Referral Marketing of Cultural Goods through Social Media

This paper investigates to what extent cultural marketers harness the power of online word of mouth (eWOM), by employing referral marketing strategies. The literature review points out that cultural goods, due to their distinct nature and valuation process, are particularly affected by WOM. In addition, it highlights how cultural organizations can first of all benefit from the growing online audience that act as protagonists of their own cultural experiences, and secondly, tackle some of the attributed characteristics that have hindered the marketing of their goods. In order to provide understanding of the current strategies and motivations of cultural marketers, twelve semi-structured interviews have been carried out. Although the qualitative enquiry detects ad hoc intentions to stimulate eWOM, the results strongly indicate that cultural marketers often not only lack knowledge of the concept, but more importantly understanding of its conceptual foundation. As a result, referral marketing for cultural goods, through social media seems to not yet have reached its full potential. With these findings, the author intends to contribute to the limited amount of academic literature on referral marketing of cultural goods, and eventually to marketing successes in the cultural sector.