Factors affecting word of mouth a study of facebook fan pages

As a result, those factors, which have huge impact on the word­of­mouth, are Content value including Functional value and Hedonic value, and Interaction value of the Facebook brand fan­p

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Tran Ngoc Tu

FACTORS AFFECTING WORD-OF-MOUTH:

A STUDY OF FACEBOOK FAN PAGES

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Tran Ngoc Tu

FACTORS AFFECTING WORD-OF-MOUTH:

A STUDY OF FACEBOOK FAN PAGES

ID: 21110026

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014

in quickly answering and support

Second, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Nguyen Dong Phong, Professor Nguyen Dinh Tho, and Dr Tran Ha Minh Quan for their valuable time as the members of the proposal examination committee My sincere thanks are also to all the members of ISB create the best convenience for me as well as ISB students during the course Thirdly, I would like to thank my dear colleagues, friend and classmates for their invaluable advice, encouragement and help me collect the research data Last but not least, I would like to express my great thanks to my family for their encouragement and assistance for my three years study the master course and finish this thesis

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ABSTRACT

Vietnam has been one of the fastest growing countries in Internet and social networking sites for years Facebook is the most popular social media site, nearly 25 million of the 36 million Internet users in Vietnam (VietnamNet, 2014) Understanding the influences of Facebook to the youngster’s behavior, many business organizations build fan­pages on the social media site to build better connection with their customers

Identifying the factors affecting brand word­of­mouth through the study of Facebook fan­pages can help the organization understanding the motivation of Facebook users who involving in their brand fan­page As a result, those factors, which have huge impact on the word­of­mouth, are Content value (including Functional value and Hedonic value), and Interaction value of the Facebook brand fan­page Therefore this research can help improving business if people know which ones

to investment

Keywords: word-of-mouth, brand fan-page, Facebook, Vietnam

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Science software

SMM Social media marketing

SNS Social networking sites

B2C Business­to­customer

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: Top 10 Social Media Sites Among Internet Users in Vietnam, April 2013 1

Table 4.1: Sample characteristics 30

Table 4.2: Functional Variables Item­Total Statistics 31

Table 4.3: Reliability test results 33

Table 4.4: Rotated Component Matrix 34

Table 4.5: Final Rotated Component Matrix 36

Table 4.6: Casewise Diagnostics 38

Table 4.7: Multiple Regression ANOVA 39

Table 4.8: Mutiple Regression Coefficients 40

Table 4.9: Simple Regression ANOVA 41

Table 4.10: Simple Regression Coefficients 42

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.2: Conceptual Model 18 Figure 3.1: Research process 24 Figure 4.1: Hofstede interculture dimemsions comparision 45

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iii

LIST OF TABLES iv

LIST OF FIGURES v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Research Problem 3

1.3 Research Objectives 5

1.4 Research Methodology 5

1.5 Research Scope 5

1.6 Structure of the Research 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Social networking sites 8

2.2 Brand Communities 9

2.3 Facebook 10

2.4 Brand Fan­pages 11

2.5 Motivation of Facebook Brand Fan Pages 12

2.6.1 Fan­page functional value 13

2.6.2 Fan­page hedonic value 14

2.6.3 Social interaction value 14

2.6.4 Self­concept value 15

2.7 Word of Mouth 16

2.8 Proposal model and hypotheses 18

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Research method 20

3.2 Research design 20

3.2.1 Informants of the study 20

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3.2.2 Sample size and Sampling method 21

3.2.3 Measurement scale 21

3.3 Research process 24

3.3.1 Qualitative research 24

3.3.2 Quantitative research 26

3.3.3 Data analyzing 27

3.4 Data analysis method 28

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 29

4.1 General characteristic of the research sample 29

4.2 Reliability test: The Cronbach’s alpha test 30

4.2.1 Fan­page functional value 31

4.2.2 Fan­page hedonic value 31

4.2.3 Social interaction value 32

4.2.4 Self­concept value 32

4.2.5 Fan­page usage intensity 32

4.2.6 Word­of­Mouth 32

4.3 Exploratory factor analysis 34

4.4 Multiple regression analysis 37

4.4.1 Assumption 1: The linear relationship 37

4.4.2 Assumption 2: Homoscedasticity of residuals 38

4.4.3 Assumption 3: No multicollinearity 38

4.4.4 Assumption 4: No significant outliers 38

4.4.5 Assumption 5: Residuals are normally distributed 38

4.4.7 Result of multiple regression analysis 39

4.5 Simple regression analysis 40

4.5.1 Assumption 1: Homoscedasticity of residuals 41

4.5.2 Assumption 2: Residuals are normally distributed 41

4.5.5 Result of simple regression analysis 41

4.6 Hypotheses assessment and discussion 42

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 46

5.1 Conclusion 46

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5.2 Managerial implications 48

