| More and more customers are discussing in microblog about brand or product with the rapid development of social media, which complicates the brand management environment. Thus, researchers are paying attention on the impact of microblog word-of-mouth on consumer’s brand attitude. This research refers to the theory and method in influence factors of online word-of-mouth spread, consumer’s brand attitude, consumer’s behavior etc. The characteristics of microblog word-of-mouth is studied with the help of content analysis and we research the effect of negative microblog word-of-mouth on consumer’s brand attitude by using questionnaire survey. The main findings of this research contains:(1) Although microblog word-of-mouth is a new form of online word-of-mouth, it still owns some specific characteristics. The sentiment analysis result shows that the majority of microblog word-of-mouth is positive or negative. Compared with traditional online word-of-mouth, microblog word-of-mouth is shorter in content and thus easier to be produced and consumed. It is more possible for the microblog word-of-mouth with multimedia information such as photo and video to be diffused and discussed.(2) Negative microblog word-of-mouth makes a significant negative effect on consumer’s brand attitude. Besides, consumer’s initial brand attitude affects brand attitude change significantly. The effect of microblog word-of-mouth on consumer’s brand attitude is moderated by a series of moderating variable including expertise of receiver, expertise of sender, word-of-mouth actively search, tie strength and platform trustworthiness. The higher expertise of sender, the greater effect of microblog word-of-mouth on consumer’s brand attitude. The higher expertise of receiver, the lower effect of microblog word-of-mouth on consumer’s brand attitude. The higher word-of-mouth actively search, the greater effect of microblog word-of-mouth on consumer’s brand attitude. The higher microblog platform trustworthiness, the greater effect of microblog word-of-mouth on consumer’s brand attitude. There are significantly difference among all three tie types in microblog on consumer’s brand attitude.This research makes contribution in the following aspects:(1) Both the definition and characteristics of microblog word-of-mouth are systematically analyzed and studied in this research. Most of the existing literature made a qualitative research on microblog and are lack of quantitative research, this research quantitatively studies microblog word-of-mouth content by using content analysis method and makes a quantitative description on its characteristics and categories.(2) On basis of the model of online word-of-mouth’s effect on consumer’s brand attitude, an empirical research is carried under microblog to study the effect of microblog word-of-mouth on consumer’s brand attitude. This research is a scientific exploration in microblog marketing practice and contributes to theory of online word-of-mouth effect.(3) By combining the result of empirical research and theory research and the microblog marketing practice, the marketing implications are proposed in purpose of making a better consumer and company word-of-mouth communication in microblog. |
