The impact of influencers in the consumer's purchase intention: The cosmetic industry

Social media is now part of people’s everyday lives. The digital era brought many opportunities, but also many challenges and queries as to what the best way to promote brands and products on social media is. Several businesses are now investing on influencer marketing, even though it is an intensely debated marketing strategy that is still lacking investigation regarding its application. In order to contribute towards this field of research, this study aims to evaluate the impact of social media influencers in the purchase intention of a cosmetic product and further understand which characteristics have a higher influence in the purchase intention. The literature review gives a comprehensive overview of social media marketing. A framework was developed based on the literature review which revealed the social media influencer’s characteristics that might impact the purchase intention of a cosmetic product. In order to test the framework hypothesis, an online survey was conducted which had 338 respondents. The results revealed that homophily and argument quality have a higher impact on the consumer’s purchase intention than popularity, expertise and interactivity. Additionally, it was also evidenced that the social media influencer’s trustworthiness and likability do not have an influence in the consumer’s purchase intention when considering a cosmetic product. Other relevant conclusions were established, suggesting that this them could bring several managerial, academic and marketing implications. With these contributes, managers can make conscious decisions when determining which characteristics to look for when deciding to collaborate with social media influencers.As pessoas passam muito do seu tempo nas redes sociais e a era digital trouxe muitos desafios e questões relativamente a qual a melhor forma de promover marcas e produtos nas redes sociais. Muitas empresas estão agora a investir em marketing de influência, apesar de ainda ser uma estratégia de marketing muito debatida e que ainda não tem muita investigação quanto à melhor forma de aplicação. Com o objetivo de prestar um contributo, este estudo pretende avaliar o impacto dos influenciadores digitais na intenção de compra de um produto de cosmética e investigar quais as características que têm mais impacto na intenção de compra. A revisão de literatura expõe uma visão geral sobre social media marketing. Foi desenvolvido um modelo com base na revisão de literatura, ilustrando as características dos influenciadores digitais que podem ter impacto na intenção de compra de um produto de cosmética. Para testar as hipóteses do modelo, foi desenvolvido um questionário online que obteve 338 respostas. Os resultados revelaram que a homofilia e a qualidade do argumente têm um impacto mais elevado na intenção de compra do consumidor que a popularidade, expertise e a interação. Adicionalmente, também foi possível retirar que a fidedignidade e simpatia do influenciador digital não têm impacto na intenção de compra de um produto de cosmética. Outras conclusões relevantes foram retiradas, sugerindo várias implicações a nível da gestão, investigação e do marketing. Contribuindo para que managers possam melhor selecionar as características que devem analisar quando decidirem colaborar com influenciadores digitais

Influencers’ Blogging Patterns and Their Power of Shaping Consumer Purchase Decision: An Analysis from the Consumer’s Perspectives

Objectives: In conducting this thesis, the author primary aims to provide a thorough analysis on typical Influencer’s Blogging patterns that are capable of impacting consumer purchase decision. Secondly, the author intends to shed more light on the identification of the causal relationship between blogger’s recommendation and consumer behavior. Last but not least, author wish to contribute a more holistic information to the research bank about Influencer Marketing, with discussion on both major and minor issues relating to the procedure, conducts and ethical matter of this globally prevalent marketing tactics. Summary: This study benefits International Business research by addressing a global issue of Influencer Marketing strategy application. Related published articles are reviewed and findings were configured using qualitative data collection. In details, two focus group with participants are millennials with exposure to blogs and influencers were conducted. Results was then compared and contrasted to identify commonly perceived blogging patterns practiced by influencers of the field, as well as to pinpoint the scale and weight of consequent recommendations on consumer purchase decision. Discussion chapters follow to explain additional conclusion in accordance with reviewed literature. Main findings are stated along with limitation acknowledgement, international business implication and suggest for future research. Conclusions: Of all patterns mentioned in different research papers, influencers tend to adopt same application standard on content production, blogging frequency, tricks and treats, audience integration and reputation maintenance. Among five patterns, the most impactful one directly affects consumer decisions is content production. Also, the intangible relationship between influencer’s recommendation and purchase decision is solidified. With a proven existence of the correlation, analysis on other minor factors is being put on tray, generating managerial implication for mutual benefits to all of the stakeholder in the industry, namely the brands, the bloggers and the consumers

