Abstract
Sharing on social media not only relies on our intrinsic motivations but also can be induced by the extrinsic motivations such as referral rewards. Although our previous study demonstrated that incentivizing tourists to create postings could influence peer consumers’ behavioral intentions (i.e., purchase and word-of-mouth intentions) and social media engagement, we noticed that it was the content which was created under the incentive design drove all the impacts. Therefore, in this study, we extracted the content characteristics from the tourists’ postings we collected. Results indicated that the referral rewards systems (RRSs) we introduced could shape what tourists share, and the content characteristics such as positive emotional, utilitarian, high-level and low-level construal have different effects on peer consumers’ social media engagement and behavioral intentions. Our findings aid researchers and practitioners in understanding how to design successful RRSs and how to create viral content on social media.
Paper Type
Event
How Referral Rewards Systems Shape What Tourists Share on Social Media
Sharing on social media not only relies on our intrinsic motivations but also can be induced by the extrinsic motivations such as referral rewards. Although our previous study demonstrated that incentivizing tourists to create postings could influence peer consumers’ behavioral intentions (i.e., purchase and word-of-mouth intentions) and social media engagement, we noticed that it was the content which was created under the incentive design drove all the impacts. Therefore, in this study, we extracted the content characteristics from the tourists’ postings we collected. Results indicated that the referral rewards systems (RRSs) we introduced could shape what tourists share, and the content characteristics such as positive emotional, utilitarian, high-level and low-level construal have different effects on peer consumers’ social media engagement and behavioral intentions. Our findings aid researchers and practitioners in understanding how to design successful RRSs and how to create viral content on social media.
Recommended Citation
Yu, G. & Zou, D. (2016). How Referral Rewards Systems Shape What Tourists Share on Social Media. In J. Gołuchowski, M. Pańkowska, C. Barry, M. Lang, H. Linger, & C. Schneider (Eds.), Information Systems Development: Complexity in Information Systems Development (ISD2016 Proceedings). Katowice, Poland: University of Economics in Katowice. ISBN: 978-83-7875-307-0. http://aisel.aisnet.org/isd2014/proceedings2016/CreativitySupport/7.