Susceptibility and influence in social media word-of-mouth

Jörg Claussen, Benjamin Engelstätter () and Michael Ward ()

No 14-129, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: Peer influence through word-of-mouth (WOM) plays an important role in many information systems but identification of causal effects is challenging. We identify causal WOM effects in the empirical setting of game adoption in a social network for gamers by exploiting differences in individuals' networks. Friends of friends do not directly influence a focal user, so we use their characteristics to instrument for behavior of the focal user's friends. We go beyond demonstrating a large and highly significant WOM effect and also assess moderating factors of the strength of the effect on the sender and receiver side. We find that users with the most influence on others tend to be better gamers, have larger social networks, but spend less time playing. Interestingly, these are also the users who are least susceptible to WOM effects.

Keywords: Word-of-Mouth; Peer Effects; Adoption; Social Networks; Video Games (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D85 L14 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-net and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14129

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