Influencer marketing is the practice of compensating individuals for posting about a product or service on social media. Influencer marketing is on the rise, and many marketers now plan either to ...start using influencers or to increase their use of them in their media mixes. Despite such growth, relatively little strategic or academic insight exists that is specific to influencers. In this article, we describe the roots of influencer marketing and the many different types of influencers that now exist. We identify influencers’ three functional components: the audience, the endorser, and the social media manager. We then detail for each of these components the different sources of value influencers potentially offer marketers. We draw on relevant academic research to offer advice about how to leverage each component strategically. We close by describing how the interplay of these functional components makes influencers a potentially powerful—and undervalued—marketing tool.
While the literature related to this topic has predominantly focused on investigating the influence mechanism that social media influencers (SMIs) impose over their followers, less is known about ...their attachment mechanism. Given that social media platforms were originally designed to facilitate personal bonding and not product or brand recommendations, we posited that social media followers' emotional attachment to SMIs is an important precedent that affects the followers' behavioral inclination to accept the SMIs' endorsements. We thus drew new attention to the relationship between SMIs and their followers by focusing on their attachment development mechanism and its casual factors and effects. In doing so, Study 1 inductively analyzed the key causal factors, both with respect to SMI persona- and content-driven attributes, that make followers feel attached to SMIs. By integrating the findings of Study 1 with the human brand theory, Study 2 provided empirical evidence after analyzing 325 U.S. consumers' responses about how SMIs' personas (i.e., inspiration, enjoyability, and similarity) and content curation abilities (i.e., informativeness) affected followers to perceive the SMIs as human brands who fulfill their needs for ideality, relatedness, and competence—all of which resulted in an intense attachment to SMIs. It was this positive emotion shaped with SMIs that transferred to SMIs’ endorsements and positively influenced the followers to acquire the products/brands that the SMIs recommended.
The crisis arising from the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entire tourism system, including communication and marketing practices. Of these practices, in recent years influencer marketing has ...been one of the more successful strategies for both destinations and tourism businesses. This research investigates the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on travel content creators, their communicative practices, and their engagement with audiences, brands and health authorities. The study uses netnography based on immersion, interviews and social media content analysis. The results obtained show that the pandemic has transformed influencer marketing and has driven influencers to change their business strategies, content creation tactics and engagement mechanisms. The findings contribute to the crisis communication literature by illustrating that influencers constitute important allies for organisations when communicating during a crisis and have played a critical role in tourism recovery.
Digital marketing is a new form of marketing that uses several digital media to spread a message. Influencer marketing is a promising acquisition channel for companies to explore. Engaging with ...influencers can help a company improve its brand image and stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. However, these opinion leaders can influence the purchasing behavior of the target audience. These are individuals with skills in a particular field, using them to create quality content, they are recognized as experts in their field. The content they publish is often in the form of a personalized story incorporating their opinion on a situation, a product or a service. Success lies in establishing a genuine, preferably long-term, relationship between the brand and its influencers. The objective is to rigorously analyze the links and elements that give meaning to this “Influencer marketing authenticity” interaction. As part of this research, we presented a detailed literature review of authenticity and influence marketing.
Influencer marketing has become a dominant and targeted means for brands to connect with consumers, but it also brings risks associated with influencer transgression and reputation damage. In recent ...years, virtual influencers have gained popularity and given rise to falsity, or artificially created and manipulated influencers that are revolutionizing the field of influencer marketing. A virtual influencer is an entity—humanlike or not—that is autonomously controlled by artificial intelligence and visually presented as an interactive, real-time rendered being in a digital environment. As brands increasingly seek to engage virtual influencers to connect with and sell to audiences, we take a step back and discuss the opportunities and challenges they present for firms and managers. To help marketers understand this emerging field, we first document the rise of virtual influencers. Then, we discuss consumer reactions to virtual influencers before unpacking their associated opportunities and challenges for brands and marketers. Finally, we conclude with an overview of implications and future considerations.
Despite the recent influx of studies examining the role of influencers in a campaign, most studies examine influencer marketing, leaving the public relations approach to influencers underdeveloped. ...Through in-depth interviews with professionals who work with influencers, this study establishes the concept and process of influencer relations. Results illustrate key relational and dialogic factors of influencer relations. This study also provides a set of best practices for working with influencers in public relations.
