individuals” (p. 442). In their book on WOM
entitled Grapevine, Balter and Butman (2005, p. 7) added that “Word-of-
mouth is NOT about identifying a small sub-group of highly influential or
well-connected people to talk up a product or service. It’s not about
mavens or bees or celebrities or people with special knowledge. It’s about
everybody.” Indeed, the traditional view of the opinion leader is one who
disseminates information to others, but on the web, and particularly in
social media, the identification of the participant as an opinion seeker,
opinion giver, or opinion passer is blurred, and one’s role in the playbook
may become unclear (Chu & Kim, 2011).
More than 25 years ago, Brown and Reingen (1987) found general sup-
port for the influence of the two different types of WOM ties identified by
Granovetter (1973) and Liu and Duff (1972), but they found different
roles as a function of tie strength. Weak ties were found to provide an im-
portant bridging (or macro) function, allowing information to travel from
one distinct subgroup of referral actors to another in the broader social
system. Strong ties provided a micro function as a referral source, and they
were more likely to be utilized as sources of information for related goods.
Duhan, Johnson, Wilcox, and Harrell (1997) also found general support
for the impact of weak and strong ties in WOM recommendation sources,
reporting the mediating effect of participant product knowledge as dictat-
ing whether or not strong or weak ties would be consulted. Those who
perceived great difficulty in the decision task were more likely to consult
strong tie resources for advice.
Trusov, Bodapati, and Bucklin (2010, p. 643) noted that the success of
an Internet social networking site is contingent upon the number and