1. 1
D.C. Nevels ; G. Duysters ; T.B.C. Poiesz
A Company Perspective on the Use of Electronic Word-of-Mouth
Keywords: electronic word-of-mouth; social networking sites; community knowledge; social
interaction; influencers; brand exposure; Internet-based firms; small firms
The Internet dramatically changed the business landscape and the dissemination of business
information. Internet communication (e.g. electronic word-of-mouth or eWOM) is quick,
cheap and easy, which provides small, young firms unprecedented opportunities to
communicate with consumers around the globe. This study, which focuses on such firms in
the Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland, addresses the question how eWOM should be
managed. The results of our exploratory study show that the firms’ business models are based
on social interaction with consumers. In this interactive environment, market information (or
‘community knowledge’) is part of a feedback mechanism that can be used to improve the
value chain. Surprisingly, firms across different countries use the same management approach
in their eWOM strategies and tend to neglect the customer’s motivation to participate. The
study also showed that firms are unsure how to start up and to keep the interaction going.
Another finding is that these small firms do not know how to measure the outcomes of their
eWOM activities and hardly use of metrics. Consequently, they underestimate the results that
eWOM can accomplish. We address critical success factors of eWOM management, provide a
conceptual framework that identifies further eWOM research opportunities and present
several managerial implications.
Introduction
Consumers spend more and more time on-line, as Internet access continues to increase
(Riegner, 2007). One activity consumers are keen on doing is talking about products and
services they use or are interested in purchasing. They like to collect information to be better
informed about different features and decide what meets their needs best (Pempek et al.
2009). This happens on a variety of platforms which we call social networking sites (SNS).
We define SNS as: ‘web-based services that allow users (1) to construct a public or semi-
public profile within a bounded system, (2) to articulate a list of other users with whom they
share a connection, and (3) to view and traverse their list of connections and those made by
other users within the system’ Boyd and Ellison (2008, p. 211). Firms follow the trend and
spend more on social media advertising than ever before, (BIA/Kelsey 2012). This applies to
bigger firms with marketing budgets, for smaller firms who lack those resources have to
present themselves in different ways online to be able to jump on the bandwagon.
Consumer exchange of information on purchases and consumption experiences is not a new
phenomenon. Consumers have always presented evaluations to other consumers and seeked
advice from others (see, for example, Wetzer, Zeelenberg and Pieters, 2007). The
fundamental nature of the process may continue to be the same, but the form in which word of
mouth (WOM) takes place differs over time. Consumers communicate in a different way than
two decades ago. Communication via traditional media is shifting to communication over the
Internet (Berger, 2013; Allsop, Bassett, and Hoskins, 2007; Hennig-Thurau and Walsh, 2003).
There are some important differences between the two types of communication. While WOM
is limited in reach, eWOM offers the unlimited scale of the Internet, enabling communication

2. 2
with consumers around the globe at a very low cost. Also, the Internet provides a powerful
feedback mechanism by which consumers review products and services on a large scale.
Finally, eWOM allows for the measurement of communication parameters (Dellarocas, 2003,
2006). Thus eWOM content is increasingly available on SNS, and this channel is gaining
importance for businesses who seek new ways to connect with their customers (Berger and
Milkman ,2012),
Although some work has examined the impact of eWOM on sales (Senecal and Nantel, 2004;
Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006; Forman, Ghose, and Wiesenfeld, 2008; Duan et al., 2008;
Thurau et al. 2014), the behavioral drivers of WOM, (Berger, 2011) and how user generated
content looks like, (Smith et al.,2012), there is not a comprehensive body of literature on
eWOM that guides firm strategies. Most papers focus on just one channel (Chevalier and
Mayzlin, 2006; Berger and Schwartz, 2011) and the role of the consumer (Toubia and
Stephen, 2013; Java et al., 2009; Katona et al., 2011). With the exception of Hennig-Thurau et
al., (2010) and Peters et al., (2013) little attention has been paid to how small firms can
benefit to the fullest from managing eWOM communication across different channels.
Because interaction possibilities differ across channels, they may very well need a different
strategic approach (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Berger and Iyengar, 2013).
The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight in the added value of eWOM management
for small firms with scarce resources, small marketing budgets and little industry experience.
The Internet may enable them to overcome these gaps (Arenius, Sashi and Gabrielsson, 2006;
Gabrielsson and Gabrielsson, 2011).
We will address the issue of the added value of eWOM with the focus on four issues. First, it
is not clear whether the importance of eWOM as a strategic and tactical marketing instrument
is adequately assessed. In the marketing literature, the eWOM strategy of firms on SNS
receives limited attention. Second, the role of small firms in the eWOM process is unclear.
Third, the role of influencers of the interaction between firms and consumers is unknown.
Most publications focus on the consumers’ perspective only. We will focus on the interaction.
Finally, there is a lack of understanding of the exact nature of community knowledge and its
position within firms. These four questions will be addressed in the remainder of this paper.
Theoretical Framework
In this section, we will review the relevant literature and will produce a conceptual model
based upon the most important concepts presented in the literature. The rise of the Internet
caused WOM to shift to electronic formats, which imply concepts and characteristics that are
different from those of conventional WOM. Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler
(2004, p. 39) have defined eWOM as:
Any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a
product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the
Internet.
The differences with conventional WOM are significant: consumers’ opinions travel farther
and faster, potentially reaching an unlimited number of recipients worldwide. The opinions
also enjoy indefinite visibility, in that the statements can be read for years after publishing
(Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). The use of eWOM allows the user to remain relatively
anonymous. In addition, the aggregated effects of eWOM are easier to measure (Dellarocas,
2006). Since our study seeks to identify the added value of eWOM management, it will

