The impact of social media and e-WOM on the success of reward-based crowdfunding campaigns

Abstract

Crowdfunding (CF) is a financial tool that has faced an impressive growth over the past few years, and provides an alternative form of fundraising entrepreneurial projects. However, not all CF campaigns are successful in attracting the investors' interest and obtaining the pledging goal. As CF is built over internet platforms, digital marketing strategies have been used to improve awareness and engage people to contribute with small amounts of money for a given CF campaign. Hence, this paper intends to study the effect of social media and electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) on the CF campaigns' outcomes and whether these digital marketing strategies might influence the small investors' decision to support or not a reward-based CF campaign. Using a sample of data from the second largest American reward-based CF platform (Indiegogo), we have applied the multiple OLS regression analysis, to assess the causal effect of various sets of variables in the success rate of a CF campaign. The findings show that social media and e-WOM strategies play a critical role and have a positive significant impact on a CF campaign.