5.2.1 Social interaction value 49

5.2.2 Fan­page functional value 50

5.2.3 Fan­page hedonic value 50

5.3 Limitations 51

REFERENCES 52

APPENDIX A: QUESTIONARIES 59

APPENDIX B: SURVEY RESULTS 67

APPENDIX C: MULTIPLE LINEAR REGRESSION 70

APPENDIX D: SIMPLE LINEAR REGRESSION 73

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research Background

The world is living in the information age and the social networks have

unpredictable growth last few years According to Internet World Stats (2013), there were about 2.8 billion Internet users as of 31 December 2013 worldwide, which increased nearly 676.3%, compare with 361 million Internet users worldwide in 2000 Social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn are playing more important roles in business communications According to McKinsey (2012) there are more than 1.5 billion users on using social networks, 70% companies advocated social media technologies to transform businesses and improve organizational performance

Table 1.1: Top 10 Social Media Sites Among Internet Users in Vietnam, April

2013

Total unique visitors (millions)

Total minutes (millions of minutes)

Total visits (millions)

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At the same time, Vietnam is one of Facebook fastest­growing countries in the world last few years Vietnam hit 8.5 million users in October 2012, but in May 2014, Facebook reached nearly 25 million users in the country (VietnamNet, 2014) Vietnam

is adding one million Facebook users per month Given this rate of growth, Vietnam will hit 30 million by October 2014 (Millward, 2014) Therefore, social networking sites such as Facebook, which have a big impact on Vietnamese people’s lives

Meanwhile in the global trends, the social networks are increasingly replacing traditional media for marketing and communications They have become a major factor in influencing various aspects of consumer behavior including awareness, information acquisition, opinions, attitudes, purchase behavior, and post­purchase communication and evaluation (Mangold & Faulds, 2009, p 538) As such, for

business, social networks offer the potential for (1) advertising ­ by facilitating viral marketing, (2) product development ­ by involving consumers in the design process and (3) market intelligence ­ by observing and analyzing the user generated content (Richter et al 2011) The rapid growth of Facebook helps to open the potential of transmitting companies’ marketing messages to their customers and entering into a dialogue with them using the word­of­mouth (WOM) principles

Furthermore, business organizations continuously interact and analyze the consumers’ activities on their brand fan­page after setup and maintain them on

Facebook Social media marketing (SMM), a form of WOM marketing, is an outcome

of this trend (Kozinets et al., 2010) The SMM is not replacement for the traditional techniques; it is used as additional traditional marketing channel that could be

integrated with the traditional ones as a part of the marketing mix By monitoring and

opportunity As a consequence, being able to understanding the profound reasons of the engagement of Facebook fan­page, businesspersons need to know what people think and feel from different aspects of an issue Beneath the participation is the consciousness of benefits, analyzing human psychology toward the new trend can help the managers aware the factors affect to their success Applying suitable content marketing or integrated marketing for promotion strategy on social networking sites will bring the efficiency for their organization To contribute in this direction, in this research we find the factors that influence the level of WOM on Facebook brand fan­page

to reach customers through marketing activities and customers were passive

“receivers” of brand messages (Libai et al., 2010) Nowadays, both company and customer involve actively in a “conversation” about the brand, customers can be

Facebook is the largest social networking sites, which offers companies many options

to keep contact with their customers or fans Organizations nowadays utilize these tools to engage their fans and interact with them Fan­pages are created to deliver products’ information, much attractive content and get feedback from consumers (Borle et al., 2012)

In Vietnam last few years, many people set up their own business through Internet, particularly on Facebook and they doing marketing and selling things through internet sites As stated above, Vietnam has very impressive figures about the number

of people using social networking sites, so, what makes people get into social networking sites that much and to increase the participation of people into Facebook fan­pages, what are necessary things?