3. 3
require further insight into consumers’ motives for eWOM participation. Below we will
provide an overview of recent social media literature to support our framework.
Actors and their motives to share content
Although there are many different types of Internet users we will focus on the most important
ones: the influencer, the consumer and the firm. Every actor in a social media setting has a
certain motivation to share content. Possible motives are discussed below.
The first actor are consumers who are looking for unbiased information, by which they can
avoid a bad buy (Granitz and Ward, 1996). They perceive information from other consumers
as being more trustworthy than when the source is the firm itself (Pan and Chiou, 2011).
Consumers hope to benefit from each other’s experiences so that a bad buy may be prevented.
The “willingness to share” varies, depending on the price of the product and the type of
experience. If the product is more expensive or if a consumer is either highly satisfied or
dissatisfied, sharing is more likely (Sundaram, Mitra, and Webster, 1998; Choi and Scott,
2013; Verhagen, Nauta, and Feldberg, 2013). The second actor is the commercial firm who
has different goals when using eWOM, such as searching for information, boosting sales,
developing relationships (Moen, Madsen, & Aspeland, 2008), providing webcare (van Noort
& Willemsen, 2008), prompting viral marketing, campaigning (De Bruyn & Lilien, 2008),
and influencing purchasing behavior (Li & Hitt, 2008). Firms also assign great value to
consumer postings. It functions as a feedback mechanism and thus provides them with
valuable market knowledge enable them to reach any of their earlier mentioned goals. In the
literature, this is labeled as the ‘feedback loop’, (Van Noort and Willemsen, 2011; Kalyanam
et al. 2007 and Peters et al, 2013). Influencers are the third actor as they function as early
product adopters, Katona et al, (2011) and influence the rest of the community. This gives
them an important role in the eWOM process (e.g. increasing the probability of new product
diffusion). For these reasons we have adopted these three actors in our framework. Also we
have elaborated the motives of the actors to share and the content that was dealt with.
Edvardsson et al (2011) report that actors’ roles are dynamic, consumers can be information
seekers in one interaction and experts in another. It is important to realize that the social
media environment is constantly changing and requires a flexible consumer- approach by
companies. We propose in line with Peters et al., (2013) that sharing is one of the most
important motivation. Sharing leads to an outcome to which we refer as community
knowledge. It is interesting to find out how firms perceive this information and whether they
measure that. We include sharing and community knowledge as framework elements. In the
next section we develop our propositions regarding the different elements of the conceptual
model.
Proposition Development
In the previous section we adapted the actor firm and its motives to share content. This
framework element consists out of three components: sharing information, proactive
monitoring of postings and modifications of the value chain. The first component, sharing
information, presents the firms intentions and concrete offerings. The second component
refers to the degree of proactive monitoring of postings and interacts with the people who post
a response to the firms’ content. This is critical as it is not sufficient to simply post a message
about a new product introduction. The firm needs to track the follow up to be able to
intervene if the tone becomes negative, or to answer any questions that might be raised. This
presents the firm the opportunity to obtain more detailed information by stimulating ongoing

4. 4
discussion. It can even encourage content sharing. The third component, modifications of the
value chain concerns the firm’s processes for handling input and feedback from the public.
The processes should facilitate the actual incorporation of such information in product
development, after sales, eWOM communication, etcetera. Earlier we have established the
importance of sharing as one of the most dominant activities of social interaction, Peters et al.,
(2013)., and as a starting point to engage with consumers. Based on this, we propose the
following:
P1 The higher the degree of a firms’ proactiveness in sharing eWOM, the more consumer
participation can be expected. This results in social interaction and a higher number of
postings.
Online communication, both among consumers and directly with firms, provides a rich source
of information (Dellarocas, 2003). In order to have successful access to this information,
firms need to be aware that ongoing social interaction is a necessary condition. Firms can
send information to consumers and receive feedback from them at an unprecedented scale, to
a large extent depending upon their own efforts to encourage information exchange. The
participation of so-called influencers is important as it enhances brand exposure, Jeppesen,
and Frederiksen, (2006), Katona et al, (2011). This can be done through different instruments
e.g. online feedback mechanism like reviews (Senecal and Natel, 2004; Cui et al., 2012) or
getting featured in an app store (Mccan, 2011). We argue that influencers moderate between
the firm’s/consumer’s social interaction and the number of postings.
Based on this we propose the following
P2: The participation of Influencers has a moderating effect on the relationship between the
firm’s/consumer’s social interaction element and number of postings.
According to Lesser, Fontaine and Slusher (2000), information may be exchanged across the
whole value chain. This community knowledge is derived from the total information received
from the community. Firms can use different metrics to measure this outcome. Small firms
have the tendency to use ‘gut feeling’ when interpreting ‘free’ metrics (e.g. number of likes or
number of followers) Wiesel et al. (2011). It may be also be true that different channels
require different metrics or several metrics within one channel, (Stuart, 2009); Peters et al.
2013). It is also possible that firms use a qualitative metrics to analyze community knowledge
(Stuart, 2009). These metrics represent the frequency of the postings and therefore affect the
quality of the information intercepted by firms. This depends on what metric or combination
of metrics firm use for each specific channel. It is essential that firms can measure the output
of the interaction with consumers, in order to discover whether the expenditure was justified.
Volume is particularly important in our study as it has a direct impact on sales, (Liu, 2006;
Dellarocas and Narayan, 2006; Duan et al., 2008; Rui, Liu, and Whinston, 2013). This
supports our statement that the total number of postings positively influences the amount of
community knowledge. Therefore, content sharing by consumers enhances brand exposure,
which effects total number of postings.
Based on this we propose the following
P3: The number of postings positively influences the amount of community knowledge.
Additionally, we expect that online communication about a brand, product or company (the
process) has a positive effect on a firm’s market knowledge (the outcome). However, it can
also be argued that the contribution of such communication is non-existent, depending on the

