The Impacts of Online Lightweight Interactions as Signals

This study proposes a model to investigate ‘friends ’ and ‘likes ’ on social networking sites (SNSs) as signals of product quality and the moderating effects of product risk and product familiarity. The results indicate that ‘friends ’ and ‘likes ’ influence consumers’ perceptions of product quality, which subsequently affect purchase intentions. Product risk and product familiarity moderate the effect of ‘friends ’ on consumers ’ perceptions of product quality. Considering high product risk and low product familiarity, recommendations provided by friends are more influential than recommendations provided by friends of friends (derived friends). However, considering low product risk and high product familiarity, recommendations provided by friends or derived friends are similarly influential. In addition, the influences of the total number of ‘likes ’ on product quality was similar for different levels of product risk or product familiarity.