Besides, the reason of joining in social networking sites stems from different causes, for instance, individuals care for personal interests, while organizations think about their business Depending on particular purposes and objectives, each subject will develop their account in an appropriate way As we have seen, today, brand fan­pages are ideally for businesses in marketing communication However, lack of

empirical research on fan­pages and its role for the customer­brand relationship

Especially there is lack of empirical study for the consumer motivation to use brand fan­pages

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1.3 Research Objectives

Regarding the related research results are already published of social

networking sites using motivation and brand communities engagement This research aims to identify the key factors of Facebook fan­pages affecting consumers’ word­of­ mouth and the drivers, which make a successful brand fan­pages Specifically, this research will examine:

Impact of Fan-pages content (functional & hedonic) on fan-pages usage intensity Impact of Social Interaction on fan-page usage intensity

Impact of Self-concept on fan-page usage intensity

Impact of Fan-page usage intensity on Word-of-Mouth

1.4 Research Methodology

The research method is the combination of qualitative and quantitative research

It helps increase the accuracy and sufficiency of the study Applying qualitative

research to collect the ideas and opinions allows the adjustment of the study is made While, the quantitative research guarantees many people take the survey and allows the researcher to carry out the data analysis with more reliable results Statistical Package for the Social Science software (SPSS), an effective tool to analyze the data,

is used in data analysis chapter The steps are to test the reliability of the scales

(Cronbach’s Alpha), Factor Analysis Finally, the Regression is used to examine the relationship between independents variables and dependent variables

1.5 Research Scope

This study is to research the brand fan­pages on Facebook, the most popular Social Networking Sites (SNSs) in Vietnam The survey will be conducted online and

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limited in Vietnamese community People who response the questionnaire mostly come from the two biggest cities of Vietnam, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh Certainly, the respondents of this study must know about Facebook, have created an account on it, and join or like at least one brand fan­pages; otherwise, their answers are not qualified and cannot be used in the data analysis

1.6 Structure of the Research

The research consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter presents research background of the study, as well as, research problems, research objectives, research scopes

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Hypotheses

This chapter provides the literature review and previous studies, and then the research model of the study and the hypotheses are also discussed

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

In this chapter, the method used to design and implement the research base on the research objectives and scopes, the processes of doing the research are also

presented

Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Data Results

All the data collected from the survey are analyzed The final model of the research is built based on the results of those analyses Depending on output results from the analyzing, each factor will be deeply discussed how it affects word­of­mouth

in social networking sites

Chapter 5: Conclusions and Limitations

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Chapter 5 presents main conclusions and implications based on the results of the previous chapters, some suggestions for the improvement as well as the limitations

of this study

generated content (Kietzmann et al., 2011)

A SNS is defined as “web­based services that allow individuals to (1) construct

a public or semi­public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of

connections and those made by others within the system.” (Boyd and Ellison, 2010) Currently, social media sites vary in terms of their scope and functionality Some social media sites are for the general masses (i.e Facebook, Google+) while others (i.e LinkedIn) are focused on professional networks Media sharing sites (i.e

YouTube, Picasa and Flickr) or blogging platforms (i.e BlogSpot, WordPress) are also members of the social media ecology (Kietzmann et al., 2011)

Social network sites and Facebook have been studied from different

perspectives such as the network structure (Caci et al., 2012), characteristics of the users (Bhattacharyya et al., 2011), usage patterns (Golder et al., 2007), usage

motivations (Joinson, 2008), identity management and self­presentation (Labrecque et al., 2011), social interactions (Kostakos and Venkatanathan, 2010), and privacy and

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information disclosure (Debatin et al., 2009) However, little has been published about the use of Facebook and SNSs in the context of companies Social media providing a new channel for marketing that can access to a large number of consumers, grouped in non­geographically bound communities, based on a structured set of social

relationships among admirers of a brand, i.e brand communities (Schau et al., 2009)

In the business­to­customer (B2C) interactions and usage motivations on Facebook are

in the focus of this research

2.2 Brand Communities

Brand communities became very interested in branding research for more than

10 years Muniz and O’Guinn (2001, p 412) defined that “A brand community as specialized, non­geographically bound community, based on a structured set of social relationships among admires of a brand It is specialized because at its center is a branded good or service Like other communities, it is marked by shared

consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility.”

