Eliciting emotions through e-WOM: A lever for enhancing blood donation?!

A significant obstacle confronting blood donation agencies and the healthcare sector in general is the continuing decline in blood donation. One promising approach to influencing the prosocial behavior of blood donors seems to be electronic word of mouth (e-WOM), for instance, in the form of Instagram posts. The impact of e-WOM on the emotions of the recipient (i.e. the donor), however, is still underexplored. Using a qualitative empirical approach (a content analysis of 12 interviews) and the emotion-based framework of WOM, we aim to analyze which emotions user-generated e-WOM posts about blood donation elicit in the recipient and which prosocial tendencies these emotions trigger. The results indicate that positive emotions (e.g., happiness or positive excitement) are more prevalent than negative ones (e.g., guilt). With the exception of pride, all other emotions promote positive prosocial tendencies toward blood donation. First, our research contributes to (e-)WOM literature since we advance the conceptualization of e-WOM by exploring the nature and impact of emotions, in this case the prosocial tendencies elicited by e-WOM. Second, as these prosocial tendencies are suitable levers for promoting blood donation, we simultaneously contribute to blood donation research by specifying the role of emotions in blood donation behavior.