Guiding Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) Through Organic Social Media for Effective Strategic Communications: a Literature Review Cover Image

Guiding Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) Through Organic Social Media for Effective Strategic Communications: a Literature Review
Guiding Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) Through Organic Social Media for Effective Strategic Communications: a Literature Review

Author(s): Aybars Tuncdogan, Aidan Hughes
Subject(s): Media studies, Political Sciences, Politics and communication, Theory of Communication, Social psychology and group interaction, Health and medicine and law, Marketing / Advertising, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: digital communications; social media; word-of-mouth (WOM); literature review; strategic communications; strategic communication;

Summary/Abstract: The advantages of social media, including rapid information dissemination and easy access at little or no cost to the user, have placed them at the heart of communications. As a result, regardless of who they are (e.g., governmental organisation, NGO, terrorist group), all strategic communicators today have to utilise social media. More specifically, it is necessary for strategic communicators to have a good understanding of how to guide word-of-mouth communications. While there is an emerging dialogue in the strategic communications journals about social media, it is still at a nascent stage. However, this area has received substantial attention from marketing scholars over the years. In this literature review paper, we aim to contribute to the development of this growing stream of research by summarising findings of the marketing literature on social media and word-of-mouth communications that are useful for strategic communications purposes. Overall, this paper has implications for the theory and practice of strategic communications.

  • Issue Year: 11/2022
  • Issue No: 11
  • Page Range: 115-150
  • Page Count: 36
  • Language: English
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