‘Retweet for a Chance to…’: an analysis of what triggers consumers to engage in seeded eWOM on Twitter

ABSTRACT

Twitter provides an important channel for brands to seed electronic word of mouth (eWOM) by followers retweeting brand messages, but prior research has not established a theoretical framework for how brands can maximise eWOM. This study presents and tests a theoretical model incorporating interactive, textual and visual tweet features to predict eWOM, using tweets by leading brands from three industries. Industry was found to be an important moderator of the effect of tweet features; after controlling for the reach and frequency of tweets, hashtags, retweet requests and photos were consistently associated with a higher retweet rate across industries, but the effect of URL links, non-initial mentions and video varied across industries, in some cases decreasing the retweet rate. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Retweet
• seeded eWOM
• product involvement
• hashtags
• mentions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alena Soboleva

Alena Soboleva is a PhD candidate at the School of Business, the University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Alena has two Masters degrees, in Commerce and International Business, from Macquarie University in Australia. Her research interests are in the commercial and non-profit use of social media platforms such as Twitter for marketing communication programs, including publications in Journal of Consumer Marketing and Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing. Alena has worked as a research manager, marketing analyst and digital performance manager in multinational organisations such as Communispace, SAP and Telstra.

Suzan Burton

Suzan Burton is a Professor of Marketing at Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia. She has published over 50 referred journal articles, book chapters and co-authored books. She has won ten best paper awards for her publications, and has been named Pearson Education ANZMAC Distinguished Marketing Educator of the Year Award. Her publications include leading journals such as Journal of Service Research, the Journal of Business Research and Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Tobacco Control, Addiction. She has a H-index of 18, and her publications have been cited more than 1,300 times.

Girijasankar Mallik

Girijasankar (Girija) Mallik was born and raised in India, where he obtained a BSc (Honours in Statistics), MSc (Statistics) and PhD in Applied Econometrics. He now works at the Western Sydney University, Australia, as a Senior Lecturer, and was recently awarded a university best teacher’s award. Girija has published over 42 referred journal articles, 11 conference proceedings, delivered over 7 keynote speeches and presented over 40 papers in prestigious conferences including the American Economic Association. His publications include leading journals such as Journal of International Business Studies, Regional Studies, and Empirical Economics among others. His H-index is 9 and his publications have been cited more than 405 times since 2011.

Aila Khan

Dr Aila Khan received her PhD in 2012 from the University of Western Sydney. She lectures in Marketing Research at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her research interests span a range of areas including social media, tobacco control and consumption behaviours. While her thesis focused on the use of Structural Equation Modelling, Aila is now exploring the use of different visual techniques for qualitative research. In collaboration with researchers from the University of Sydney, Aila has undertaken consultancy work for Horticulture Australia. She has published in a range of journals.