Spillover Effects of Management Companies in the Vtuber Market

학위논문(석사) -- 서울대학교대학원 : 경영대학 경영학과, 2021.8. 윤혜리.Increasing usage of social media has given subsequent birth to micro-celebrities, or social media influencers (SMIs). Despite the fact that SMIs function as key opinion-leaders in society and the market, little is known about what traits make an SMI popular in the first place. While SMIs are generally considered to gain popularity from rock-bottom through individual endeavors alone, we find an exceptional media sector consisting of virtual YouTubers (vtubers). A vtuber, unlike the usual human YouTuber, is an artificially created figure strictly managed by sponsoring companies from the beginning of his/her debut. Finding a similarity between sponsor-vtuber relationships and parent-child relationships within brand extensions, we ran a random effects model against 560 company-owned vtubers to check whether similar spillover effects can be observed in a social media context as well. Our research yielded positive results, suggesting the existence of persistent spillover effects based on parent-brand popularity. An additional time series analysis was conducted against the weekly changes in the size of management agency influence on their affiliated vtubers. An ARIMA(1,2,0) model demonstrates a high fit with our data, and we find that the model confirms a constantly decreasing size of influence along with the passage of time.소셜미디어의 확산은 마이크로셀레브리티와 소셜미디어 인플루언서(SMI)의 등장을 초래했다. 이미 사회적, 경제적으로 SMI들이 오피니언 리더로서 큰 영향력을 행사하고 있음에도 불구하고 이들이 정확히 어떤 근본적 요인으로 인해 대중적 인기를 얻게 되었는지에 대해 알려진 바는 많지 않다. 많은 경우에 SMI들이 순수하게 자력으로만 팬덤을 구축하는 것으로 간주되는 것에 반해, 필자들은 버츄얼 유튜버(vtuber) 업계로부터 예외적인 상황을 목격했다. 일반적인 인간 유튜버와 달리, vtuber는 데뷔 이전부터 소속사로부터 엄격하게 관리당하고 통제 받는 가상의 디지털 캐릭터들이다. 본 연구에서는 소속사 대 vtuber의 관계가 브랜드 확장 상태의 모브랜드 대 신규 브랜드의 관계와 유사하다는 점에 착안하여, 후자의 경우에 관찰되는 스필오버 효과가 전자에서도 발현되는지 검증하기 위해 소속사와 계약을 맺고 있는 총 560 명의 vtuber에 대해 임의효과 모형을 적용시킨다. 그 결과, 소속사의 영향력이 vtuber의 인기에 대해 긍정적 스필오버 효과가 있음이 확인되었다. 또, 주차별 스필오버 효과 크기의 변화에 대한 시계열 분석을 통해 추세를 예측하는 데 적합한 모형으로 ARIMA(1,2,0) 모델을 특정해내어 시간이 지남에 따라 스필오버 효과가 감소하는 경향성을 지님을 검증했다.Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. Literature Review 3 Chapter 3. Research Model and Hypotheses 14 Chapter 4. Data Analysis and Methodology 18 Chapter 5. Results 21 Chapter 6. Discussion and Conclusion 29 Bibliography 32 Abstract in Korean 41 Appendices 42석

Social network driven innovation

This paper explains how the increasingly popular social network driven ideation works for some companies, and how this can be expanded to encompass the complete crowdsourcing innovation process (beyond simple ideation). In a contemporary context, businesses that are unable to keep up with innovations are simply overrun by those who are more efficient at this. This results in the dilemma that confronts all innovating companies in the 21st century: while innovation is critical for survival of a company, internal R&D is an inefficient approach to innovation. As a result of this dilemma, today?s innovative companies generally conduct little or no basic research on their own. They mostly innovate using the research discoveries of others. Some of these companies promote ideation forums on social networks to gain ?memes? for innovative ideas. This first step in the crowdsourcing innovation process can be expanded to include all the remaining steps of the innovation process, up to marketing and selling the product or service, as these all originate from ?crowdsourcing ideation?.social network driven innovation, ideation forums, crowdsourcing ideation, crowdsourcing innovation process, memes, mavens, connectors, influencers, nanostories, flash mobs, job to be done

