When less is more: the impact of macro and micro social media influencers’ disclosure

ABSTRACT

There are growing discussions of social media influencers and their effectiveness in endorsing products. Further, recent policy regulations are requiring social media influencers to disclose sponsored content when using a form of native advertising. This research examined the effect of macro-influencers (high likes) and micro-influencers (low likes) and their disclosure of native advertising sponsorship on consumer evaluations of products. Results from a 2 × 2 experiment first show that consumers exposed to the micro-influencer condition report higher levels of product knowledge, and consumers exposed to the disclosure condition reported the products endorsed by social media influencers to be more attractive. The results also show that when exposed to micro-influencers who disclose, consumers have higher levels of purchase intentions than when exposed to macro-influencers who do not disclose, as well as higher purchase intentions than for posts where sponsorship is not disclosed by influencers. The important findings of this research for theory, practice and policy are discussed.     

Social media influencers and consumer engagement: A review and future research agenda

The rise of social media influencers (SMIs) in the recent decade garnered wide interest from academicians and marketers. Academicians try to understand the effect of influencers on consumer behaviour, while marketers use influencers as part of their strategy to achieve marketing objectives. Although, plenty of practical and conceptual research is available in this area, literature reviews in the domain of SMIs and consumer engagement are scarce as it is still developing, and most of the studies have focused on these two concepts separately. In this study, the authors attempted to combine and understand how social media influencers affect consumers engagement. This systematic review of the literature offers a comprehensive view of previous research on social media influencers and consumer engagement. The study reviewed articles published in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Scopus, and Web of Science indexed journals till 5 June 2021. To understand consumers' engagement with SMIs, authors identified and theorized the antecedents, decision and outcome of such engagement. It also discusses the influencer-follower parasocial relationship on different social media platforms. The study proposes an integrated conceptual framework that can be further used to test and validate the impact of social media influencer's marketing efforts on consumer engagement. This framework also may serve as a foundation for marketers to develop effective influencer strategies for brand promotions. The review concludes the discussion by highlighting theories, methodology, and context of studies conducted by past researchers.     

The effects of influencer type,regulatory focus,and perceived authenticity on consumers' purchase intention

Companies often use influencers to promote their products, and many celebrities have expanded their activities on social media as influencers. In this work, we classified influencers into celebrity and noncelebrity groups and analyzed how they affect consumers' purchase intention. We also analyzed how psychological variables, such as regulatory focus and perceived authenticity affect this process. We conducted three studies with consumers in China, South Korea, and the United States who participated in each between-subjects experiment. The results showed that people have higher purchase intention for products recommended by noncelebrity influencers than those recommended by celebrity influencers. We also found that regulatory focus moderates the relationship between the influencer type and consumers' purchase intention. Purchase intention for products recommended by noncelebrity influencers were stronger among prevention-focused consumers. However, no significant difference in the effect of influencer type was found among promotion-focused consumers. We found that perceived authenticity mediated this moderating effect. The results of this study provide effective marketing strategies and implications for companies when they use influencers as a tool for marketing activities.     

Social media influencers: The formation and effects of affective factors during online interactions

Social media influencers emerged as powerful sources in affecting and guiding consumers' purchase decisions through self-generated content and online interactions with their followers. A large number of studies have so far focused on cognitive aspects such as perceived credibility, trustworthiness, and expertise of these influencers. This study aims to further advance the existing literature on social media influencer marketing from an affective perspective, with a focus on the emotional bonds generated by online interactions between the influencer and their followers. Based on the interpersonal process model of intimacy and theories in celebrity endorsement and social media influencer marketing, it examines the impact of self-disclosure and perceived responsiveness on familiarity and intimacy, which, in turn, affect purchase decision. An online survey was conducted with 304 social media users in Mainland China who have followed social media influencers. The results highlight the formation of two affective factors, namely, familiarity and intimacy, via self-disclosure and perceived responsiveness. Theoretically, this study provides a fresh perspective to better understand the endorser effect outside the regular set of cognitive factors. Marketing practitioners and companies can follow the suggestions of this study to select more effective social media influencers for their marketing campaign, and to build closer relationships with their target customers.     

