Research about persuasive effects of social media influencers as online opinion leaders 1990-2020: a review
by Louisa Ha; Yang Yang
International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising (IJIMA), Vol. 18, No. 2/3, 2023

Abstract: This paper examines the 167 scholarly journal articles published from 1990 to 2020 related to persuasive effects of online opinion leaders and social media influencers. The USA, China and Germany were the three most common settings those studies were conducted. Most research articles explained the influence mechanism of social media influencers based on prior celebrity endorsement research, focusing on credibility, trustworthiness, homophily and parasocial interaction. In this review, we examine what we learned from the research literature in eight topics about the persuasive effects of influencers: 1) typology of influencers and methods to identify influencers; 2) relationship between the influencers and followers; 3) characteristics of the followers of influencers; 4) scope of influence of the influencers, 5) mechanism of influence; 6) approaches/strategies of influencers to brand endorsement; 7) measurement of influence outcomes; and 8) ethics of social media influencer marketing. A research agenda is proposed on how to further develop social media influencer marketing research based on the technology affordance of each social media platform and important areas that have been under-explored.

Online publication date: Mon, 20-Mar-2023

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising (IJIMA):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com