Strong Ties versus Weak Ties in Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Strong Ties versus Weak Ties in Word-of-Mouth Marketing
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DOI：
10.1016/j.brq.2018.10.004
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发表时间：
2019-10
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Hai-Hua Hu;Le Wang;Lining Jiang;Wei Yang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Hai-Hua Hu;Le Wang;Lining Jiang;Wei Yang
口碑研究中普遍认为，弱关系对口碑传播的宏观影响大于强关系，营销者应有意激发弱关系间的口碑，以优化口碑营销活动。在这里，我们挑战这个想法的基础上，在实践中，营销人员经常将口碑活动纳入其他形式的营销活动，通常是广告。使用基于代理的建模方法，我们证明，虽然广告作为信息流的一个来源，是最有效的推动产品增长的口碑是由强大的，而不是弱关系。这背后的理由很简单：广告在全球传播信息方面与弱关系竞争，而正是这种全球影响力被广泛认为是弱关系相对于强关系的重要优势。
It is widely accepted in word-of-mouth (WOM) research that weak ties have a greater macro-level impact than strong ties on the spread of WOM and that marketers should thus intentionally stimulate WOM between weak ties to optimize a given WOM campaign. Here, we challenge this idea based on the fact that, in practice, marketers often incorporate a WOM campaign into other forms of marketing activities, typically advertising. Using an agent-based modeling approach, we demonstrate that while advertising serves as one source of information flow, the WOM that is most effective at driving product growth is created by strong rather than weak ties. The rationale behind this is simple: advertising competes against weak ties in disseminating information globally, and it is this global reach that has been widely considered the vital strength of weak ties over strong ties.