Page 153 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

The Impact of Word of Mouth and the Facilitative Effects of Social Media 145

reporting that they blog (HubSpot.com, 2011). Indeed, the average budget
spent on company blogs has almost doubled from 2009 to 2011, with 27
percent of companies indicating that their company blog was “critical” to
the success of their business (Makovsky 2012). Such blogs benefit organi-
zations in many ways—by increasing awareness, building credibility and
trust, gaining feedback used for product improvement (i.e., listening to
the customer), and defending the company against criticisms and poten-
tial rumors.
Mangold and Faulds (2009) provided two additional strategies de-
signed to enhance positive WOM about a company as spread through so-
cial media. First, they suggested that companies support causes that are
important to consumers. This strategy is closely linked to what Brown and
Dacin (1997) described as corporate social responsibility (CSR). The con-
cept is that some segment of customers may be emotionally linked to such
causes, either for physical (e.g., medical) or attitudinal reasons. The argu-
ment proposed was that emotionally charged messages involving feelings
such as pleasure and arousal are more likely to spread through the popula-
tion than messages without these characteristics (see Ladhari, 2007).
Second, Mangold and Faulds (2009) maintained that a company should
present its constituency with stories about the company, such as how the
company was founded or its history over the years. Such information has
the potential to create vivid memories, which are then more likely to be
spread through traditional WOM and social media. In essence, WOM
makes an impact because it is communicated in a vivid fashion, and the
more vivid the information that is communicated, the greater its propen-
sity to be spread by WOM (Magnini, 2011).

Notes
1. The only exception might be Oprah Winfrey.
2. A storage strategy requires introducing a second object associated with the
rumor (one that is more favorable to rumor recipients) at the time the rumor is
spread. A retrieval strategy redirects thoughts in memory away from rumor-
stimulated associations to more favorable associations affiliated with the rumor
object.

References
Adjei, M. T., Noble, S. M., & Noble, C. H. (2010). The influence of C2C com-
munications in online brand communities on consumer purchase behavior.
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 38(5), 634–653.