5. 5
quality of the information that is discussed. The quality of online communication varies,
which should make them reluctant to use it, Nijssen, Douglas, and Calis (1999) emphasize the
importance of using formal, systematic procedures when searching for high-quality
information. From a consumer perspective, the credibility of sources is based on expertise,
trustworthiness and reputation (Chu and Kamal, 2008; Gunter, Campbell, Walsh, and
Gremler, 2009). Firms may use the same criteria because firms and consumers alike may be
regarded as authorities within their market/industry (Lankes, 2008). One indicator of authority
is the track record of how a source used his experience over time. Thus, a firm is able to judge
a consumer’s contribution by simply identifying this track record. If it does not exist, firms
can judge the source’s reliability by interacting with the consumer. The outcome is market
knowledge which is an intangible asset, it provides feedback about products, customer
service, questions and other valuable market information. We expect a positive relationship
between the amount of intercepted information and the number of modifications done to the
value chain.
Based on this we propose the following
P4: The amount of community knowledge is positively related to the amount of modification
in a firm’s business model.
In figure 1 we present the propositions in a conceptual model.
+
+ feedback loop
+
Figure 1
Firms’motives and
content
 Sharing
information
 Message content
andContinuous
monitoring
 modifications of
the value chain
Consumers’motives and
content
Community Knowledge
The moderatingrole of
Influencers (humans/
platforms)
Total Numberof Postings
(volume)
Social interaction

6. 6
Methodology
Procedure
For our research, we conducted a qualitative study to allow for rich data. Since this is the first
study of its kind (as far as we know), depth and detail count most. As stated in Patton (2001),
“approaching fieldwork without being constrained by predetermined categories of analysis
contributes to the depth, openness, and detail of the inquiry” (p.14).
We chose to perform an explanatory, multiple case study, because we wanted to investigate
the presumed causal links depicted in the conceptual model with real-life interventions. Case
studies enable us to describe an intervention and the real-life context in which it took place.
This technique was considered the most appropriate, as a clear set of outcomes is uncertain.
Our intention is to cover multiple cases and draw a single set of cross-case conclusions (Yin,
2009). Each firm is an individual case, however the study as a whole covers several firms,
based on an inductive, multiple-case study design (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009), with
inquiries made at firm level. Interviews are held with the person in charge of marketing and
with this person only. The firms were not chosen at random, as this was considered ‘neither
necessary nor even preferable’ (see Eisenhardt, 1989, p. 537).
We opted for a method based on semi-structured interviews to make sure that a certain set of
topics would be covered, but also to allow for some freedom during the interview. This
technique opens up the possibility of gathering more information from respondents compared
to a pre-structured interview. It allows respondents to address topics that are not anticipated
by the researcher. The interview guide was based on the four propositions and contained only
knowledge questions (Patton, 2001).
Operationalization of Research elements.
As outlined in this study’s conceptual model (Figure 1), there are five elements: Firms’
motives and content; consumers’ motives and content, influencers, total number of postings,
and community knowledge. All of these elements were discussed during the interviews.
 Firms’ motives and content refers to the type of messages firms share and their degree
of involvement in continuously monitoring and interacting in the eWOM. A third
component is the extent to which they implement community knowledge in their
business model. This is in line with Van Noort and Willemsen (2011), Dellarocas
(2003) and Kalyanam et al. (2007).
 Consumers’ motives and content refers to the motivation of consumers in participating
in eWOM and type of content they post in response to the firms’ proactiveness, which
is the point of view being examined in this study.
 Influencers, either people or platforms whose activities enhance brand exposure and
indirectly effects eWOM activity of the brand
 Total number of postings refers to the metric volume as the outcome of social
interaction.
 Community knowledge refers to the firms’ perceived useful information retrieved
from the total number of postings.

