Examining WeChat users’ motivations, trust, attitudes, and positive word-of-mouth: Evidence from China

•Entertainment, sociality, and information positively influence users’ attitudes.•Trust has a positive effect on WeChat users’ attitudes.•Increasing users’ trust will increase their willingness in making positive WOM.•Improving users’ attitudes will enhance their willingness in making positive WOM.

WeChat is a mobile instant text and voice messaging communication service and has become an important social media platform in China. The objectives of this article are to examine the effects of psychological motivations (entertainment, sociality, and information) and trust on WeChat users’ attitudes and to assess the influence of users’ attitudes and their trust on positive word-of-mouth. This study represents one of the few that empirically investigates WeChat users’ motives, attitudes, trust, and their associated behavior. The research model was tested using data randomly collected from the database of Sojump. The numbers of valid observations were 264. Structure equation modeling was employed to verify and validate the research model. The outcomes confirm the path effects showing that entertainment, sociality, information, and trust positively influence WeChat users’ attitudes and users’ trust and their attitudes significantly affect positive WOM. The research results provide insight into how WeChat can motivate users and build their trust to improve their attitudes which in turn will increase WeChat users’ willingness in making positive comments on products and services.