The Roles of Bloggers in Web 2.0

This study examine the roles of bloggers in Web 2.0. Blogging is considered to be a fairly new phenomenon and blog authors are increasingly seen as producers of user-­generated content wielding influence on both their readers and respective industries. Thus, it is argued that recognizing the different roles assumed by bloggers will shed light on the importance of bloggers and how this may affect marketingpractices

This post is sponsored but all opinions are my own: does fashion blogging offer an authentic voice? An investigation into the credibility of fashion blogger sponsored content and blogger perspectives on the tensions between authenticity and commercialisation.

This study investigates the impact of commercial sponsorship upon fashion blogging, a form of digital communication that has become important in influencing online consumer behaviour. Fashion companies appreciate the marketing value of blogs and have utilised them to their own advantage. As a result, the fashion blogosphere has become increasingly commercialised. Existing research into changes in fashion blogging has generally focused upon the attitudes and perspectives of blog readers. Relatively little research investigates the attitude of fashion bloggers themselves. This thesis therefore specifically examines the attitudes of UK fashion bloggers as regards the impact of commercial sponsorship upon their practice and on the credibility and authenticity of their blog output. This study takes an interpretative, qualitative research approach with a combination of an online questionnaire and in-depth interviews. It focuses upon over 300 fashion bloggers divided into three distinct groups: young and old active bloggers and significantly a third group of bloggers who have discontinued the activity. A review of existing literature identified a number of key areas for exploration: the effect of sponsorship upon blogger motivation, design and content of blog output, the pressures upon bloggers resulting from accepting sponsorship rewards, blogger perception of the impact that commercialisation may have had upon their practice values, the potential effect of sponsorship upon their relationship with readers, their views on the changing status of the fashion blogosphere and their role as fashion bloggers. The findings offer a number of new perspectives upon the evolving fashion-blog sector, especially with reference to the following themes: the personal pressures felt by some fashion bloggers as a consequence of their involvement with commercial partnerships and the negative impact that this can have upon their mental health; the increased discrepancy between the ways in which fashion bloggers talk about their practice and the reality of their actual online behaviour as regards disclosure of sponsored material, self-censorship and reluctance to be critical; the increased priority that many fashion bloggers now place upon commercial opportunities rather than their relationship with readers. This research is of significance as it has explored the tensions affecting fashion blogger attitudes and practice from their own point of view. It has specifically analysed the general decline of social community in the fashion blogosphere and the impact that this has had upon the authenticity and credibility of the fashion blogger voice

The Secret of Internet Celebrities: A Qualitative Study of Online Opinion Leaders on Weibo

Internet celebrities are widely observable on social media platforms and are an essential component to a social media marketing program. Drawing on the media success literature and online influencer research, this study reflects Internet celebrities’ fame-seeking practices and discusses on three issues from literature: definition of Internet celebrities, Internet celebrities’ identification criteria and what factors can contribute to individual online influence. A series of interview from three Internet celebrities and three followers of each celebrity were conducted to enrich this study. The results show that Internet celebrities are people who have become famous by means of Internet, and have the ability to influence others. They are characterized as having a certain number of followers; high level of interactivity on their profile; and promising business value. Moreover, this study suggests a five-dimensional perspective to understand individual online influence. We believe that these findings provide new insights for interpretation of Internet celebrities and suggest a possible success formula for fame-seekers to achieve influence on the increasingly competitive social media platforms

Making and breaking relationships on social media : the impacts of brand and influencer betrayals

This study considers how the relationships between social media influencers, brands and individuals are intertwined on social media and analyses the spill-over effects of feelings of betrayal. An experimental design with two transgression scenarios (influencer vs. brand) was created, and 250 individuals were recruited to participate in the study. The results show that a perceived betrayal by a brand can negatively affect the perceived coolness of the social media influencer that has endorsed the brand, as well as the parasocial relationships that followers have with the influencer. Accordingly, a perceived betrayal by a social media influencer can negatively affect attitudes, trust and purchase intentions toward a brand that the influencer has endorsed. The current research helps in understanding brand and influencer transgressions and highlights the fact that both influencers and brands should have a sense of collaboration responsibility. It also introduces the concept of influencer coolness, understood here as a desirable success factor for social media influencers, which partly explains their desirability and influence, and a feature that can be endangered through both influencer and brand betrayals.Peer reviewe

