Unraveling Consumer Insights: Analyzing eWOM Textual and Visual Content for mHealth Apps

Wednesday, 29 November 2023, 4:15 pm CET

About Miriam Alzate

Miriam has a PhD in Business from the Public University of Navarra. Her PhD thesis, “Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) and Marketing Implications”, was developed in the field of marketing. In the thesis, she studied the effect of online consumer reviews in different types of consumer behavior, such as information adoption decisions and purchase decisions. Moreover, she started to work on text mining to uncover the content of those reviews.

Her academic journey spans several countries, including an academic year at the University of Lincoln, UK, where Miriam earned a Bachelor of Arts in European Business. She furthered her education with a Master in International Trade Management at UPNA and a Master in Strategic Marketing at Cranfield University, UK. Moreover, during her doctoral studies, she had the opportunity to spend three months at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, US.

Her research focuses on the study of eWOM to understand consumer motivations and concerns, specially those associated with contemporary topics like voice assistants and mHealth apps. Collaborating with data scientists, the team tries to apply up to date machine learning techniques, including text mining and photo mining, to gain insights into consumers’ online behavior. This interdisciplinary approach allows to delve into the nuances of digital consumer engagement and trends. Miriam has presented her work at international seminars and conferences, including the European Marketing Academy Conference (EMAC) and the ISMS Marketing Science Conference.

In the teaching aspect, she gives classes in Business Administration and Data Science degrees on the subject of Market Research.

About the Lecture

In the rapidly evolving landscape of mobile health (mHealth) applications, understanding consumer preferences and concerns is crucial for both developers and researchers. The seminar “Unraveling Consumer Insights: Analyzing eWOM Textual and Visual Content in mHealth Apps” will offer some insights of how electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) in the form of user reviews, social media posts, and online discussions can be a goldmine of consumer insights.

The seminar’s objective is to present to the participants various research lines we are actively engaged in. These focus on analyzing content from diverse digital platforms, where users share their experiences with mHealth apps and interact with providers of these apps. The primary emphasis is on the textual and visual content analysis.

The ultimate goal is to better understand how to harness the power of eWOM to inform product development, improve user experience, and anticipate market needs in the mHealth sector.

We are pleased to invite you to join this guest lecture. Registration is not required. Please be aware that we will be recording this guest lecture and will be making it available in our teaching library. If you have any questions, please contact Giuliana Breu (giuliana.breu@unisg.ch) before the start of the guest lecture. Also note that this guest lecture is part of our Digital Health Forum course.