Impacts of Social Interactions and Peer Evaluations on Online Review Platforms

Abstract

Social technologies on online review platforms enable social interactions among users, such as establishing following relationships and commenting on others’ posts. Although it is well recognized that more socially engaged reviewers tend to be more active and generate content of higher quality, our knowledge about the impact of social interactions on the peer evaluation of reviews is at best limited. This paper addresses the gap in the literature by examining how social interactions on online review platforms influence the peer evaluation of reviews. Using a unique dataset from a major review platform, we find that, ceteris paribus, reviews posted by more socially engaged users receive more helpfulness votes than those posted by less socially engaged users. Similarly, users tend to vote more for reviews written by their mutual followers than those written by non-followers. In addition, we find that less socially engaged users review a broader range of products and services but are less likely to stay on the platform, which may contribute to the inflation of peer evaluation (of online reviews). Our findings have theoretical and practical implications for the design of online review platforms and content management.

Keywords: social interactions, social relationship, online reviews, peer evaluation, user-generated content