The Curated Chronicles of the American Family: An Ideological Analysis of the Love Taza Blog

Named one of the top ten influencers of parenting by Forbes, Naomi Davis of the family-lifestyle Blog, Love Taza has transformed her family chronicles into a successful Internet business with an extensive following ( Top Influencers of 2017: Parenting ). This thesis examines the content of Love Taza to understand what messages Naomi communicates to her readers and how her readers may be receiving those messages. Using a sample of 600 posts from 2012-2017, a quantitative analysis was conducted to determine the type of content being presented. According to the findings, the majority of the posts included sponsored content and the most common theme was marriage and family. Posts were positive in tone, and most included images of the Davis children. Comparative data was examined between sponsorship and theme, engagement, and inclusion of children’s images. Statistically significant relationships were found between sponsorship and all variables, indicating sponsorships play an integral role in content selection. Expanding on the quantitative data, Stuart Hall’s (1980) method of textual analysis was used to further analyze content. The preferred reading indicates the Davis Family is an ideal reflection of the dominant ideology. The negotiated reading agrees, but considers the influence of capitalism, manifest in the large number of sponsored posts. An oppositional reading acknowledged how corporate sponsorships perpetuate hegemony and surmises that the family portrayed on the blog is not a reflection of reality, but a curated version of the elite’s ideas of perfection. This analysis demonstrates the potential influence of the blogging medium in American society

Blogs as a new tool of the communication mix

This study is framed within the marketing field, specifically in the communication field. As the title indicates, “blogs as a new tool of the communication mix”, the project is related specifically to communication in blogs and its main objective is to study blogs as a new tool of the communication mix. In this study, several concepts are discussed, such as communication, social networks and blog advertising. Additionally, a framework is made about the status of the Internet in the world and in Portugal, the evolution and growing impact of blogs and the relationship between brands and blogs. This research has as main objectives to understand how blogs are presented in the communication mix of companies, what the whole dynamics of communication in blogs includes and also the perceptions of the three groups of stakeholders (consumers, brands and bloggers) regarding blogs as a new communication tool. With the realization of this project, it was possible to conclude that almost all the consumers studied visit blogs and one of the main reasons for it is to obtain information on products and/or brands. In addition, it was concluded that, for both bloggers and brands studied, communication in blogs is a widespread practice and, specifically to the brands, it is a strategy that has proved to be quite advantageous. Finally, it was concluded that, for most of the brands studied, blogs are not presented as an independent variable in the communication mix but are, on the other hand, included in public relations and/or in advertising.Este estudo enquadra-se na área de marketing, especificamente na área de comunicação. O tema prende-se concretamente com a comunicação nos blogs e o seu principal objetivo consiste em estudar os blogs enquanto nova ferramenta do mix de comunicação. Neste estudo, são abordados conceitos como comunicação, redes sociais e publicidade em blogs. Adicionalmente, é feito um enquadramento do estado da Internet no mundo e em Portugal, da evolução e impacto crescente dos blogs e da relação entre as marcas e os blogs. Esta investigação tem como principais objetivos perceber de que forma é que os blogs são introduzidos no mix de comunicação das empresas, o que envolve toda a dinâmica da comunicação em blogs e também as perceções dos três grupos de intervenientes (consumidores, marcas e bloggers) quanto aos blogs enquanto nova ferramenta de comunicação. Com a realização deste projeto, foi possível concluir que a quase totalidade dos consumidores estudados visita blogs e que uma das principais motivações para tal é a obtenção de informação sobre produtos e/ou marcas. Adicionalmente, concluiu-se que, tanto para os bloggers como para as marcas estudadas, a comunicação em blogs é uma prática recorrente e, especificamente para as marcas, é uma aposta que se tem mostrado bastante vantajosa. Por fim, foi possível concluir que, na maioria das marcas estudadas, os blogs não constam como uma variável independente no mix da comunicação mas estão, por outro lado, incluídos em relações públicas e/ou em publicidade