7. 7
Sample
The firms in the sample are independent videogame developers (‘indies’). We chose to focus
on this sample for several reasons. Not only is there a high level of accessibility, but also
these firms depend more on eWOM, and the industry is now bigger than the movie industry
(Chatfield, 2009). Furthermore, this industry has a predominance of young new firms
suffering from resource scarcity that depend solely on the Internet to overcome their
limitations. Firms that rely on the Internet and do not use other marketing tools provide us
with a better insight into the phenomenon we are studying, as they make comparisons
between cases easier. We also drafted seven other requirements for our sample subjects to
ensure the reliability of the results. The requirements for participation were:
 Specific industry affiliation, to avoid the influence of inter-industry differences
(Turnbull, 1987)
 Young age of the firm: the majority was around 4 years old, with two exceptions (12-
13 years old).
 Size of the firm: small (< 50 employees) or medium-sized (< 250 employees)
(European Commission, 2003).
 Independent (no subsidiaries of other firms, to avoid resource access)
 Size of domestic market
 Indigenous, to avoid cultural influences (Bell, 1995)
 Business-to-consumer market
Tables 1 and 2 summarize the basic information about the firms in the sample.
SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS
Table 1
Table 2
Country Number
of
Firms
Final
Sample
Label
The
Netherlands
6 5 D1, D2,
D3, D4,
D5
Sweden 3 3 S1, S2,
S3
Finland 4 2 F1, F2
Year Established Number of Staff Platforms
D1 2011 2 Google Play and
Apple Store
D2 2009 2 Apple Store
D3 2009 5 Apple Store, Google
Play, AmazonStore,
Samsung Store
D4 2011 2 Sura, Gamersgate,
HumbleBundle
D5 2012 4 Steam, CouldGames,
Sura, Gream and
Gaming
S1 2011/2012 9 Steam, GOG
S2 2010 3 Steam, Gamers Gate,
GOG
S3 2010 11 Facebook
F1 2003 9 Bigfishgames.com
Windows andMac
casual portals
F2 2001 50-60 Steam, Mac app store,
Desura,
HumbleBundle, PS3,
Xbox, WiiU

8. 8
Data Collection
The respondents were identified and selected from the website http://www.gamedevmap.com.
We chose this website because it displayed the most comprehensive list of indies. Suitable
candidates were contacted through e-mail, Twitter or Facebook. After each interview,
respondents were asked if they knew other firms that would be willing to cooperate. This
snowball procedure resulted in more firms that were induced to participate. In all, 19 firms
from the Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland agreed to participate in our study (See Tables 1
and 2).
Part of the research included a pretest among six Dutch independent game developers. The
pretest was carried out for several reasons. First of all, it was used to check whether the
sample requirements were accurate and appropriate for this study. Second, it provided a way
to give an insight about the assumptions made in the conceptual model. The third reason was
to check that the interview guide was complete and that all questions were clear for the
respondents. The sample requirements and conceptual model remained unchanged as a result
of the pretest, although some modifications were made to the interview guide in terms of the
order of the questions and the addition of a few questions based on the responses.
The interviews were conducted from May through July 2013, each lasting between 60 and 90
minutes. All interviews were recorded and transcribed later. The interviewees were the people
at the firms who were in charge of marketing, since they were expected to provide the most
in-depth information. In two cases, this was the marketing manager and in the other cases, it
was the CEO.
After the data were collected, we decided to omit one Dutch firm (D6) and two Finnish firms
(F3, F4) because they did not meet all of the sample requirements: D6 was not strictly
business-to-consumer focused; the F3 interview was conducted with someone who was not in
charge of marketing; and F4 did its marketing in collaboration with a publisher. The final
sample consisted of 10 firms from three countries (See Table 1).
A follow-up email with three additional questions was sent to all of the sample respondents.
These included one open question and two half-open questions with a seven-point Likert
scale. Eight out of the 10 participants returned that questionnaire. The original interviews and
follow-up questions were used for the data analysis. We used simple pattern matching as the
analytic technique (Yin, 2009). The objective was to explain the phenomenon by comparing
the predicted patterns to the actual ones. The findings are discussed in the next section.
Findings and Discussion
We discuss the findings below according to the four propositions we used to conduct the
interviews. Each proposition starts with a recap of the theory, followed by the analysis and
conclusion.
5.1 eWOM and Social Interaction
According to the theory, we expected that the degree of firms’ involvement in eWOM would
have a positive effect on consumer participation. This is reflected in Proposition 1.

