Social influence's impact on reader perceptions of online reviews

A large number of online customer reviews greatly influences consumer purchasing decisions. Whether positive or negative, consumers regard online customer reviews as providing useful information. Based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study focuses on the factors of the central and peripheral route in online customer reviews that make readers feel they are trustworthy and helpful. In addition, the researchers are interested in the impact of social factors in the reviews on consumers. Using content analysis, the study analyzes 983 customer reviews from restaurant review websites. Results show that the larger reviewer's number of followers, the higher level of expertise of the reviewer, the larger image count and word count also make readers feel the review is more practical and useful. Further, the influence of the peripheral route, the social factors, on readers is higher than that of central route factors. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.