Timing matters: How to draw favorable consumer evaluations through SNS

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate how temporal distance and message type can change consumers’ response to product information available in social network service (SNS). SNS users were recruited to evaluate the restaurant after viewing a SNS page consisting of messages written by either other SNS users or the restaurant. Participants’ evaluation for the restaurant varied depending on both temporal distance and SNS message type rather than their solely impact as previous literature implied. MANOVA analyses showed that when evaluating the restaurant for the near future event, respondents evaluated it more favorably when they read the SNS messages generated by user than the restaurant. However, for the distant future event, their evaluation did not vary based on neither temporal distance nor SNS message types. The interactive effect of temporal distance and SNS message type had influence on respondents’ perception of usefulness of information, changing their evaluation on the restaurant. This study contributes to the existing findings on the effect of SNS on consumer decisions. The results of the study imply that firms need to carefully manage SNS messages by considering consumers’ perspective regarding temporal distance. In addition, SNS messages would be more effective when consumers perceived SNS information as useful. © 2018, Indian Journal of Public Health Research and Development. All rights reserved.