9. 9
P1: The higher the degree of a firms’ proactiveness in sharing eWOM, the more consumer
participation can be expected. This results in social interaction and a higher number of
postings.
Proposition 1 is supported since a proactive approach to eWOM is considered helpful in terms
of increasing consumer participation. However, there is some discussion as to how this should
be accomplished. Thus, there is agreement about the effect but firms have different views
about tools that should be used. The analysis made clear which instruments reflects firms’
proactiveness; posting content and stimulating eWOM within a video game. We address the
results of both instruments in this section.
All respondents were asked which social media tools they used in their marketing policy. In
general, the tools selected were the same across the firms in the sample. Twitter and Facebook
were the most popular, since these provide the greatest consumer access. To our surprise,
most of the firms admitted that they do not have a detailed marketing plan with specific
targets and goals. They do have some set goals, though these vary among firms even when
using the same tools, and some had no goals at all. One firm, for example, said that they had
three main goals for all tools: increase sales, boost the company’s positive image, and spread
the word about the games and the company. They felt strongly about the synergy of the
different tools. Other firms had different goals for each tool. Notably, the firm that hardly
used any tools was also the least successful in terms of sales.
How do firms stimulate consumer participation?
Firms use two instruments to stimulate consumer participation: posting content and eWOM
within a video game. We address the results of both instruments in this section.
 Posting Content
Our next step was to zoom in on the kind of postings that were used to engage consumers and
generate eWOM. Message content is part of the eWOM strategy and will be illustrated with a
few examples. In one case, a firm posted a teaser message on its website. It was a screenshot
of a new game meant to stimulate consumer response. Another award-winning firm posted its
recent win on its website, which generated some user congratulations. Firms can also react
online to situations in which consumers start discussions. In one case, a consumer posted a
question about why he had not gotten a gold medal for a certain achievement. The developer
then explained that there had to be at least a thousand participants. This was a good opening
for discussing the reasoning behind that criterion with the gamers.
This anecdotal evidence seems to support the assumption that firms use different types of
postings to enhance discussions but are unaware of the type of posting that has the highest
success rate. The firms resort to a trial-and-error approach to discover what works best for
them. Some firms post questions that are meant for the public, such as which icons should be
used for the app store, with the goal to get suggestions for appropriate icons. In another case,
a firm asked their gamers how they would feel about using a laser gun in the game for killing
opponents. Upon receiving a positive response, the developer reasoned with the gamers,
explained why this choice had not been made, and more gamers participated in the
conversation. In this specific example, the discussion about game details was a motivator for
participating in the eWOM. Gamers seemed to enjoy that the developer talked about his

10. 10
game. This is similar to the case where a screenshot was posted with certain levels and gamers
could choose their favorites, a post that received a lot of response.
Other respondents noted that merely asking questions of the public did not work for them.
“We usually ask open questions, but the conversation rarely continues for more than 10
messages,” one said. Or, to quote another, “We tried to motivate them by asking for
suggestions and asking questions, but the response was very low.” In one case, the firm did
not see the benefit of proactive posting and mentioned that they hardly ever started
conversations themselves, because they felt it was wrong to dump its marketing message into
such forums. Traffic was low, and they did not feel it was effective, and might even be a risk,
to start a conversation that did not take off. It would be considered an embarrassment. The
majority of the firms agreed and admitted that they had hesitations about posting for fear of an
adverse effect.
It seems that there is no well-established strategy for easily initiating eWOM. Firms reported
to have hardly any influence over consumer behavior in any way. As one case firm explained,
if they want to share something, they will and asking them to do it is not going to help.
Another respondent used incentives in the form of gift packs to fans in order to thank them for
their support, hoping that they would continue to support. Apparently, this was an attempt at
building a relationship with the customers. All firms emphasized that improving customer
relations meant a great deal to them. To achieve this, indies present themselves as very
sympathetic to consumers as a way of enhancing their likeability. So-called fans are more
likely to participate in eWOM. Fans are defined as customers who eagerly await the release of
a new game of a specific firm, or people who have had several contacts with the developer.
When asked to describe their relationship with customers, most firms used the term
“informal.”
 Stimulating eWOM within the game
Another possibility, instead of posting, is to encourage consumers to share eWOM within the
game. One indie said that they were extremely cautious about advertising in a game that had
been purchased, because players can become irritated. So, what they did instead was to allow
players to download another game for free when a new game was about to come out and then
push the news item about their new game in that free game. There was no general agreement
among respondents about whether this was a good instrument or not. One reason for opposing
it was that it is best to avoid irritating consumers. There were two examples of firms that did
use this kind of marketing. One offered a feature enabling users to share a game screenshot on
Facebook. This firm knew that only 1% of the gamers used that. Another firm asked players if
they wanted to rate the game while playing it.
To conclude, all activities that were undertaken by the firms were intuitive and based on a
trial-and-error approach. They tend to avoid risks. Another issue is the lack of marketing
knowledge, which manifests itself in the absence of marketing strategies. This may suggest
that social media tools are not used to their full potential. The possibilities presented by online
tools differ, since their usage varies among respondents or is entirely absent. All firms agree
that building relationships is a good instrument for boosting eWOM. There was no consensus,
however, about the appropriateness of the idea to stimulate eWOM within a game.

