The personal character and the trust that this creates is an important factor within the traditional word-of-mouth (WOM) research. With the rise of the internet the attention shifted towards the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). One of the dominant scientific principles was based on the idea that eWOM is anonymous and therefore less personal, which makes it harder to get an idea on who the sender of information is. With the further development of the internet and the social media, the internet appears to become less anonymous, which enables users to make a better judgement of the person they are conversing with. Because of this a user can estimate the tie strength of a connection, within functionalities such as Facebook and Twitter. This research is focused on out doors activity. This focus is chosen because WOM has more effect when focused on experiences and services and is more actively sought than with physical products. Also, some scholars put forward that experiences and activities will, in the near future, play a bigger role in our society. These principles lead to the following research question: to which extent are recommendations for out doors activities on Facebook and Twitter anticipated as trustworthy and what is the influence of the tie strength on the anticipated trustworthiness? An online survey is used to answer this question. The survey is spread via Facebook and Twitter which lead to 187 respondents. Within the research three ties are recognized: good friend (geode vriend), acquaintance (bekende) and fame (bekendheid). This last group refers to a person that a respondent added to his network because the connection has expertise or fame within a specific subject. Trust is measured by looking at the the reported competence, benevolence and trust in general. Based on the used sample, it can be concluded that tie strength has a significant influence on the reported trust in recommendations on out doors activity. A good friend scores significantly the highest en the fame group scores significantly the lowest. The sample also showed that such recommendations on Facebook and Twitter, ‘sometimes’ up to ‘often’ brings them in contact with new activities, and that in some cases these activities are actually undertaken based on these recommendations.

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Hitters
hdl.handle.net/2105/12987
Media & Journalistiek
Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication

Zande, B.G. van der. (2012, August 31). Daar moet je heen, makker!. Media & Journalistiek. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/12987