Journal of the Korean Society of Costume (복식)

The Korean Society of Costume (한국복식학회)
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Study on Influence and Diffusion of Word-of-Mouth in Online Fashion Community Network

온라인 패션커뮤니티 네트워크에서의 구전 영향력과 확산력에 관한 연구

  • Song, Kieun (Dept. of Business and Technology Management, KAIST) ;
  • Lee, Duk Hee (Dept. of Business and Technology Management, KAIST)
  • 송기은 (한국과학기술원 기술경영학과) ;
  • 이덕희 (한국과학기술원 기술경영학과)
  • Received : 2015.06.01
  • Accepted : 2015.07.30
  • Published : 2015.09.30
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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of members and communities that have significant influence in the online fashion community through their word-of-mouth activities. In order to identify the influence and the diffusion of word-of-mouth in fashion community, the study selected one online fashion community. Then, the study sorted the online posts and comments made on fashion information and put them into the matrix form to perform social network analysis. The result of the analysis is as follows: First, the fashion community network used in the study has many active members that relay information very quickly. Average time for information diffusion is very short, taking only one or two days in most cases. Second, the influence of word-of-mouth is led by key information produced from only a few members. The number of influential members account for less than 20% of the total number of community members, which indicate high level of degree centrality. The diffusion of word-of-mouth is led by even fewer members, which represent high level of betweenness centrality, compared to the case of degree centrality. Third, component characteristic shares similar information with about 70% of all members being linked to maximize information influence and diffusion. Fourth, a node with high degree centrality and betweenness centrality shares similar interests, presenting strain effect to particular information. Specially, members with high betweenness centrality show similar interests with members of high degree centrality. The members with high betweenness centrality also help expansion of related information by actively commenting on posts. The result of this research emphasizes the necessity of creation and management of network to efficiently convey fashion information by identifying key members with high level of information influence and diffusion to enhance the outcome of online word-of-mouth.

Keywords

References

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