Furthermore, McAlexanderet al (2002) showed four crucial relationships in a brand community: between the customer and the brand, between the customer and the firm, between the customer and the product in use, and among fellow customers Woisetschlager et al (2008) found two reasons for consumer participation in brand communities: community satisfaction and degree of consumer influence within the community Moreover, they showed an effect from community participation on word­of­mouth, brand image, and community loyalty Kimet al (2008) showed that online community participants possess stronger brand commitment than consumers who are not members of the community

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Brand communities were proved to be a tool for increasing sales (Adjei at al., 2010) In addition, they have the potential of improving the relationship between the consumers and the brand (Sicilia and Palazon, 2008) and may influence members’ perceptions and actions (Muniz and Schau, 2007) Brand communities facilitate

interactions through exchange of opinions about the brand or a particular product among consumers, thus engaging their members in a form of WOM communication (McAlexander et al., 2002)

Consequently, regarding the existing research on brand communities, we can see community identification as a central influence for community participation Previous work has shown that brand community engagement can affect membership loyalty, brand image, and word­of­mouth (Bhattacharya et al., 1995) Thus,

community participation and membership can be seen as an important tool for a

successful branding strategy

2.3 Facebook

Facebook is a consumer­oriented network The social media web site, LinkedIn,

is an example of a more business­oriented network (Palmer and Koenig­Lewis, 2009,

p 165) Because Facebook is consumer­oriented, this affects the way that users

perceive Facebook and the ethical standards that they demand from the service

Furthermore, on Facebook, users create an account with a public or semi­public profile They then have the option of showing the identities of their friends, and

sharing photos and activity feeds (Palmer and Koenig­Lewis, 2009, p 165) Users can publish their own opinions, share with it others, and receive information about other connected people This leads to a form of collaboration, which creates new content

In addition, a study shows that Facebook is attractive to users because it builds

on: curiosity, we look at photos of friends and other people’s profiles; enjoyment, we are able to communicate with others; and excitement, we can send gifts and play

games with others (Palmer and Koenig­Lewis, 2009)

Facebook provides five possibilities for companies to utilize the site for

marketing purposes: (1) Facebook Ads, (2) Facebook Brand Pages, (3) Social Plugins, (4) Facebook Applications and (5) Sponsored Stories Of these, Facebook pages

provide the largest number of engagement possibilities by direct interaction with the consumers through dialog

2.4 Brand Fan-pages

Brand fan­pages are a special kind of brand community because they are

organized around a single brand, product, or company However there are some

differences between brand fan­pages on social networking sites and traditional online brand communities: brand fan­pages are embedded in an organic platform and not brand­related online network Thus, “friends” of a fan who not participated in a fan­page also see what a fan interacted on brand fan­page and attracted by the content of

2001, p 412) On the other hand, a brand fan­page on social networking sites is a connection between the user and the brand Therefore, there are some differences in motivation between brand fan­page traditional brand communities

Facebook offers companies several especially interesting tools for contacting and communicating with their customers Fan­pages are useful services for companies Fans are emotional engagement and are self­identification as fan (Kozinets et al., 2010) Fan communities nowadays can build worldwide without the limitation of geographical, thanks to the popular of Internet In particular, users become fans of a Facebook fan­page by pressing the “like­button” which show on their “wall­page” that they like this brand and these also be added to their profiles Fans’ personal Facebook news feed will display the new content of this fan­page automatically each time new information posted to, and they can post comments on the fan­page, or share the

interesting from this page as well as interact with other fans

2.5 Motivation of Facebook Brand Fan Pages

Existing research on social networking sites show that there are three main motivation areas for consumers’ using social networking sites The first is content

acquisition and sharing based on the personal interest, which can be functional value

