Influencer Marketing and Behavioral Outcomes in Social Media: Systematic Literature Review

Influencer Marketing (also called Influence Marketing) is a communication method responding to major issues that brands and communication agencies encounter when communicating with their targets on social networks. Given the continual change in communication methods, brands must be creative in developing effective processes capable of reaching consumers who are averse to intrusive advertisements. Going through an influencer gives the campaign credibility with a more authentic and closer message, relayed by an opinion leader. The purpose of this paper is to review the academic literature on influencer marketing and its behavioral outcomes on social media to highlight the current state of the art, the key research themes and the implications for management research and practice. A systematic literature review of academic research on social media influencer marketing has been conducted to gather, examine and synthesize studies related to behavioral outcomes that result from thesis communication methods. By following a review protocol based on both automatic and manual search for the Scopus and Web of science database, all relevant studies on influencer marketing were identified and analyzed.  Following the results identified by a critical conceptualization of the concept of influence marketing. The main key research topics covered were categorized and divided into four main areas which were further analyzed: The influence of SMIs communication strategy on user/consumer behavior; Influencer-Follower interpersonal relationship; Social media endorsements and the perception of SMIs as human brands; Celebrity level of SMIs and their congruence with brand endorsements are the main themes that have been mostly identified and discussed in our study.   JEL classification: M31 Paper type: Theoretical ResearchInfluencer Marketing (also called Influence Marketing) is a communication method responding to major issues that brands and communication agencies encounter when communicating with their targets on social networks. Given the continual change in communication methods, brands must be creative in developing effective processes capable of reaching consumers who are averse to intrusive advertisements. Going through an influencer gives the campaign credibility with a more authentic and closer message, relayed by an opinion leader. The purpose of this paper is to review the academic literature on influencer marketing and its behavioral outcomes on social media to highlight the current state of the art, the key research themes and the implications for management research and practice. A systematic literature review of academic research on social media influencer marketing has been conducted to gather, examine and synthesize studies related to behavioral outcomes that result from thesis communication methods. By following a review protocol based on both automatic and manual search for the Scopus and Web of science database, all relevant studies on influencer marketing were identified and analyzed.  Following the results identified by a critical conceptualization of the concept of influence marketing. The main key research topics covered were categorized and divided into four main areas which were further analyzed: The influence of SMIs communication strategy on user/consumer behavior; Influencer-Follower interpersonal relationship; Social media endorsements and the perception of SMIs as human brands; Celebrity level of SMIs and their congruence with brand endorsements are the main themes that have been mostly identified and discussed in our study.   JEL classification: M31 Paper type: Theoretical Researc