11. 11
5.2 Influencers
The second proposition explains the moderating effect of influencers on the social interaction
between firms and consumers and the outcome in number of postings. In the first proposition,
we established that as firms’ efforts increase, so do the number of postings. In this
proposition, we shed light on the fact that brand exposure also positively influences the
number of postings. This means that the higher the level of brand exposure, the higher the
number of postings that is generated.
P2: The participation of Influencers has a moderating effect on the relationship between the
firm’s/consumer’s social interaction element and number of postings.
In the analyses, three variables were found to be important in this regard:
Fostering Dispersion
Firms were asked if and how they foster the speed and reach of their postings. As one of the
firms said, “We are still living off the sales from a particular game, which isn’t smart, but we
can still pay our noodles and rent.” This underlines the fact that they do not undertake any
effort in stimulating content sharing. While all firms emphasized the importance of
stimulating dispersion, they found it hard to influence that process. One respondent’s opinion
was that commercial content tends not to go viral, and most thought it was impossible to
stimulate their content going viral. And if it did go viral, then it was considered impossible to
measure the impact. Another respondent had managed their content going viral. They chose to
launch a humorous video in response to a video by a well-known video game developer and
managed to get 700,000 views. All firms realize the importance of going viral but think it is
difficult to achieve.
People as Influencers
There are existing online networks that have a large impact on sales. Let’s Play, for instance,
is a YouTube channel where people show videotapes of themselves when playing video
games for the subscribers. These kinds of channels have millions of followers and can thus
directly affect sales. Let’s Play was top-of-mind as a key influencer. All of the case firms try
to get in touch with channel owners with a large following. They send them their products and
ask for an online review to boost recognition among consumers.
Platforms as influencers (Featuring)
All respondents agreed about the importance of getting featured on a platform. This means
being listed in a platform holder’s top ranking of games in their store, which stimulates an
indie’s visibility. Consumers visiting the game page on an app store will see their game in the
hit list, including consumer reviews. Overall, the respondents indicated that it was not clear
how one got featured. One respondent said that Apple just likes them, and another firm
described it as the “golden question.” The latter firm suggested that the things that were
helpful in terms of increasing one’s chances of getting featured were game quality, luck,
timing, and being mentioned on review sites. Featuring is something all indies strive for, since
they experience sales peaks when they are featured.
To conclude, it is difficult, according to the reported experience of our sample firms, to
control whether or not content goes viral. Products that do go viral (high speed and high

12. 12
reach) present the most extreme success stories, but it is considered very difficult to achieve
this result. There are, however, possibilities to influence content dispersion. The two main
instruments that are mentioned are: praise from influencers and featuring in app stores.
5.3 Number of Postings and Community Knowledge
The third proposition deals with the question of the result of the ongoing interaction between
firms and consumers. We expect that as the number of postings increases, it positively
influences the amount of community knowledge.
P3: The number of postings positively influences the amount of community knowledge.
No evidence was found to support this Proposition. Not a single case firm provided
information indicating that more postings led to more community knowledge. Overall, most
firms acknowledged the importance of eWOM but, at the same time, underlined how
complicated it was to measure its effectiveness. Below, the results of eWOM interaction and
its perceived benefits will be discussed more elaborately
Outcome of Interaction
All respondents agreed about the high value of monitoring postings, although some admitted
that they did not monitor content as much as they should. All respondents indicated that it was
very difficult to get a grip on the results with the help of the available tools. One respondent
mentioned a few tools they used for monitoring, such as Google Alerts, Google Analytics,
Flurry, and TweetDeck. However, he continued by saying that “monitoring is really
complicated. Whether or not someone pays is actually the only thing we can really see.”
Another comment was that the effectiveness of monitoring is only apparent in discussion
forums, because interacting enhances the relationship between the gamers and the indies.
Websites, provided useful information including, number of visitors and whether they went
through to the store or not. Nevertheless, on most platforms it is impossible to see whether the
people who proceed through to the website actually buy the game. (For one firm the result of
interaction could not be established because the spoken language on the forum was Chinese).
The management did attribute, based on their intuition, the sales peak to interaction in the
form of eWOM. Surprisingly metrics were not much used to measure effectiveness of social
interaction, because firms have no clear perspective on what metrics would contribute to firm
performance, whether that is volume (the metric in this study) or any other.
Perceived Benefits of eWOM
Firms provided different answers to the question on the perceived benefits of eWOM. “I
really don’t have a clue. It is purely a gut feeling way of working,” was one response. Others
mentioned benefits such as sales, product familiarity, networking, and making it easier to
reach the target group. In response to questions with regard to the effectiveness of eWOM,
firms indicated that it was limited, depending on the type of eWOM. “Our word-of-mouth
advertisements don’t go very far, so the effectiveness is limited,” said one interviewee. Other
firms said, however, that eWOM was very effective because it generated all their sales or that
it made it easier for key influencers to measure impact because of the amount of followers
they had. In general, the perceived effectiveness scored around three on a seven-point Likert
scale. There were different perspectives about the level of performance without any online
word-of-mouth activities. Three firms expected that they would have reasonable success

13. 13
without eWOM, and the other five found it hard to answer that question or perceived that they
would perform worse without eWOM activities.
In conclusion, the uncertain effectiveness of eWOM causes these firms to be indifferent to
implementing eWOM strategies. They focus to a large extent on sales and are less interested
in the effectiveness of other parameters. Although a few more benefits of eWOM were
mentioned, the focus is almost exclusively on sales effectiveness. As the sales impact of
eWOM is considered negligible, they do not see the need for such a strategy. The lack of
ambition to fully exploit the possibilities of social media, which we touched upon in the
conclusion about Proposition 1 above, is also manifested in the failure to measure the
effectiveness of eWOM with the right metrics and in the lack of control. While most firms
acknowledge the importance of eWOM, they do not use its full potential. So no evidence was
found to support Proposition 3 (more postings lead to more community knowledge).
5.4 Community Knowledge and the Business Model
In the last proposition, the focus is on how market information is used to the firms’ advantage.
Community knowledge is retrieved from the total number of postings. Meaningful postings
are those that the firm considers to be useful feedback and which can be embedded within the
business model. This could be in a variety of areas, such as marketing, product development,
or communications. The proposition is as follows:
P4: The amount of community knowledge is positively related to the amount of modification
in a firm’s business model.
No evidence was found to support Proposition 4. All case firms mentioned that useful
community knowledge is implemented in the value chain, but they report no indications that
an increase in community knowledge leads to an increase in business model modifications.
Thus, while there is evidence of the existence of a feedback loop, there is no evidence of
causality between these elements.
In the analyses, the firms were requested to classify the postings according to different types
of information. They were also asked to prioritize the information (community knowledge) in
terms of relevance and to indicate what they did with the available information.
Table 4 shows that there is some consensus on the relevance of the different types of
information, but there are differences as well. Feedback is considered an important type of
information, but bug reports are mentioned most frequently as most important. Another
conclusion that can be drawn from Table 4 is that firms make only few differentiations in the
rankings.
Classification of Types of Community Knowledge
Table 4
Types of Community
Knowledge
1 (most important) 2 3 4 5 6 (least important)
D1 Feedback, game
experiences,
questions
Equal importance