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as well as hedonic value The second is a relationship; users are connected and interact with others on online social life, which called social interaction value Finally is self-

concept value, which is related to the social context but also serves more the purpose

of self­assurance and personal identity

2.5.1 Fan-page functional value

Almost studies in social networking sites are the using motivation, why people use these platforms Raacke and Bonds­Raacke (2008) found two main reasons for this: social connections like keeping in touch with friends and information sharing (e.g events or gossip) With a similar result, Foster et al (2010) found the perceived information values from the community and the connection to friends are main

motivations for users using social networking sites In the perception of obtaining information, there are two main types of value that a fan­page would deliver the functional and hedonic values (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982) Previous empirical studies in the social media field also supported this, in which, researchers found that users concern about information (Foster et al., 2010) and entertainment (Sheldon, 2008) on social media

According to Du Plessis (2010),functional value is one of three main

motivations, when a resource is shared on the fan­page and a member found it useful

Sweeney and Soutar (2001) conceptualize functional value as deriving from

customers’ evaluation of the quality, performance, and economic aspects of products Since brand fan­pages on Facebook mainly deliver information to customers, the quality of this information is key perceptions of functional value Customers may also join online brand communities in an attempt to obtain product­related knowledge

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(Nambisan & Baron, 2007) Functional value can include advice, information and

expertise on various topics of interest Therefore, the researcher proposes the

following hypothesis:

H1: Fan-page functional value positively affects the fan-page usage intensity

2.5.2 Fan-page hedonic value

Some studies also indicate an important role of entertainment during exploring content and sharing on social networking sites (Sheldon, 2008) Hedonic value implies seeking fun, play, enjoyment and experiences (Dhar and Wertenbroch, 2000)

Everybody locking for funny thing, especially young generation who are the main force on Facebook; they want to explore ‘new worlds of fantasy’ (Du Plessis, 2010) According to Van der Heijden (2004), the hedonic value of a web platform, an

information system such as a Facebook, can be determined by the degree of enjoyment

of end users Searching for fun and entertainment from the brand fan­page is one of most popular behavior of Facebook user, which also called hedonic motivation Thus,

fan-page hedonic value are related to finding a good way to spend time, wanting to be

entertained and having fun while visiting the fan­page

H2: Fan-page hedonic value positively affects the fan-page usage intensity

2.5.3 Social interaction value

Sweeney and Soutar (2001) conceptualize Social InteractionValue is users’

interaction with friends, family, salespeople, and other members during participating a Facebook fan­page As social networking motive literature as discussed, in the area of relationship, social interaction could be of value for a fan­page user Previous

empirical studies in the social networking site found growing, maintaining, and

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broadening relationships to others as major motivations (Dholakia et al., 2009) Brand fan­page on Facebook platform also supports sharing information via posting status and support discussion via comment on each post Facebook brand fan­page is similar

to other type of brand online community The quickly growing in Facebook helps connecting online with friends, especially among young people, more and easier Facebook user can find new friends who have same interest from brand fan­page Once connected, any member can communicate to other members through the Web platform or on their portable devices Social interaction value, which connects one user with another through the fan­page, is one of motivations for Facebook users (Ansari & Ozuem, 2013) Thus, the researcher proposes the following:

H3: Social interaction value positively affects the fan-page usage intensity

2.5.4 Self-concept value

Self­concept is defined as self­perceptions that fundamentally influence

behavior (Rosenberg, 1979) Tufekci (2008) found that self­presentation characteristic

in many users’ activities on social networking sites Users express themselves by show their profiles, linking to friends, show their likes and dislikes, and involve in groups In particular, Peluchette and Karl (2009) indicate that Facebook users employ their

postings consciously to portray images about themselves

In many cases, consumers join the fan­page because of expressing their image

or status In this circumstance, consumers’ personal identities are showing to others by being members of a brand fan­page Previous studies also showed that a user want to participate in a group could be seen as an expression of personal values (Algesheimer

et al., 2005) Furthermore, Facebook users post status, upload portray images, and

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update profile about them to differentiate them from others (Peluchette and Karl, 2009) Thus, participating in fan­pages may help the consumer portray the self­

concept Based on this the researcher proposes the following:

