New gratifications for social word-of-mouth spread via mobile SNSs: Uses and gratifications approach with a perspective of media technology

- We adopt the U&G approach with a media technology perspective to explore factors affecting sWOM in mobile SNSs.
- We explore sWOM motivations based on sequential qualitative and quantitative methods.
- New gratifications for spreading sWOM are revealed through a media technology perspective.
- Classification of sWOM sender types helps design marketing campaigns to encourage sWOM via mobile SNSs.

Media technology may shape consumers' new motivations for disseminating social word-of-mouth (sWOM) via mobile social networking sites (SNSs). Most previous literature, however, has discussed sWOM motivation from a social psychology perspective but has neglected the perspective of media technology. This study adopts the uses and gratifications (U&G) approach with a perspective of media technology to explore consumers' motivations for disseminating sWOM in mobile SNSs based on sequential qualitative and quantitative methods. The exploratory findings in the qualitative study form the basis for the quantitative study survey research. The results demonstrate that not only are social benefits, social enhancement, economic incentives, and message intrigue the factors driving consumer sWOM intention in mobile SNSs, but also that immediate social affective communication and the motivation to offer immediate information support, which are novel in WOM literature, are revealed through technology affordances of media. Further, based on weights of our sWOM motivations, this study classified disseminators of sWOM through mobile SNSs, suggesting that managers can design different marketing campaigns to encourage sWOM intention. This study originally provides a much-needed complete description of the motivations affecting consumer sWOM intention in mobile SNSs.