E-WORD OF MOUTH COMMUNICATION IN NEW MEDIA

(Bussiness using Instagram as New Media)

Ratna Triwurian Danu

Post-graduate Communication Science, Faculty of Social and Politic Science
Diponegoro University, Semarang - Indonesia
ratnadanu@gmail.com / +6281333372232

Keyword : Word of Mouth, New Media, Instagram, Consumer Culture

Abstract : The growing number of social media that emerged, brings Instagram as a photo sharing platform.
Instagram is a new medium in the era of interactive communication in the development of
communication media. This medium provided for communicating and interacting through photo and/or
video. Instagram has an impacts on many aspects, one of which is culture and behaviour of consumers.
It happens because of the large amount of information that can be accessed quickly resulting consumers
no longer prioritize information from production but using the network with other consumers (word of
mouth communication). This research focuses on the current rampant phenomenon of cake or souvenir
that is owned by public figure in Malang. Many of those cake consumers who purchased because of the
exceptional word of mouth communication about the product ranging from fellow consumers to people
who have power in Indonesia (public figure) in Instagram so that information about the products tends
to be ignored. This new consumer culture is at low involvement hierarchy, where new consumers
evaluate after purchasing products with limited knowledge. The purpose of this research was to
determine the role of the new medium to consumer culture. This research used qualitative descriptive
research methods with the subject was Instagram users who was also consumers of cake or souvenir
owned by actor in Malang. The result of this research was that consumer culture amid widespread of
social media especially Instagram, relied more on word of mouth communication (WOM) and the
person who spread the WOM compared to the information and knowledge of the product.

