ANALYSIS OF E-WORD-OF-MOUTH INFORMATION FOR COSMETIC PRODUCTS IN JAPAN

A methodological approach is proposed to understand the potential importance of e-WOM in e-Marketing. Focusing on the cosmetic product market in Japan, a social network named @COSME is chosen for the study. More specifically, actual blogs concerning skin lotions are collected from @COSME in the period between November 1, 2007 and October 31, 2008. By identifying key words which are used by either manufactures for promoting skin lotions on the Internet or consumers in their blogs, it is examined how such key words would overlap each other, thereby providing a basis to establish effective e-marketing strategies in e-WOM communications.