Social Networking and Consumer Buying Behavior: Is the Reign of "Word-Of-Mouth" Back?

Abstract

Increasingly, the Internet has been regarded as a marketing channel that opens space for differentiated and personalized communication between businesses and consumers (Kloter & Keller, 2006). For some companies, new Internet tools that impact the buying behavior of consumers have been steadily increasing in competitiveness and complexity. However, there are still few studies on this subject. From this perspective, the objective of this article was to understand how new Internet tools, especially web 2.0, influence the buying behavior of consumers. To this end, we carried out an exploratory, quantitative approach, using structured interviews, and SPSS software for data processing. Part of the results indicates that the sophistication of the consumer is a trend and that it is stronger in certain groups of consumers and product categories. There are also indications that the familiar "word-of-mouth" has changed and is becoming more sophisticated with the rise of social networks.