1. INTRODUCTION Abram, 2003:17-18), communication medium has

The development of technology rapidly in the
world makes some changes in supporting aspects
for daily need of people. Start from the tool to
facilitate daily work until the tool to communicate
with others. Formerly, to be able to communicate
with others, there must be face-to-face process to
deliver and receive the message. But, with the
current technology development, there are many
kind of communication that can be done without
face-to-face process, only by using relevant
communication tool. The technology development
constanly evolving with internet based-technology.
Internet is the result of the highest convergence of a
medium for being a bridge between print and
broadcast media to blur the difference between
both of them (Moriarty, Mitchell & Wells,
2009:332).
The development of internet technology is
encouraging the development of communication
medium. According to Everett M. Rogers (in
already through four communications era, they are
the era of written communication (since 4000 SM),
the era of print communication (since 1456), era of
telecommunication (since 1844) and era of
interactive communication (since 1946). The era of
interactive communication deliver new look for
mass media that is new media. In this era, not only
communication that is easier to do but also
information about something is much easier to be
accessed and to be obtained. This is due to the
width of internet network that evolving every day.
New media has creating an inovation to media
content, content delivery, social interaction and
active participation and engangement to passive
reception. (Jenkins, 2006; Maloney, 2007).
New media also deliver internet-based
communication technology to a container that
underlying many platforms, namely social media.
Social media is an online-based medium that
supports social interaction and based on internet
technology. This social media started booming and
became phenomenal during the presence of
Friendster in 2002 and continues to this day with
more and more types of social media in accordance
with their respective uses. Social media is an
effective space to accessing reliable and actual
information (Hur, Kim, Karatepe & Lee, 2017).
Many of social media that developed to this day
one of which is popular is instagram, a photo
sharing platform. The presence of instagram is
provided to communicate and interact through a
photo and / or video.
The growing number of instagram user in the
world constantly increasing every year until reach
the number of 600 million users in the end of 2016.
The first four months of this year, the growing
number of instagram user increases rapidly, which
is about 100 million more for new user, so the
current total number of instagram user has already
reached 700 million users.1 Instagram also become
the third most popular social media based-social
network after facebook and youtube.2 As many as
700 million of instagram users, 45 million users of
it come from Indonesia that become the largest
users in Asia-Pacific. This phenomena prove that
Indonesian are maximizing the use of this platform
photo sharing, starting from sharing photo for
personal activity until as business promotion
media.
2014 become the first year of the emergence of
culinary business that owned by public figure, in
this case Indonesian celebrity, Teuku Wisnu with
Malang Strudel. Along the successful of the
souvenir “oleh-oleh” that proved by within less
than two years, Teuku Wisnu has already opened
three branches in Malang City. In 2017, this
business become more popular among public
figures. Therefore, this business become trend,
from the actress, actor, chef and the singer begin to
open the business and they are available in some
cities in Indonesia such as Malang, Bandung,
Surabaya, Medan, Semarang, Jogja, Pekanbaru,
Jambi, Balikpapan etc.
Malang as the first city that deliver this “trend”
business among public figures, has already had
four (4) souvenir stores or “artist cake stores”, they
are Strudel Malang (Teuku Wisnu), Queen Apple
(Farah Queen), Asix (Ashanti and family) and
Makobu Cake (Krisdayanti) with total number of
outlets are twelve (12). Promotion medias that most
used by them are instagram and facebook.
According to media promotion that used by
public figure with their business above, instagram
1 the WOM network.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/15/instagram-
surges-past-600m-users-fueled-by-algorithmic-
feed/
2 consumer culture that conducted as action in
https://www.youthmanual.com/post/fun/did-you-
know/data-pengguna-internet-tahun-2017-dan-apa-
kesimpulan-yang-bisa-diambil-dari-data-tersebut
has more followers than facebook. This proves that
instagram is more interesting among the consumers
of cake business or souvenir that owned by
celebrities. Instagram is one of the tool in new
media era that currently develop and used
optimally by the users to encourage their business
and used as promotion media. However, social
media is an effective space for commercial goals
and better business performance (Rapp,
Beitelspacher, Grewal & Hughes, 2013).
Instagram’s characteristic in theory of new
media is instagram as collective participation
media that specially related with the use of internet
for sharing information, idea, experience, and
relation development inter-personal that active in
using internet as the media (McQuail, 2011:15).
Inter-personal relation that actively made will
deliver the user become active consumer in social
media that continuously look for the way to fill
their instagram content.
Finally, this collective participation media
makes network/interaction between the producer
and consumer or between consumer and the other
consumers. Starting from the reward from the
producer, feedback from the consumer until sharing
information among the consumers. This network is
starting from word of mouth communication that
currently often used as reference in consuming a
product. Because, social media influence branding
strategies of company that could lead to e-WOM
(electronic word of mouth) (Barreda, Bilgihan,
Nusair & Okumus, 2015).
According to Dean & Lang (2008), word of
mouth communication (WOM) is communication
between consumer about things and service, that is
persuasive activity that greatly strong in
dissemination of new information. WOM in
culinary business that owned by public figure, not
only occur between the consumers, but also
between public figure that own the business, so
WOM become stronger because the owner already
had followers in great number. In cybernetic
communication system the most important factor in
WOM is who the sender of information is
(Prisgunanto, 2014:119).
Other than that, according to Ennew
(2002:75) WOM function to describe verbal
communication in positively and negatively that
occur among the producer, family and friend, and
potential consumer. Communication that formed in
WOM is also seen in term of proximity between
the sender and the recipient of message, the closer
between the sender and the recipient, the stronger
The WOM strength makes WOM become the
important role in consumer behavior (Yang et al.,
2012:952). Consumer behavior is one aspect in
making decision about consumption of product.
Theory of hierarchy effect in consumer behavior is
started from the consumer’s belief about the
knowledge of a product then evaluate their
knowledge then take an attitude against the
product.
Figure 1. Standard Learning Hierarchy
(Solomon, 2009:275)
Consumer behavior against WOM strength, is
also influenced with the medium function that
used, in this case, the new medium is instagram.
Instagram as new interactive medium sues the
consumers to stay active in managing the accounts
that they have. They not only bring about profound
changes the public opinion, but also become an
important driving force to promote the social
change (Dong, Liang, He, 2016).
2. METHODS
This study was qualitative research that was
descriptive and aimed to know how the role of
word of mouth communication on new media, in
this case was instagram against consumer culture of
cake that owned by public figure in Malang.
Subject of this study was instagram users that
also the consumer of cake that owned by public
figure in Malang (Malang Strudel, Queen Apple,
Asix dan Makobu Cake) that would be viewed
from the photos about cake products on their
instagram accounts. The subject were four people
which is one consumer each product above.
In this study, would be conducted interview to
the subject that had posted photo about the product
in their instagram deeply.
3. RESULTS
3.1 Word of Mouth Communication
on New Media (Instagram)
Word of mouth in case study against
