Abstract:
The ubiquity of the internet and online social platforms has led to social media addiction
where people spend significant amounts of time spend creating and consuming content
online. Therefore there was need to investigate whether these habitual behaviours of
online content creation relate to communications about products and services such as
word of mouth. The purpose of this study was to examine whether past word of mouth
behaviour can predict future behaviour and whether it can become habitual.
An online survey was administered to online users for them to report on how frequently
they posted their restaurant experiences and their perceptions of how much they do this
automatically. By grouping the respondents into three frequency groups (low, medium,
high), the results showed that past word of mouth behaviour predicted future behaviour
but only through attitudes towards word of mouth. The results also demonstrated that
indeed, positive electronic word of mouth can become habitual, particularly due to people
expressing their self-concept as they publicly display their product consumptions.
This study concludes by providing recommendations for managers and directs future
research on how consumer habits can be leveraged in word of mouth communications.
