Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
(2004) refer to individuals who actively share and
recommend product and service information as
“magic” people. By frequently sharing informa-
tion, these people effectively increase awareness
and knowledge across their social networks and
do so voluntarily.
Traditionally the sharing of marketing-related
information among consumers has been consid-
ered one of the most influential marketing methods
(Datta et al., 2005). Interpersonal communication
and knowledge sharing among consumers has
powerful effects on the formation of consumer
attitudes and behaviors toward products and ser-
vices and especially toward new ones. Compared
with traditional advertising and “personal selling,”
the promotion strategy performed by consumer
knowledge sharing is considered to be much more
effective (Gruen, Osmonbekov, & Czaplewski,
2006). Seventy-nine per cent of Internet users
report using e-mail to communicate with their
immediate and extended family (Rainie, Fox,
Horrigan, Lenhart, & Spooner, 2000), suggest-
ing that the interpersonal nature of the Internet
encourages consumer knowledge sharing in virtual
environments (Datta et al., 2005).
The marketing field already has documented
many successful cases exploiting online knowl-
edge sharing. One of the earliest organizations to
apply interactive knowledge sharing via online
media was Hotmail (Subramani & Rajagopalan,
2003). Initially Hotmail subscribers numbered less
than a million with the number of users increasing
eight fold after only eight months because of peer-
to-peer information sharing (Constant, Sproull, &
Kiesler, 1996; Subramani & Rajagopalan, 2003).
Online knowledge sharing strategies have also
been applied in journalism. Online daily news-
papers worldwide encourage their readers to send
content of interest to others by including prompts
stating, 'send this story to a friend'. This func-
tionality allows readers to easily distribute these
URLs through their personal networks. DeltaAir-
lines and Google use an increasingly multimedia
approach for dissemination by leveraging online
videos to share knowledge about their products
and services with their consumers (Herschel &
Yermish, 2008; Webdriven, 2007). For example,
Delta offers videos containing travel tips and
Google created videos explaining how to enhance
the functionality of their search engine (Herschel
& Yermish, 2008, Vascelloaro, 2007).
The potential of online knowledge sharing
is not limited to marketing. According to Carl's
(2006) analysis, the most frequent online discus-
sion topic in virtual communities focused on
“life and living” (24.8 per cent) which includes
family, education, food and dining and romantic
relationships while the conversation frequency
regarding marketing-related issues and products
and services represents only about 12 per cent.
In addition, it has been suggested that practitio-
ners and educators promoting pro-social issues
in the fields of health and human services must
consider knowledge sharing online because of
its popularity (Carl, 2006; White, & Dorman,
2001). However, little research has investigated
the effectiveness of online knowledge sharing
as a tool for health promotion and community
education.
online knoWleDge SHaring
anD Social Support
Early research findings on online knowledge
sharing suggest that it performs a secondary func-
tion of promoting social support online (White
& Dorman, 2001). Social support is defined as
the interactions amongst people that support and
satisfy their social needs (Kaplan, Cassel, & Gore,
1977). People use ICTs to maintain social support
peer groups through which they share knowledge
and information with each other. The result is a
better quality of life for group members and the
social support resources available assists with
difficult decision making (White & Dorman,
2001). Thus, for many people, online communi-
ties enhance their quality of life.
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