culinary business (cake) that owned by public
figure in Malang occurred between the
consumer and the owner of business and
followers on personal account.
Word of mouth between consumers
occurred on comment field of product photo
that had been uploaded by business account.
The consumers who had tried the product,
gave their comment on photo based on their
own experience.
One of the comment was on instagram
photo of @asixoleholeh, which one of best-
seller product from that brand, some people
commented on comment field that the taste of
cake was delicious and made them addicted to
the cake. Both of comment came from two
different people and continuously to the
following product, and also commented from
the different people.
Whereas, word of mouth between the
owner of business with their followers
occurred on instagram personal account of
public figure that owned the business. The
owner of business, certainly had more
followers on personal account instagram than
the followers on business account. As
example, account of @teukuwisnu, as the
owner of Malang Strudel had 1.4 million
followers, while account of @malangstrudel
only had 125k followers. Teuku Wisnu
uploaded the photo of his business product,
then got the response from his followers and it
happened continuously in every photo about
the products that had been uploaded by him.
3.2 Consumer Culture on New
Media (Instagram)
Features that was presented by instagram
and contantly updated, made the users kept to
use the social media and optimized the
function of social media.
New media, in this case was instagram,
made the users to be active in utilizing the
provided feature. Consumer culture that
changed in this new media, that consumers
who were also instagram user were not
concerned about information of product that
delivered by the owner of business, but
consumers were more concerned about
opinions that existed in the comments field
that came from the other consumers on
instagram photo that was posted (word of
mouth communication) and also about the
opinion public figure who had “power” who
was also the owner of the cake business.
In this study, consumers were not
concerned about the information about Queen
Apple product that delivered on their
instagram account. Consumers decided to buy
that product because other consumers thought
positive about the cake and “virally” discussed
by other consumers in instagram that appeared
on the homepage of their instagram account.
So they want to follow the trend in the
instagram.
Then consumers of Queen Apple also
finally decided to buy the cake not because of
information about the product or interest in
promotion by Queen Apple on instagram.
However, the reason consumers bought was
because the business belonged to a public
figure who had power and followers or many
fans.
 In addition, consumer culture that occured
was that consumers in this new media era
wanted to show their existence in social media
that was instagram by uploading photos that
were considered the current trend on
instagram. When the consumer bought
Kridayanti’s cake that was Makobu Cake,
consumer took the picture of cake and
uploaded the picture into instagram before
consuming the cake. Consumers felt satisfied
and proud when uploading the photo because
the cake was owned by a famous public figure
and the business was "virally" being consumed
and discussed in social media especially on
instagram.
4. DISCUSSION
According to Dean & Lang (2008), word
of mouth communication (WOM) was
communication between consumers about the
things or service, that was persuasive activity
that greatly strong in dissemination of new
information. In this study, WOM occurred
between consumers through instagram
business account of cake business on comment
field. The consumers wanted to share their
experience about the product, so, later their
experience could be a reference for prospective
buyers who saw instagram account of cake
business and this activity run continuously
among the consumers who were also the
followers of instagram account of cake
business.
Dissemination of this information could
influence the consumer behavior in making
decision about a product, between bought or
not. If the comment which had given by the
consumers was positive, so the other
consumers would decide to buy, and
otherwise, if the comment was negative, so
potential customers would make consideration
against their decision on the product. It was
true that WOM became an important role in
consumer behavior (Yang et al., 2012:952).
WOM in this study was not only occurred
among the consumers. But also, occurred
among public figures who owned the cake
business. In cybernetic communication system
the most important factor in WOM is who the
sender of information is (Prisgunanto,
2014:119). The public figure disseminated
information about their business through their
instagram personal account which had many
followers. By using “the power” which owned
by the public figure, their followers in
instagram wanted to follow or consume what
had been produced by the public figure. In
view of that public figures were famous figure
and their lifestyle was often being followed.
WOM that occurred in this new media
which also became the basis of the change of
consumer culture than ever before was the era
of traditional media. In this era, all information
was obtained from an advertisement in
mainstream media, posters and so on, when the
information had reached to its audience, other
people would not know because there was no
place to share about what was enjoyed to
others. So, in this case the consumer would
process information actually about a product
with the limitation of knowledge that owned
personally.
By using social media, customers can
access to different sources about information
that been shared from other customers to their
experiences and recommendation then it will
influences their decisions to purchase (Chen,
Fay, Wang, 2011). While in this new media
era, everyone was able to share information
about the experience which their had.
According to experience shared about eating
Malang Strudel, the other people had reference
in making decision about a product. Sharing
this information, of course, triggered instagram
users to capture the product photos, then
uploaded it on a personal instagram account in
order to show their followers about their
consumption. Fondness of consumers to
spreading and sharing with other consumers in
this digital era will be mapping what
consumers thinking about the products that
scattered in their environment (Prisgunanto,
2014:113).
Changed in consumer culture that occured
was also a change against hierarchy effects that
experienced by consumers. In new media era,
consumers were on low involvement hierarchy
category, that consumers initially didn’t have
enough knowledge about a product but directly
behaved and evaluated the product after
getting it. (Solomon, 2009:275).
In this study, instagram user and also the
consumers of public figure’s business cake in
Malang were on low involvement hierarchy
category, because consumers didn’t care about
product information, but directly executed
from the opinion of other consumers on a
small scale and immediately buying the
product.
Then, consumers did not care about
product information and ignored other
consumer's opinion and only cared that the
cake business was owned by a public figure or
people who already had names everywhere.
Consumers followed trend that existed on
instagram and had material as their instagram
content, so their existence in social media
could be seen and acknowledged by their
consumers.

5. CONCLUSION
New media era in this study through social
media instagram, had brought change in
consumer culture through word of mouth
communication. Before the new media era,
consumers were in Standard Learning
Hierarchy category that consumers looked for
information of a product and compared it with
the other products before finally behaving
about a product and then evaluated it. Whereas
in new media era, consumers were on low
involvement hierarchy category which
consumers did not care about information of
product, but directly behaved against a product
then just evaluated it. The consumers in new
media era were more concerned about how to
utilize and optimize the use of new media in
this case was instagram, such as by buying a
popular product and then uploading it to an
instagram account without previously knowing
about the product information. This was done
to prove their existence to their followers in
instagram and became an active instagram user
by utilizing the features that had been
provided.
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