Response to social media influencers: Consumer dispositions as drivers

Brand managers use social media influencers (SMIs) to influence consumers' attitudes and intentions. However, there is still ambiguity about the mechanisms by which SMIs influence their followers, as well as the metrics by which their performance can be evaluated. The existing literature has restricted itself to consumers' purchase intentions in order to evaluate SMIs influence and is silent on the role of the consumers' individual characteristics in SMIs influence mechanisms. Based on these research gaps and to provide a clearer picture of the SMI influence mechanism to practitioners, the present study assesses the role of consumer characteristics such as their social media attachment (SMA), parasocial relationships with social media influencer (PSR-SMIs), and susceptibility to SMIs influence (SSMII) in driving consumer response to SMIs influence through SMI compliance intentions. Study 1 found the sequential mediational role of PSR-SMIs and SSMII in the SMA-SMI compliance intentions relationship. Study 2 found the same sequential mediation and demonstrated how SMI skepticism negatively moderates the relationship between PSR-SMIs and SMI compliance intentions. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time that this skepticism variable is being explored in the SMI literature.     

More than meets the eye: The functional components underlying influencer marketing

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.     

Persuasive cues and reciprocal behaviors in influencer-follower relationships: The mediating role of influencer defense

In today's internet ecosystem, social media influencers serve a central purpose in the creation of a compelling online presence that engages their followers. This study examines the impact of social attractiveness, physical attractiveness, attitude homophily, actual self-congruity, and parasocial interactivity on influencer defense and purchase intention in the context of beauty influencers. A total of 689 respondents were recruited using Sina Weibo, one of the largest social media platforms in China. The results demonstrate that physical attractiveness, attitude homophily, actual self-congruity, and parasocial interactivity are crucial in affecting influencer defense. However, only attitude homophily, actual self-congruity, and parasocial interactivity emerged as significant predictors of purchase intention. The findings afford insights that can further understanding of the influencer-follower relationship in the social media environment.     

‘Tweet dreams are made of this,who are we to disagree?’ Adventures in a #Brave New World of #tweets, #Twitter, #student engagement and #excitement with #learning

ABSTRACT

The paper contributes to the current debate for the need to develop creative assessment strategies designed to enhance greater collaboration and levels of engagement amongst diverse student groups lending itself to deeper learning in postgraduate marketing courses. Through an innovative use of social media (Twitter), students are encouraged to engage and comment on communication and advertising in their lived world. The paper provides a qualitative analysis of student reflections on a Twitter-based assessment activity. Reflective accounts are analysed on the basis of the Technology Acceptance Model by addressing students’ perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of Twitter as an effective tool in creating learning and engagement opportunities as well as debate and discussion within formal and informal learning environments.     

The brand personality dimensions of business-to-business firms: a content analysis of employer reviews on social media

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the brand personalities that employees are creating of their employer brands, in particular business-to-business (B-to-B) brands, when describing these brands on social media. We examine how the brand personalities, based on written online reviews, differ between high- and low-ranked, and high- and low-rated brands.

Methodology/Approach: 6,300 written employee reviews from a social media platform, Glassdoor, are used for content analysis in DICTION, to determine the brand personality dimensions they communicate (J. L). An independent B-to-B brand ranking data source, Brandwatch, is used as a reference to various brands’ level of ranking, while an ANOVA test is used to determine whether there is a difference in the brand personality trait means when comparing high and low-ranked, and high- and low-rated brands.

Findings: Our findings suggest that a strong social media presence does not equate to a strong employer brand personality perception among employees, since there are no significant differences between B-to-B firms based on their rankings.

Research Implications: Extant literature has mostly explored the impact of either critical reviews or favourable customer ratings and reviews on company performance, with very little research focusing on the B-to-B context. In addition, research employing DICTION for the purposes of content analysis of reviews is sparse. The methodology used in this study could thus be employed to further compare and contrast the reviews from a single company, dividing top and low starred reviews to compare discrepancies.

Practical Implications: The results of this study show how online shared employee experiences of employer brands contribute to the formation of a distinct employer brand personality. From a managerial viewpoint, engaging with current and past employees and being cognizant of the online narratives that they share on social media, may be an early indicator of where the firm is lacking (or showing strength) in its’ employee engagement. This would offer a way for firms to both understand their employer brand personality as well as gauge how they compare to top employers in a specific sector or industry.

Originality/Value/Contribution: The study attempts to grow the literature of employee brand engagement in a B-to-B context, by recognizing the important role that employees play in engaging with their employer brand online. Two main contributions are offered. The first contribution relates to the finding that employees perceive highly-rated B-to-B brands as being more competent, exciting, sincere and sophisticated than low-rated B-to-B brands. Second, the methodology used in this study proves to be a novel and accurate way of comparing employee reviews and perceived employer brand personality, with the employer-created intended brand image.     

Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude

ABSTRACT

Findings of two experimental studies show that Instagram influencers with high numbers of followers are found more likeable, partly because they are considered more popular. Important, only in limited cases, perceptions of popularity induced by the influencer's number of followers increase the influencer's perceived opinion leadership. However, if the influencer follows very few accounts him-/herself, this can negatively impact popular influencers’ likeability. Also, cooperating with influencers with high numbers of followers might not be the best marketing choice for promoting divergent products, as this decreases the brand's perceived uniqueness and consequently brand attitudes.     

Consumer intentions to engage in s-commerce: a cross-national study

Social media has reached global proportions; yet, little is known about how consumers engage with firms in ways that lead to social commerce (s-commerce) – an emerging area of importance in the literature. This study addresses this gap and extends previous research by examining factors that influence consumers’ intentions to engage in s-commerce in four countries: Chile, Spain, South Africa and Australia. Specifically, this study develops and tests a model of consumers’ intentions to engage in s-commerce through brands’ Facebook pages incorporating personal variables (involvement in brands’ products and services, satisfaction with brands’ Facebook page), trust variables (message credibility of Facebook posts, trust in firms’ Facebook) and social variables (peer communication, social media dependency, online social interaction propensity) on predicting intentions to purchase products and services through brands’ Facebook pages if s-commerce was available to them. The findings show that the main drivers of s-commerce engagement are message credibility, trust in the brands’ Facebook, involvement, peer communication and online social interaction propensity, as influencers of consumer satisfaction with brands’ Facebook and social media dependency, which in turn drive intentions to engage in s-commerce. Contributing to theory and practice, these relationships are discussed for the four countries involved in the study.     

The more the better? Exploring the effects of reviewer social networks on online reviews

ABSTRACT

Conventional wisdom suggests that firms leverage key influencers (e.g. individuals with high centrality) in online communities to stimulate buzz. Using a large panel dataset including 1,569,264 online Yelp reviews and the ego-network of 366,715 individual reviewers over a nine-year period, this study examines the effects of number of ties and network density on the volume and valence of online reviews. In contrast with the general belief that key influencers always generate positive buzz, the findings show that they can adversely affect future review valence. Specifically, reviewers with many connections on Yelp can reduce the positivity of reviews of the same business in the next period. This finding has implications for marketing practice in online community management and social media intervention.     

Media,markets and violence

ABSTRACT

Media have multipronged linkages to violence, and these have been studied in considerable detail in the fields of communication and media studies. With commercialisation of media and the rapid decline of paying subscribers, for their survival in a capitalist economy, media have to rely increasingly on advertising revenues, and on other ways of linking to markets. Portrayals of violence have become reliable vehicles for ensuring media profitability – in terms of generating advertising revenue – as well as for generating revenue streams via related market-developing and market-maintaining ways. With the advent of new media – social media, virtual reality media and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-robotics-sentient media – the nexus of media, markets and violence is beginning to transform. This paper offers concepts and frames to start exploring the new patterns of linkages across media, markets and violence.     

Exploring interactive communication using social media

Engaging consumers in interactive marketing communication is instrumental in business–customer relationships building and development. Social media enables consumers to initiate marketing messages and gain growing control in the communication process due to its enhanced interactivity features. This study investigates whether communication between businesses and their social media users is interactive and how interactive it is. It also attempts to determine what types of messages are more likely to result in interactive communication. The findings reveal that businesses are attempting functional interactivity while individual users are increasingly securing a control to achieve contingent interactivity. Businesses are adopting a consumer-centric approach in designing and executing marketing communication messages to achieve interactivity though significant variance is established between businesses as measured by Interactivity Performance Matrix. Challenges remain for businesses as to how to engage their customers by utilizing the interactivity features of social media to facilitate relationships formulation and development.     

How do social media influencers inspire consumers' purchase decisions? The mediating role of parasocial relationships

In recent years, social media influencers (SMIs) have become part of the strategic communication of firms because the traditional form of mass media communication is losing its effectiveness. Thus, it is imperative to study the effects of communication through SMIs on marketing outcomes, such as purchase intentions. Based on the fairness dimensions, that is, information, distributive, interpersonal, and procedural, and dimensions of source credibility, that is, attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, and similarity, this research investigated how technology-oriented SMIs (T-SMIs) foster parasocial relationships (PSRs) with followers. Purposive sampling was employed to collect data from 506 active social media users. Data were analysed through IBM AMOS and SPSS 26. The results of the study suggested that attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, similarity, interpersonal, procedural, and information fairness are positively related to fostering PSR with followers. In contrast, distributive fairness does not strengthen PSR with followers; furthermore, the study findings suggested an indirect positive influence of attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, similarity, interpersonal, procedural, and information fairness on the purchase intentions of consumers via PSR. This study is useful for academia and industry since it fills important gaps in the literature and provides recommendations to brand managers of technology companies about selecting appropriate SMIs for the endorsement of their brands.     

