Analysis of fashion consumers’ motives to engage in electronic word-of-mouth communication through social media platforms

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse consumers' interactions with fashion brands on social networking sites, focusing on consumers' motives for engaging in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication.Existing WOM motivation frameworks are expanded to include context-specific fashion and brand variables that influence consumers to engage in eWOM on Facebook and Twitter. Subsequently, the motives are incorporated into an extended Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) model. The study demonstrates that high brand commitment and fashion involvement motivate people to engage in talking about and interacting with fashion brands. Furthermore, those who are motivated by product involvement or have a high need for social interaction engage more frequently in fashion brand-related eWOM than those that are not motivated by those factors.

Keywords:

• electronic word of mouth
• WOM
• fashion
• customer motivations
• social media
• TRA

Notes

¹For the purposes of this study, ‘engaging in eWOM communication’ refers to all of the following: ‘writing’, ‘liking’, ‘sharing’, ‘recommending’, ‘commenting on’, and ‘tweeting’ fashion brand-related messages on Facebook and/or Twitter. A ‘fashion brand-related message’ includes a post, link, comment, or tweet.