A study on female blog readers’ attitudes toward ewom and buzz marketing in beauty blogs

• Main Authors: Chia, De Hsin, 賈德欣
• Other Authors: Lai, Chien Tu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/88872642562776833703

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 國際傳播英語碩士學位學程(IMICS) === 98 === Ever since “blog” was selected by Merriam-Webster's dictionary as the word of year 2004, the development of blogs has been prospering. More and more bloggers are viewed by blog readers as new opinion leaders on their impact of information-sharing and purchasing decision-making. This study will pay closer attention to one certain category of blog readers—the beauty blog readers and their attitudes toward the emerging phenomenon among bloggers— from simply sharing information to spreading the buzz (online word-of-mouth, or eWOM), and eventually leading to rewarded blog post with incentives. Such business behavior is conceptualized as buzz marketing, which has been arousing dilemma about blogger honesty and credibility. Both qualitative and quantitative methods will be applied in this study. In first stage, in-depth interviews with well-known beauty bloggers were conducted to first provide with preliminary yet detailed understanding of how word of mouth operates and the existing buzz marketing among beauty blogs. Quantitative surveys will be designed based on the findings from first stage, and then be distributed among beauty blog readers to further examine that consumers’ attitudes toward bloggers’ credibility associate with their purchasing behavior. Likewise, consumers’ satisfaction toward blog content may influence their attention paid to WOM in blogs, willingness to conduct Word-of-mouth referrals, and actual purchasing behavior.