As social media platforms (e.g., Facebook) and related online communication channels (e.g., review websites and community forums) grow in quantity and commercial orientation, marketing practitioners and scholars alike have recognised the importance of understanding and influencing online consumer communication processes. Specifically, it is suggested that online opinion leaders (‘Epinion leaders’) can be utilised as a target group to manage negative e-word-of-mouth (‘e-WOM’) and e-complaints.
This study identifies and targets Epinion leaders and explores three central personality characteristics – altruism, self-confidence and the need for uniqueness – as a means of understanding Epinion leaders’ motivations to communication and tailoring corporate communication campaigns. The study focusses herby on the rapidly growing and increasingly influential 50-years+ e-commerce segment (i.e., ‘silver surfers’). Based on an online survey of 1,700 e-consumers aged 50 years and older, the proposed structural equation model verifies the positive influence of Epinion leadership on the propensity to spread negative e-WOM and e-complaints while demonstrating the applicability of personality characteristics as means of influencing consumers’ online communication strategies.
The findings demonstrate that addressing consumers’ self-confidence can be an essential way of reducing negative e-WOM and encouraging e-complaints, which show opposing effects on customer satisfaction. For practitioners, this study emphasises the usefulness of negative Epinion leaders as a target group and recommends fostering consumers’ self-confidence in order to prevent negative online opinion-cascades and increase overall satisfaction.

• Jan Breitsohl(Aberystwyth University, UK)
• Marv Khammash(University of Sussex, UK)
• Gareth Griffiths(Bangor Business School, UK)
• Werner Kunz(University of Massachusetts Boston, US)