H4: Self-concept value positively affects the fan-page usage intensity

2.6 Word of Mouth

Word-of-mouth is personal communication between a receiver and a source that

the receiver perceives as noncommercial (Day, 1971) WOM effectively can cause changes in opinion and behavior, as well as drive brand awareness and excitement

about a product or services (WOMMA, 2005) Word-of-mouth tends to flow through

interpersonal channels based on shared interests, friendship, or family and people commonly use it to seek information when they are facing with a high­risk purchase situation (Murray, 1991); like looking for a doctor, lawyer, auto mechanic, or

restaurant (Walker, 1995); or using a new product or service for the first time (Baxter, Collings, & Adjali, 2003)

WOM is an important tool for marketing, it use individual as a source of

information for brand or product (Duana et al., 2008) In fact, brand commitment, purchase decision making, revenue very depend on successful of WOM (Harrison­Walker, 2001) Moreover, Facebook and SNSs is many­to­many communication platforms that support the exponential growth of the WOM volume This form of message propagation is often called as viral marketing (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2011)

Consumers’ ability to spread their opinions rapidly requires marketers and organizations of all types to On the Internet, WOM serves as the most consistent factor influencing consumers’ initial awareness and purchase decisions and consumers are 50

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percent more likely to be influenced by WOM than radio or television ads (Intelliseek, 2005)

Elements of successful WOM campaigns include giving away valuable goods

or services, providing effortless transmission to others, exploiting common

motivations and behaviors, and using existing communication networks (Welker, 2002) Indeed, WOM has become such an established marketing practice that the Word of Mouth Marketing Association formed to help marketers establish standards that will further its use as an effective marketing tool

Within a Facebook brand page, fans can interact with a company by: (1) posting content on the wall (depending on the communication policy set by the company), (2) commenting on the existing post shared by the moderator, (3) indicating interest in an existing post by pressing the “like” button, i.e liking, and (4) sharing the post on their profile wall Each of these actions generates a story, which appears on the wall of each

of the fan’s Facebook friends As such, these actions represent a form of WOM

communication Moreover, reaching those marketing objectives was very importance for the companies to increased profitability (Kumar et al., 2010) Therefore, to have a greater volume of WOM and potentially increasing company’s revenue, we much discover the influencing factors impact the level of fan­page usage intensity within brand communities on social media

H5: The fan-page usage intensity positively affects brand word-of-mouth

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2.7 Proposal model and hypotheses

Figure 2.2: Conceptual Model

H1: Fan-page functional value positively affects the fan-page usage intensity H2: Fan-page hedonic value positively affects the fan-page usage intensity H3: Social interaction value positively affects the fan-page usage intensity H4: Self-concept value positively affects the fan-page usage intensity

H5: Fan-page usage intensity positively affects word-of-mouth

In summary, this chapter presents theoretical background of each concept in the model Based on discussion of literature review, fan­page usage intensity is affected by

four factors, these are: fan-page functional value, fan-page hedonic value, social

interaction value, and the self-concept value Then, the influence of fan­page usage

intensity on word­of­mouth is also considered Such factors are selected to build the model because their relationship has already tested by many previous studies Hence, there are five hypotheses proposed for this research The next chapter will discuss

Word­of­

Mouth

Fan­page Usage Intensity

H4 H3

H5

19 about methodology that used to analyze the data and test hypotheses of the research model

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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter reported the methodology the author used to do the research, including the source of the data, collection method and the analysis At this stage, the critical factors truly affect the Facebook fan­pages usage intensity

3.1 Research method

The mixed methodology includes quantitative method and qualitative method Denzin (1978) defined that mixed method approach is the combination of various method in a research to explore scientific phenomena In the other words, the mixed method has recently become a popular method to conduct a research (Creswell, 2002), the combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology should be used to deeply understand the ideas and collect the correct data and information This research adapts some theory of different authors to figure out research problem and hypotheses

through qualitative method The next step is using quantitative interview to have back more answers, responses from different people who have diversified background of ages, education, and employment This step includes testing the appropriate between theory and real case data collected

3.2 Research design

3.2.1 Informants of the study

Nowadays, Facebook, the social site has a greatest number of participants in Vietnam Therefore, the subjects, the informants of this study are focus on Vietnamese user that using Facebook, that not boundary in Vietnam but for Vietnamese

community Both male and female are acceptable; however, they must know have account on Facebook and join at least on brand fan­page

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3.2.2 Sample size and Sampling method

The convenient sampling is conducted to increase the attendant probability The author send the survey questionnaire to about 200 people, and expected to get around