14. 14
D2 Feedback, game
information, complaints
Feedback
D3 Feedback, suggestions,
game experiences,
questions
Number of reactions Feedback
D4 Feedback, suggestions,
criticism
Criticism Feedback Suggestions
D5 Feedback, suggestions,
fan work, technical
complaints,questions,
community talk
Technical complaints Suggestions
S1 Feedback, questions, bug
reports, fan mail
Bug reports (negative
input)
Positiveinput
S2 General perception,
questions, remarks, bug
reports
General perception
S3 NA
F1 Bug reports, complaints
andquestions, fan mail
Bug reports
F2 Feedback, fan mail, bug
reports, questions
Questions
The Role of the Feedback Loop and Implementation
Firms monitor the feedback and, without exception, all feedback was reported to be taken
seriously. Whether they could use the feedback or not, they always communicated the
outcome to the consumers. This provides evidence for the existence of a feedback loop. In one
case, a firm received complaints from consumers who bought their game but could not play it.
Some consumers thought it would work on their device but discovered after purchase that
their device was not compatible with the software. The cause of the error was an unclear
system requirement. Although the mistake had not been made by the developers, and it
affected a small number of consumers only, complaints started to appear online and it created
negative feedback. As it would take the developers a lot of time to respond to every individual
comment, they came up with a solution: they created a central post for that specific forum in
the form of an essay about what exactly went wrong. The developers expressed their own
frustration as well, and promised that they were trying to solve the problem, despite the fact
that it concerned only few people. The consumers’ responded positively and they were
delighted that the issue was being tackled. They felt understood and did not mind waiting a
few months. It was a financial burden for the developers, but the positive spirit created in the
community enhanced their reputation.
In conclusion, community knowledge is largely classified along the same lines by all firms
but prioritized differently, and firms tend to be clueless as to what information is the most
important. The feedback loop is taken very seriously, however, and often implemented in

15. 15
firms’ business models. Moreover, consumers are kept informed about the progress of the
firms’ response to their feedback, even when the correction process does not run smoothly. As
a whole, all of the case firms agreed that the feedback loop is useful and that the information
was used to improve their business model. Not a single respondent indicated, however, that an
increase in community knowledge automatically implies multiple business model
modifications.
Conclusions, Discussion, and Avenues for Further Research
Scholars have paid little attention on how firms should manage eWOM strategies with the
exception of Hennig-Thurau et al., (2010) and Peters et al., (2013). Most studies focused on
the impact of eWOM on sales (Senecal and Nantel, 2004; Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006;
Forman, Ghose, and Wiesenfeld, 2008; Duan et al., 2008; Thurau et al. 2014) and the role of
the consumer (Toubia and Stephen, 2013; Java et al., 2009; Katona et al., 2011). Thus there is
a gap in the current literature that show what the impact of firms’ strategies on the
development of eWOM especially across different channels (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010;
Berger and Iyengar, 2013). We have address this in this study by exploring firms’ online
behavior across all channels, what kind of results are generated and which challenges for
small firms exist regarding eWOM management. Considering the fact that they have limited
marketing budgets and an equal opportunity to present themselves within the online
environment as their larger counterparts. Thus also having the opportunity to reach potential
customers on a global scale. The main question was how young, resource-scarce firms use
eWOM in this new context, where developments take place at a tremendous speed. An
adequate response to these developments requires knowledge, to be able to stay competitive
in an industry where new products are launched on a daily basis. We focused on the
marketing strategies these firms use; the perceived advantages when talking to consumers;
what their goals are and if they are able to identify quality market information. And if yes
what do they do with it.
Our study has shown some striking findings. A firm’s profit can be negatively affected if it is
not proactive in the field, which underlines the essential role of SNS in the survival of these
indies. This does not mean, however, that SNS is taken seriously by the industry. Although
participation among the firms is high, their amateurish methods are surprising. Consumers are
not merely passive recipients of product-related information; their behavior must be taken
much more seriously. They can find relevant information themselves from sources they
consider to be reliable. At the same time, they extend their social networks over time and
adopt multiple roles in the eWOM process. They might be an expert, a content sharer or an
active information seeker.
Surprisingly, the businesses never made a serious effort to examine in depth what type of
posting might increase consumers’ use of eWOM, although the literature shows how to
increase the likelihood of consumer participation (see, e.g. Dellarocas, 2006 and Dobele et al.,
2005). None of the indies in the present study used the recommendations. The findings of this
study suggest that proactiveness influences the number of postings, and that key influencers
have a positive impact on the total number of postings. Brand exposure is an important
indicator for joining the conversation. This concept is clearly relevant in the eWOM process.
Additional value can be assigned to the online feedback mechanisms, and being featured in an
app store. These instruments seem to have a strong impact on brand exposure, which is in line
with Duan et al. (2008). The case firms in our study focused on featuring and reaching out to
key influencers. In appeared that online feedback mechanisms do not get the attention they
deserve. Even though the platform holders control the feedback mechanisms so that firms

