With increasing popularity of online social media, more consumers are now using online social media for seeking consumption advice, particularly the use of self-service technologies such as online flight reservation and check-in services. Therefore, this study attempts to fill the above two gaps in the literature by developing a theoretical model testing the impact of consumer individual attributes and consumption experience on voluntary experience sharing in online social media. Specifically, the individual attributes examined in this study are two important constructs, i.e. consumer innovativeness and subjective knowledge; the consumption experience is based on frequent flyers’ experience of online flight check-in service which include the constructs of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and trust; and the experience sharing activities refer to frequent flyers’ participation in discussion in the online frequent flyers forums. This PPT was present in Academy of Marketing Conference, Bournemouth (UK)

1. Consumer experience sharing in
online social media:
Individual characteristics and consumption
experience
Dr. Zhibin Lin - Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK
Prof. Mauro de Oliveira – Centro Universitário da FEI, São Paulo, Brazil
AM2014 – Marketing Dimensions: People, Places and spaces.
NewCastle
Business School

2. Introduction
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
• Increasing popularity of online social
media
• More consumers are now using online
social media for seeking consumption
advice
• Understanding the factors driving
users to voluntarily contribute
knowledge and share information in
online social media is important for
both theory and practice

3. Aims and objectives
• There are two gaps in the literature.
– First, there is a lack of considerations of
individual attributes (Wiertz & de Ruyter,
2007). Individual attributes such as
consumer innovativeness may help
researchers and marketers understand
why consumers contribute their
experience and knowledge in online
media.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

4. Aims and objectives
– Second, there is little research into how
technology use experience influences
customer’s participation in experience
sharing in online social media, despite
the extensive research on the impact of
customer satisfaction and trust on
positive word of mouth in the relationship
marketing literature (Briggs & Grisaffe, 2010;
Brown, Barry, Dacin, & Gunst, 2005; Garbarino
& Johnson, 1999; Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, &
Gremler, 2002; Keaveney, 1995; Ladhari, 2007;
Matos & Rossi, 2008; Morgan & Hunt, 1994).
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

5. Aims and objectives
• Therefore, this study attempts to fill the
above two gaps in the literature by
developing a theoretical model testing the
impact of consumer individual
attributes and consumption experience
on voluntary experience sharing in
online social media.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

6. Conceptual Model/Hypotheses
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
H1: Higher levels of innovativeness lead to
higher levels of experience sharing in online
social media.

7. Conceptual Model/Hypotheses
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
H2: Higher levels of subjective knowledge
lead to higher levels of experience sharing in
online social media.

8. Conceptual Model/Hypotheses
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
H3: Subjective knowledge partially mediates
the relationship between innovativeness and
experience sharing in online social media.

9. Conceptual Model/Hypotheses
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
H4: Higher levels of perceived ease of
consumption lead to higher levels of
experience sharing in online social media.

10. Conceptual Model/Hypotheses
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
H5: Higher levels of perceived usefulness of
consumption lead to higher levels of
experience sharing in online social media

11. Conceptual Model/Hypotheses
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
H6: Perceived usefulness partially mediates
the relationships between perceived ease of
use and experience sharing in online social
media.

12. Conceptual Model/Hypotheses
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
H7: Higher levels of consumption trust lead to
higher levels of experience sharing in online
consumption communities.

13. Method
• Web-based survey of airline passenger
self-service check-in experience using
internet.
• Participants were recruited from a national
frequent flyer forum in China.
• Only those who have previously used
online flight check-in service were
qualified to participate.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

14. Sample Profile
Sample (n=212):
• 66% male and 34% female.
• The majority of the respondents (89%) were in the
age bracket between 30 and 39 years old,
• Majority (91%) have a tertiary education
qualification.
• They were mainly white-collar workers such as
company managers (40%) or professionals (35%).
 This profile matches the general profile of the frequent
flyer forum’s users.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

15. Results…
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

16. Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
 The results show
that high
reliability.
 Convergent
validity can also
be established.

17. Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
 All item loadings
on the respective
construct are
higher than
others, another
indication of
discriminant
validity!

18. Results
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
 To further confirm the discriminant validity, this
table shows that:
 Squared roots of AVE are higher than any pair of
construct correlations.

19. Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
The path coefficients of the direct
effects and t-values are also presented
in this figure. The results show that:
1. Consumer innovativeness has a
strong impact on experience
sharing, supporting H1.
2. Support was also found for H2,
which suggests the positive
relationships between knowledge
and experience sharing.

20. Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
The path coefficients of the direct
effects and t-values are also presented
in this figure. The results show that:
3. The relationship between perceived
ease of use and experience sharing
was not significant, rejecting H4.
4. Consistent with H5, perceived
usefulness has positive
relationship with experience
sharing, but the relationship is rather
weak.

21. Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
The path coefficients of the direct
effects and t-values are also presented
in this figure. The results show that:
5. The path coefficient from trust to
experience sharing is not
significant, thus H7 was not
supported.

22. Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
1. Innovativeness has both a significant direct effect and a total
effect on experience sharing through knowledge, thus confirms
that knowledge performs a partial mediating role between
innovativeness and experience sharing, supporting H3.

23. Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience
2. Perceived ease of use has a significant yet weak total effect on
experience sharing, and given that it has no significant direct effect
on experience sharing, the effect is fully mediated through perceived
usefulness, thus supporting a revised H6 as a full mediation hypothesis.

24. Contributions
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

25. Contributions
1a. The study provides strong evidence
that consumer innovativeness has
both direct effect and indirect effect
on experience sharing in online social
media through self perception of
knowledge.
The evidence indicates that consumer
voluntary experience sharing is driven
out of intrinsic motive of self
enhancement (Packard & Wooten, 2013;
Wasko & Faraj, 2005).
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

26. 2. ‘Perceived ease of use’
and ‘perceived
usefulness’ predict
experience sharing, with
‘perceived usefulness’
performs a full mediation
role, yet the relationships
are somewhat weak.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

27. 3. Contrary to expectations, higher levels of
consumption trust did not lead to higher
levels of experience sharing in online
consumption communities.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

28. Implications for Marketing
Strategy
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

29. Managers should try to identify
innovative consumers to
encourage their use of service
technology.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

30. Online social media can be both
repositories of consumption knowledge
and electronic word of mouth.
Firms could collaborate with online social
media and direct their customers to
those communities for knowledge seeking
and service support so as to significantly
reduce service costs.
Firms could also set up their own online
community sites and help customers
create and disseminate their knowledge.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

31. Managers could consider
assign recognition status to
expert users, such as silver,
gold, platinum, diamond
members, just like those grades
in frequent flyer programs.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

32. Firms should aim to provide
customers with exciting
consumption experience, as
mediocre service is unlikely to
trigger customers to share their
experience in online social
media.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

33. Limitation and
future research
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

34. The context of this study was limited to a
single consumption subject - online flight
check-in.
Future research could compare the research
model in other consumption contexts.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

35. Further research on online social media
will generate fruitful findings by integrating
such predictors as consumption emotions
(excitement, regret, frustration, etc.),
personality attributes such as risk
aversion, and outcome variables such as
online opinion seeking and subsequent
consumption decision behavior.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

36. Finally, a more rigorous sampling technique
and larger size could help improve the
representativeness of the sample and
generalization of the findings.
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience

37. Thank you for your attention
Any questions?
Dr. Zhibin Lin - zhibin.lin@northumbria.ac.uk
Prof. Mauro de Oliveira – maurojornalista@fei.edu.br
Consumer experience sharing in online social media: Individual characteristics and consumption experience