150 ­ 180 results in return However, due to time limit, the author received 136

questionnaires answers after five times of sending the questionnaire to above 200 people including reminders In which, there were 3 respondents had no Facebook account, 11 questionnaires have been deleted because of have not join any brand fan­page

As Hair et al (2009) mentioned that the minimum sample size needs to be equal

or greater than five times of the number of variables However, it shouldn’t be less than 100 to guarantee the correct analysis result

n >= 100 and n >= 5k (k: number of variables):

In this research, k = 22 questions Therefore, the minimum needed for the research is 111 answers

For the Multiple Regression Analysis, Tabachnick and Fidell (1991) required the samples as follow:

n > 50 + 8m (with m is the independent variables)

This means the minimum cases for multiple regressions is 96 samples

Therefore, 124­questionnaire answer remaining after cleaning all unqualified answers was possible for running data analysis

3.2.3 Measurement scale

This research consists of six attributes, combine ideas altogether and put them into a questionnaire of multiple choices The study uses closed question to conduct the

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survey These types of question would help the respondents make decision quickly and easily to choose the answers among several choices (Sekaran & Bougie, 2009) By this mean, a questionnaire base on Likert scale ranging from 1­ strongly disagrees to 7 ­strongly agree will fit this purpose the best The researchers, on the other hand, can set information they need to collect via questionnaires All items are in closed questions and using Likert scales as ranking scales to collect the answers

 Fan-page functional value was measured by 4 items borrowed from Voss et al

(2003):

The content of the fan­page is helpful for me The content of the fan­page is useful for me The content of the fan­page is functional for me The content of the fan­page is practical for me

 Fan-page hedonic value was measured by 4 items borrowed from Voss et al

(2003):

The content of the fan­page is fun The content of the fan­page is exciting The content of the fan­page is pleasant The content of the fan­page is entertaining

 Social interaction value was measured by 4 items borrowed from Arnold and

Reynolds (2003):

I can meet people like me on this fan­page

I can meet new people like me on this fan­page

I can find out about people like me on this fan­page

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I can interact with people like me on this fan­page

 Self-concept value was measured by 4 items borrowed from Sweeney and

Soutar (2001):

I can make a good impression on others

I can improve the way I am perceived

I can present others who I am

I can present others who I want to be

 Fan-page usage intensity was measured by 3 items borrowed from Van Doorn

et al (2010):

I frequently “follow” the content on this fan­page

I often “like” article posted on this fan­page

I regularly “comment” on this fan­page

 Word-of-mouth was measured by 3 items borrowed from Wolfinbarger and

Gilly et al (2003):

I recommend this brand to other people

I introduce this brand to other people

I say positive things about this brand to other people

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a very important step to get minimum error for the five hypotheses for this research After that, the author had to adjust and redesign the measurement scales, which

borrowed from previous researchers to make it be suitable for the topic of this study

Base on the preliminary scale, the author created the first questionnaire to conduct the in­depth interview with a group of qualified people who know about Facebook and SNSs very well The author have interviewed six people who have do activities on Facebook, they had subscribed and followed the brand fan­pages Their opinions or suggestions about the scale help the author made the improvement and built the final questionnaire This step allowed the author supplementing and adjusting the questionnaire (See Appendix A)

According to the reviewing of comments and ideas or suggestions from those interviewees, the questionnaire was redesigned and structured into 3 parts for screening and classifying The first screening part, the respondents should have account on Facebook and joined at least one brand fan­page on Facebook, to continue the next parts The second main part contains items to get the respondent’s perceptions

of factors affecting WOM The third part was to classify demographic data such as gender, age, education and employment However, it was written in English while the study was carried out within Vietnam with Vietnamese people, so, before giving to the respondents, the author translated it into Vietnamese

Firstly, the pilot test used the revised questionnaire These test checks whether people can understand each question or misunderstand There were 6 people took the test to confirm the contents and meaning of the words In this stage, if anyone had other ideas or could not get it, the questionnaire had to be corrected again Fortunately, all of them committed to agreement that every question was easy to understand and