16. 16
cannot respond to the reviews directly, they still represent a valuable source of community
knowledge. Relationship building is another goal firms can strive for. Bonding with clients
enhances their willingness to participate in eWOM, support the firm, and pass along the
message. Since one of the objectives of the case firms is to try and create and extend their fan
base, this could be seen as a key form of bonding. However, we did not explore the sales
efficacy of this type of relationship building.
The study suggests that firms adopt the same approach to consumers across countries.
Although previous research has shown that cultural differences do play a role in consumers’
engagement in eWOM (Chu and Choi, 2011), firms do not take these differences into account
when attempting to persuade consumers to participate. This may lead to a gap between the
firms’ perspective and the consumers’ perspective. The relationships among consumers can
be a reason for them to exchange personal experiences and share information, but the case
firms undervalue this as well. Companies tend to focus on the relationship between
themselves and their consumers, thus overlooking the relationships that exist among
consumers. This is a serious oversight in the firms’ eWOM strategy. Effective social
interaction requires flexibility since social roles are not fixed and firms have to adapt to
different types of interaction. This is a gap in the literature. The suggested different types of
social interaction sharing, gaming, expressing and networking Peters et al., (2013) deserve
further attention since in this study we have only focused on the role of sharing.
One of the interesting results of our study is that collecting community knowledge could be
considered a form of low cost online market research, since this knowledge improves the
insight in the consumers’ evaluation, satisfaction, trust and complaints, consumer brand,
product and company awareness, and consumer loyalty, which may be used for product,
service and relationship development. While this study has stressed the importance of
community knowledge, previous research did not pay much attention to it, in general. Instead,
most studies focused upon specific attributes, such as brand attitude (Chu and Kamal, 2008),
argument quality (Cheung, Lee, and Rabjohn, 2008), purchase decision (Riegner, 2007), and
sense of belonging (Zhao, Lu, Wang, Chau, and Zhang, 2012).
This paper addresses some important issues regarding eWOM. It sheds light on the way firms
shape their eWOM strategies for social media platforms and the extent to which they take
consumers’ perspectives into account. It zoomed in on the social media platform and outlined
the role of influencers. Further, it discussed how firms perceive and value the outcomes of
eWOM on social media platforms and how it is implemented in the value chain. This study
may have important implications for CEOs of Internet-based firms. It described the various
instruments available for promoting eWOM. These instruments are: posting content,
continuous monitoring of eWOM in different channels, online feedback mechanisms, and
involving key influencers to stimulate dispersion and volume. We proposed to use these as an
alternative to the dominant trial-and-error approach. The key to success lies in ongoing social
interaction and an accurate identification of the actors. Moreover, measures of the
effectiveness of social interaction help firms to control the value chain and improve
performance. Firms need to know which kind of combination of metrics provide them with
the best market insights. It is important to have a specific purpose for each social media
instrument. If a firm does not know why they use a specific medium it is impossible to
measure its effect e.g. is a 100 Facebook followers better than 100 retweets? We argue that,
relative to waiting passively for consumer reactions on the Internet, firms should proactively
use eWOM and avoid a standardized consumer approach. It will stimulate community
knowledge since choosing the right metrics will improve the quality of the received
information. Firms that are unaware how to measure properly will experience a negative

17. 17
impact on the quality of information, Stuart, (2009). This might be the reason that there is no
policy what to do with the received community knowledge. This is a missed opportunity and
we also would like to point out that this is a gap for further research.
This study comes with some limitations. First of all, the firms in the sample did keep records
of other sources of information. Unfortunately, there were no other documents or records
available to base the conclusions on multiple sources of evidence. Absence of these sources is
also typical for small and young firms. It must also be noted that the qualitative perspective of
this research limits the generalizability of the conclusions. The results should be interpreted
with due caution. At the same time this study involves a three-country comparison, it suggests
that conditions among countries may not vary. The results are therefore valuable for other
Internet-based firms across industries. We suggest to lift this study to a larger scale, to
increase the sample size and to test the propositions quantitatively to overcome the limitations
of the present study. This study seems to provide a relevant basis for additional research.
First, we recommend examining the possibilities for measuring the effectiveness of firms’
eWOM strategies on SNS. Second, we suggest examining the firms’ perspective and the
consumers’ perspective on social interaction in order to find out when these might match.
While firms do not seem to distinguish among consumers on the basis of their cultural
background, culture may be an important factor in content sharing. In general, firms’
knowledge about Internet consumers’ characteristics is underdeveloped and is in need of
further research. Third, the role of influencers has received little attention in the eWOM
context and deserves further exploration. Finally, influencers might also play a role in the
firm/consumer social interaction and not only serve as a moderator.
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