Knowledge Sharing Online - Information Communication Technologies for Human Services Education and Delivery - page 236

directed at other consumers about ownership, or
characteristics of particular goods and services
and/or their sellers' (Westbrook, 1987, p.261).
Simply, WOM referrals are verbal communica-
tion between people and include influential com-
munication about product/services among actual
and potential consumers, referred to as WOM
advertising (Datta et al., 2005). From a market-
ing perspective, WOM referrals are efficient and
effective persuasion methods, compared with
traditional advertising media such as television
or radio advertising. Research by Herr, Kardes
& Kim, 1991, demonstrates that consumers
have influential power for constructing positive
attitudes and decision making processes towards
products and services.
Online Word of Mouth (e-WOM) is 'any posi-
tive 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' (Hennig-Thurau,
Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler, 2004, p.39). The most
distinctive traits of e-WOM are that information
and knowledge transfer occurs in online contexts
both synchronously and asynchronously over 24
hours a day and 7 days a week while the traditional
WOM is usually performed in synchronic face
to face settings (White & Dorman, 2001). Ad-
ditionally, e-WOM allows people to have much
more communication and knowledge sharing with
anonymous people in virtual contexts as well as
their close friends or family (Hennig-Thurau et
al., 2004).
e-WOM is growing rapidly via various types
of interpersonal media (Brown, Broderick, & Lee,
2007). The most representative examples of online
media spurring e-WOM are social networking sites
(SNSs) such as Facebook.com or Myspace.com.
Applied in marketing these online media facilitate
the exchange of views, personal opinions and
information about products, services and brands.
This knowledge exchange and sharing critically
affects purchasing decisions (Brown et al., 2007).
Furthermore, the popularity and strong influence

of online peer review and recommendations fuels
the marketing industry to invest in websites for
consumer and peer reviews and feedback. These
sites include BizRate.com and Epinion.com
(Smith, Menon, & Sivakumar, 2005).
Viral Marketing is a “marketing technique that
seeks to exploit pre-existing social networks to
produce exponential increases in brand aware-
ness, through processes similar to the spread of
an epidemic” (Datta et al., 2005, p. 72). In other
words, viral marketing is a marketing strategy
encouraging people's positive knowledge about
products and brands to be distributed to others
like a virus (Datta et al., 2005). While some re-
searchers insist that viral marketing is just another
type of WOM activity (Phelps et al., 2005), the
most critical difference between viral marketing
and WOM is the dependence on information
from commercial sources. While WOM is totally
independent of traditional commercial influence,
viral marketing is a business strategy using natural
WOM communication to achieve corporate goals
(Carl, 2006).

factorS influencing online
knoWleDge SHaring

Online WOM can be conducted with anyone, even
with strangers regardless of any physical proxim-
ity or boundary (Datta et al., 2005). Compared to
traditional media and face to face communication,
online media allows people to communicate and
share information with others outside their usual
networks. Constant et al. (1996) argue that people
cannot always access appropriate and valuable
information from their close ties. Online knowl-
edge sharing via ICT media affords people access
to valuable knowledge from potentially global
networks.
The unbounded nature of online knowledge
sharing is beneficial to health promotion and com-
munity education. If social educators disseminate
their educational material via online ICT media,