•This study establishes influencer relations using public relations principles.•We interviewed professionals who work directly with influencers.•This study suggests a definition for influencer relations and best practices.•Result show that successful influencer relations are communal, organic, and dialogic.•Best practices include building personal relationships, working with communities and granting creative freedom.
Objective: The objective of the research is to get in-depth knowledge regarding digital influencers in the field of B2B market place and explore different ways to develop synergies through bridging ...between influencers and business organizations in B2B sector. Method: For attaining the objective we have adopted qualitative approach. Here the total research work is exploratory in nature. We have explored popular B2B influencers of different social media platforms from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, USA, China and anylze their contribution towards the growth of different B2B sectors. Results and Discussions: Our research analysis shows that B2B influencers tend to possess certain personality traits that enable them to build credibility and forge connections and deliver tangible gains in traffic, leads, and sales KPIs of a brand, hence pointing towards an overarching positive ROI. Research Implications: The theoretical contribution of this study is the pragmatic understanding of influencer marketing in business to business market. Here we have reconnoitered the strategies of digital influencers which may help to grab more market share. Originality/Value: In light of managerial aspect, this study helps to comprehend significance of influencer marketing in B2B arena and the way of implementing strategies for attainment of organizational goals. We have also found certain metrics that may help managers to determine the concrete business impact of B2B influencer campaigns.
Given the prevalence of social media usage among consumers in China and the rise of social media endorsements, it is important to understand the effects of social media influencers and their product ...endorsements on consumers. The present study explores the effects of self-influencer congruence on brand attitude, brand engagement, and purchase intention in China's dynamic social media context. The perceived motive of social media influencer's endorsement behavior, parasocial identification with social media influencers, and their roles in the endorsement process were examined. The results of this study suggest that a high degree of congruence between the image of a social media influencer and the consumer's ideal self-image leads to effective endorsement outcomes. Parasocial identification was found to mediate the relationship between self-influencer congruence and endorsement outcomes while perceived endorser motive was found to moderate the effects of self-influencer congruence on such outcomes through parasocial identification.
•Mobile convenience and influencer credibility are crucial for influencer marketing.•Interactivity has negative direct and indirect roles in influencer marketing.•Influencer marketing and its ...outcomes are unlikely to be gender-invariant.
Drawing upon the source credibility theory, interactivity theory, gratification-opportunities, with the overarching theory of belief-attitude-behavioral chain, this study investigates the antecedents (i.e., mobile convenience, interactivity, and influencer credibility) that shape one’s attitudes toward social media influencer and advertised product or service, as well as how these attitudinal outcomes lead to actual purchase. Additionally, the moderating role of gender is examined. Interestingly, the results indicate that interactivity is playing negative direct and indirect roles in attitudinal outcomes. Furthermore, the attitude towards product or service is fully mediating the direct effect of attitude towards the social media influencer on purchase behavior. Besides, the association between influencer credibility and attitude towards product or service is strongly moderated by gender, in which the path is stronger for males. The integrated framework complements existing Information Technology/Information System models. Additionally, the study also renders contributions to the influencer marketing literature.
With the development of technology and the low cost of creation, virtual influencers have become increasingly common and interact deeply with consumers in ‘human ways’, such as demonstrating or using ...products. There has been limited research on the effect of virtual influencers' behavioral realism on consumers, specifically through the lens of experiencing products vicariously. With the aim of exploring how virtual influencers' product usage behavior affects consumers, our study involved three online experiments and a secondary data analysis. The results show that the presence (vs. absence) of virtual influencer's product usage behavior significantly triggers perceptions of greater competence in virtual influencers and ultimately elicits more positive reactions from consumers; however, this effect diminishes with anime-like virtual influencers or the presence of content that explains the algorithms behind the recommendations. Our paper provides empirical evidence and extends research on behavioral realism of virtual influencers. These findings suggest marketers can strengthen consumer engagement by applying strategies that mimic human behavior, such as showing product usage behavior. However, it is important to exercise caution in the selection of virtual influencer types and in determining the extent to which explanations about the algorithms are provided.
•The effect of virtual influencer (VI) behavioral realism on consumers is further clarified and investigated.•Showing the product usage behavior humanizes a virtual influencer in terms of behavioral realism and enhance VI competence and consumers' positive reactions.•The match between VI form realism and VI behavioral realism induces consumers' positive reactions.•Algorithm explanation changes the way to convey product information and moderate the positive effect caused by VIs' product usage behavior.
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