Using Incentives to Encourage Word-of-Mouth Transmissions That Lead To Fast Information Diffusion

Unlike traditional advertising campaigns or sales promotions, word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing relies on consumer-to-consumer interactions to spread awareness, generate interest, and drive sales. Importantly, not only do marketers hope for positive WOM, they hope it spreads rapidly. Fast information diffusion is important in many marketing situations, particularly in competitive environments and when firms have limited timeframes in which to achieve objectives. According to prior research, the best way to speed up WOM based information diffusion is for firms to target consumers who are highly connected (i.e., social hubs). Extant research shows that once information (or a product) is passed on by a social hub diffusion speeds up because these WOM transmitters have access to more people than “normal” consumers (Goldenberg et al. 2009; Hinz et al. 2011). However, directly targeting social hubs is not always possible because they are, by definition, relatively limited in number. Further, outside of public online social networks such as Twitter, it is difficult to identify these types of consumers. In light of these problems, it may often infeasible for marketers to base WOM marketing campaigns on directly targeting hubs.