The Echoes of eWOM in the Metaverse

With the advent of the Metaverse and the development of virtual reality technology, brands' digital marketing strategies have evolved, thus creating new opportunities for consumer-brand interaction. In this trend, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on social media about a brand, product, or service remains one of the key factors influencing consumer behavior. Twitter, one of the mainstream social media platforms, was chosen for this study to investigate the impact of users' sentiment in eWOM, expressed in tweets, on other users' participation intention towards NikeLand, Nike's metaverse marketing program. This study is guided by the following research question: To what extent does the sentiment in customers' tweets about the Nike Metaverse marketing project (NikeLand) impact other customers' intention to participate in NikeLand? Nike has been chosen for this research because NikeLand is leading the NFT charge for big brands, and It carries significant value as it offers insights into the intricate interplay between virtual world environments and marketing strategies. A quantitative research approach was used in this study. First, data collection and sentiment analysis were conducted using SNScrape and SentiStrength. A total of 2152 tweets were analyzed, and the level of sentiment in them was evaluated and used to investigate the experimental conditions. Then, survey data were obtained from the participants as a survey, and regression analysis was performed to help analyze and answer the questions. This experimental design included four separate experimental groups, ultimately producing 258 valid responses. Based on the research findings, both positive and negative sentiments in customers' tweets significantly influence other customers' intentions to participate in the NikeLand project. However, contrary to expectations, the strength of this influence is not affected by the customer's gender or affiliation with Nike. Therefore, social media sentiment is critical in digital marketing campaigns, like NikeLand, irrespective of customer characteristics such as gender or brand loyalty. The findings from this study not only bridge the academic gap in the role of eWOM in brand metaverse marketing but also have strong social relevance. The conclusions shed light on how consumers' eWOM influences other users' consumption decisions and how companies can gain insights to effectively refine their digital marketing strategies. A further study of this relationship would be beneficial to explore the impact of other factors.