Language in action, analyzing online consumer-brand communication through the lens of speech act theory

This dissertation centers on the marketing implications of big text data such as online consumer reviews about products and services (e.g. Amazon reviews), and social media brand messages (e.g. Twitter and Facebook). By using linguistic theory and text mining methods, an analysis of online consumer reviews in Amazon revealed that their sentiment strength (written explicit and implicit) is a reliable predictor of future sales. Furthermore, by studying language features (e.g. use of rhetorical figures) in Twitter brand messages, this study discovered what types of message content, style, and timing result in more consumer sharing.