Online Review Trust and Authenticity

An honest review/opinion about a good or service is very helpful to consumers when deciding whether to purchase the good or service. Some people obtain that information from magazines such as Consumer Reports. Some read consumer (online) reviews for recommendations on goods and services. There are online reviews on a variety of products/services - movies, books, restaurants, and so on.

Consumers (the readers of online reviews) have to judge how authentic or trustworthy an online review is. Some may be fake, some may be biased, and so on. Some consumers may be more inclined to believe the information in an online review.

Here is a paper that researched how much international tourists trust travel information available on social media:

The trustworthiness of travel and tourism information sources of social media: perspectives of international tourists visiting Ethiopia
By: Kassegn Berhanu, Sahil Raj
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402030284X#bbib5

The main findings include: (1) Visitors do trust the review information available on social media, and (2) Males and females trust the information equally. Older visitors and less educated visitors trust the review information less.

I found another interesting article on online reviews:

Who doesn't read online consumer reviews, and why?
By: Adrian R. Camilleri
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921003299

This article provides information on the consumers who choose not to read online reviews. Those consumers do not trust online reviews and tend to rely on other sources. Similar to the other research, the researchers found non-users tended to be older and less educated visitors (among other findings).

This post reminds me of the movie 'This Means War' starring Reese Witherspoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yS78J4xGxo). Reese Witherspoon's character Lauren worked at an organization that reviewed products on behalf of consumers. Her knowledge of vehicles from her work saved the day.

(Post from the New Carrollton Library in Maryland)

Credibility

Today, I am thinking of how and why others may view someone as believable or credible. In my research on online reviews for a PhD course (my first signature assignment), I looked at what would lead others to believe the information in an online review. The literature indicated that argument quality, whether the review was one-sided or two-sided (probably the perceived motivation for the review), review consistency, expertise of the reviewer, and so on impacted the credibility of a review.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at expertise -- 

It makes sense that the expertise of the reviewer determines how credible a review is viewed. If a person speaks intelligently about a topic, that person would be viewed as knowledgeable and therefore authentic and credible.  Everyone wants to be the expert of a particular topic or present a unique idea.

In social media, experts of a topic are generally influencers. These influencers are all about expertise or knowledge of a topic. There are other types of influencers - celebrities, musicians, athletes, and the like  - who are not experts in an academic field, but still drive action and influence consumers to purchase products.

I found an interesting journal article (Arora, Bansal et al, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0969698919300128) that developed an Influencer Index for social media. The use of the word 'index' caught my attention. It made me think of indices in finance such as the Dow Jones or S&P 500. The influencer index discovers influencers on social media networks. Will this lead to something?

I guess social media is growing in importance.