Whose voice is heard? The influence of user-generated versus company-generated content on consumer scepticism towards CSR

ABSTRACT

Social media is increasingly used to communicate corporate social responsibility (CSR). Stakeholders respond to CSR messages with user-generated content (UGC), signalling approval or disapproval, potentially shaping consumers’ perceived legitimacy and scepticism towards CSR. Few studies have explored how UGC shapes these consumer responses. In the context of the UK food retail industry, this study explored what makes UGC more or less believed than company-generated CSR communication on social media. Through qualitative inquiry, the study identified that unique characteristics of social media, such as system-generated cues, lead UGC to be more believed than company-generated content, shaping perceived legitimacy. The study indicates the risks of communicating CSR through social media may be greater than previously suggested. It identifies recipient-related conditions under which these risks can be minimised.     

Leveraging social media-based determinants to build customer-based brand equity of a retailer

ABSTRACT

Social media is all about consumer networks and consumer relations that challenge marketers to leverage social media as a means to develop and improve their connections with consumers. Though tremendous opportunities via social media are alluring, businesses are still finding it hard to penetrate the clique of consumer interactions that are largely personal in nature. Despite the opportunities available through social media marketing activities, understanding customers and their behavior, and incorporating that information in marketing strategy formulation is critical to successful strategy implementation. This study takes a significant leap forward in this direction. Theoretically grounded in diverse fields, this study demonstrates how retailers can build customer-based brand equity using social media-based brand determinants. Using seemingly unrelated regression technique, this study examines how retailer brands can leverage consumer characteristics on social media to successfully integrate and capitalize on social media marketing activities. This research study has important implications for both marketing theory and practice.     

The mechanism by which social media influencers persuade consumers: The role of consumers’ desire to mimic

We explore the mechanism through which social media influencers (SMIs) persuade consumers to adopt brands. Guided by the influence framework, we propose and test empirically SMIs’ influence mechanism, which occurs in four principal stages: (a) a SMI's influence attempts (showcasing H1: attractive; H2: prestigious; H3 and H4: expert; H5: informative; and H6: interactive Instagram contents); (b) target consumers’ attitudinal response to the influence exercised (evaluating the SMI as a H7: taste and H8: opinion leader); which, in turn, affects (c) the targets’ desire to comply (the desire to mimic); and ultimately (d) their favorable behavioral outcomes (H9: social media word‐of‐mouth and H10: purchase intentions). On the basis of the survey data from 395 respondents, we used structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses and proposed model. We verified the robustness of our results using an ordered probit regression model and analyzed the mediating role of consumers’ desire to mimic SMIs in the influence mechanism. Our results confirm that the five aspects of influencing posts affect consumers’ attitudes positively and significantly, which in turn leads to positive behavioral outcomes through their desire to mimic SMIs. We discuss the results’ important implications for both scholars and practitioners.     

Dialogic Communication and Thought Leadership: Twitter Use by Public Relations Agencies in the United States

Abstract

This study examined how the 117 Twitter profiles maintained by U.S. headquartered agencies appearing in the 2017 Global Top 250 PR Agencies list from the Holmes Report are using this platform to communicate with their publics. Guided by the dialogic communication theory, a content analysis of 1,120 tweets (from the 112 agencies identified as having public active accounts) published between January and October 2017 were analyzed to better understand the content strategies implemented by these agencies as well as the relationship between levels of public engagement and the implementation of dialogic principles. Additionally, this study placed a special emphasis on thought leadership and the means being employed by agencies to introduce and promote their ideas. The study’s results suggest that while media vividness increases the public’s levels of engagement, interactivity has an inverse effect. At the same time, the findings indicate that agencies are not fully employing the dialogic capacity of Twitter. From a strategic point of view, this study provides significant implications for social media communication practices by public relations agencies.     

Ten Years of ‘Social Media Marketing’ Research in the Journal of Promotion Management: Research Synthesis,Emerging Themes,and New Directions

The study synthesizes research in emerging social media marketing domains by analyzing published articles on social media marketing in the Journal of Promotion Management published since 2007. We utilized interpretation and synthesis based assessment for examining the usage of social media marketing concepts with a focus on social media, social networking sites' utilization by firms, social media metrics and social media measurement, consumer decision making, consumer perceptions, and utilizing social media marketing across countries and cultures. We found a fair balance of application of social media variables across studies, even though most of these studies were quantitative. After studying the gaps presented in social media based studies of recently published articles, we present emerging social media marketing themes, new research foci and directions, and tried to build on research implications for both theory and practice.