3.3.2 Quantitative research

The survey was conducted in online form (Google­Docs Survey) on focus on people working in office building and friend of them In the limitation of time and financial, the communication method through email and Facebook were reasonable and better The final online questionnaire survey link was sent to respondents through Internet via Facebook status post and Facebook­chat It also email to respondents, through email database The author also asks the Facebook friends to share the link to their friend for helping complete the survey

Collecting data through email took long time, so, twice to three times or more reminders to the recipients helped increase the responses, in this situation, the

reminder happened every 3 weeks in average Posting the link of the survey on

Facebook was a good way because its wide and convenient network helped collecting very quickly and four other members of Facebook also gave a hand to share that link

to their contacts

The author finally received 136 and after cleaned up 12 cases not suitable, there were 124 observations remained

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3.3.3 Data analyzing

The specific processes of data analysis will be declared in the next section This part only presents the encoding of the data with the scale given as below:

 Fan-page functional value:

Functional1 The content of the fan­page is helpful for me

Functional2 The content of the fan­page is useful for me

Functional3 The content of the fan­page is functional for me

Functional4 The content of the fan­page is practical for me

 Fan-page hedonic value:

Hedonic1 The content of the fan­page is fun

Hedonic2 The content of the fan­page is exciting

Hedonic3 The content of the fan­page is pleasant

Hedonic4 The content of the fan­page is entertaining

 Social interaction value:

Interaction1 I can meet people like me on the fan­page

Interaction2 I can meet new people like me on the fan­page

Interaction3 I can find out about people like me on the fan­page

Interaction4 I can interact with people like me on the fan­page

 Self-concept value

Self1 On the fan­page, I can make a good impression on others

Self2 On the fan­page, I can improve the way I am perceived

Self3 On the fan­page, I can present others who I am

Self4 On the fan­page, I can present others who I want to be

 Fan-page usage intensity

Usage1 I frequently “follow” the content on the fan­page

Usage2 I often “like” the article posted on the fan­page

Usage3 I regularly “comment” on the fan­page

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 Brand word-of-mouth

WOM1 I recommend the brand to other people

WOM2 I introduce the brand to other people

WOM3 I say positive things about the brand to other people

3.4 Data analysis method

The collected data is encoded and using IBM SPSS 22 software is the main tool

to analyze data Cronbach’s Alpha and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) will test the reliability and validity of measurement scales Finally, multiple regression and simple analysis will perform to determine the relationship and impacts between factors in the model, between independent and dependent variables to build up linear equations

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CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

In this chapter, the results of the research were reported The first the researcher sums up the descriptive statistic of the sample After that, the reliability of the scales was accessed by Cronbach’s alpha and EFA Finally, the author used the multiple regression analysis and a simple linear regression analysis to test the model

There were 136 informants participated in the survey, the screening process exclude 3 informants have no account on Facebook and 11 informants provided unreliable answers gave the researcher 124 respondents

4.1 General characteristic of the research sample

Table 4.1 below showed the characteristic of the research sample that included

124 respondents with 56 male (45.2%) and 68 female (54.2%) Most of the respondents in the years of age from 25­35, which accounted 56.5% of the total sample, were 70 persons Second highest was 36.3% in the comparison with the total belong to the range from 15­25 years old Respectively, followings were 7.3% for the age above 35

For the education, majorly the respondents have bachelor degree with 75 people hold up to 83.9% And there are 10 people at 8.2% have a master degree The remaining portions are in the level of high school and in the upper level of master, which account 6.5% and 0.8%

For the employment, the number of respondents who is working as an office staff up to 67.7% in an equivalent of 84 respondents The self­employed respondents gain 14.5%, which are only 18 persons Involving in this survey, students also have 22 persons at 17.7%

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Table 4.1: Sample characteristics

4.2 Reliability test: The Cronbach’s alpha test

To examine the reliability of the scales, Cronbach’s alpha is assumed as a very necessary tool Through this process, the unreliable scales or unsuitable scales, which give the low item­total correlation, will be eliminated Looking at it, only the scales with the Cronbach’s alpha are greater than 0.6 are acceptable to be highly reliable (George & Mallery, 2007) Besides, the Corrected Item­Total correlation must be above 0.3 to make sure that item is good or not good for increasing the Cronbach’s alpha Contrarily, if the Corrected Item­Total correlation is negative or too low, it should be required to examine further for the conceptual model