Twitters Impact on Sports Media Relations

The introduction of Social Media (SM) into sports communications in professional leagues is disrupting the traditional methods of sports media relations. In the past, teams used websites to post information for fans, but it was strictly a one-way format of communication whereby a story was posted for fans to read. To fully engage with this new communication channel, the sports communications departments in professional leagues have begun to use SM to communicate directly with fans through platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Currently, SM like Twitter allows the team communication departments to communicate directly with fans in an interactive two-way format that is not mediated by a reporter or someone from a traditional media outlet. In addition, the open format of SM means that media relations staff are no longer the only intermediary between the media and the players; through the use of SM like Twitter, a professional athlete can now communicate directly to fans without gatekeepers like the media or the sports communications department of the team. This thesis will explore how SM has changed media relations from several different perspectives. The first perspective is related to the risks that are associated with the use of SM by professional athletes: without an intermediary or a filter for athlete-fan communication, many athletes have caused irreparable damage to their reputation and the reputation of their team. The second perspective is related to the benefits for teams that use SM as a platform to connect with fans: the ability to connect with fans using SM is new to sports communications and represents an interactive one-to-one and one-to-many mode of communication through which the fan can directly communicate with the team. Finally, this research will look at how Twitter has changed media relations in sports from the perspective of the lived experiences of people who work in sports media. To explore the risks associated with athletes’ use of social media, this research used Situational Crisis Communication Theory as a theoretical framework to explore reputation-damaging incidents that occurred through social media. The study reviewed national media stories reported in North America from 2009 to 2010 that were perceived to have negative impact on athletes’ reputation. In total, 17 incidents were reviewed — seven incidents in particular demonstrated the athlete as the source of the SM crisis. Through the review and categorization of these 17 situations, the study was able to identify four broad categories of situations that a sports communication manager needs to be prepared for. The four categories identified were “Rookie Reporter”, “Team Insider”, “Opportunist”, and “Imposter”. Each of these categories are invaluable for team communication managers to recognize in order to address the risks associated with social media. To explore the benefits associated with the communications department’s use of social media, this research used Uses and Gratification theory as a theoretical framework to explore how and why fans followed team Twitter accounts. This study was conducted in partnership with the Canadian Football League (CFL) and a total of 526 people responded to an online survey that was tweeted out to them for their feedback. The results of the survey indicated several significant findings — in particular, the phenomenon of converged sports fan consumption was identified, which has not been previously acknowledged in academic research. The phenomenon of converged sports fan refers to the multi-screen environment whereby a sports fan decides where, when, and how they want to consume sporting content. This research identified that in-game consumption of SM while watching television and the mobile consumption of SM are both dominant ways for fans to interact with their teams. This multi-modal format of connecting with the team supports the idea of Henry Jenkins’s Black Box Fallacy (2006, p. 13): as teams move forward in developing communications platforms to reach their fans, they will need to recognize that all channels can and do work together. In order to further understand how Twitter has changed sports media relations, the study used long semi-structured interviews with a phenomenological research design to understand how Twitter has impacted sports media relations. The phenomenological analysis of the informant interviews suggested that Twitter is the source of three themes of change: general media relations, mechanical job functions, and other changes specific to sports media relations. The significance of Twitter’s impact on sports media relations cannot be understated. With the ubiquitous use of SM like Twitter, it is important to understand how sports media relations can use SM to manage the image of their respective teams and athletes. After looking at SM and sports from three different perspectives, the pivotal finding was the role that Twitter and mobile communications play in ‘flattening’ sports media relations. Similar to how Friedman (2006) argued that the convergence of the personal computer drove globalization, Twitter and the increased adoption of mobile communications have flattened the role of sports media relations. This research will explain how the flattening of sports media relations happened and what the implications might be for sports media professionals

Visual analytics and artificial intelligence for marketing

In today’s online environments, such as social media platforms and e-commerce websites, consumers are overloaded with information and firms are competing for their attention. Most of the data on these platforms comes in the form of text, images, or other unstructured data sources. It is important to understand which information on company websites and social media platforms are enticing and/or likeable by consumers. The impact of online visual content, in particular, remains largely unknown. Finding the drivers behind likes and clicks can help (1) understand how consumers interact with the information that is presented to them and (2) leverage this knowledge to improve marketing content. The main goal of this dissertation is to learn more about why consumers like and click on visual content online. To reach this goal visual analytics are used for automatic extraction of relevant information from visual content. This information can then be related, at scale, to consumer and their decisions

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2021

This open access book is the proceedings of the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT)’s 28th Annual International eTourism Conference, which assembles the latest research presented at the ENTER21@yourplace virtual conference January 19–22, 2021. This book advances the current knowledge base of information and communication technologies and tourism in the areas of social media and sharing economy, technology including AI-driven technologies, research related to destination management and innovations, COVID-19 repercussions, and others. Readers will find a wealth of state-of-the-art insights, ideas, and case studies on how information and communication technologies can be applied in travel and tourism as we encounter new opportunities and challenges in an unpredictable world

Chinese Reality TV- A Case Study of GDTV’s The Great Challenge for Survival

The emergence of reality programming has a parallel development with Chinese television media at the beginning of this century. This study of Chinese “Reality TV” is based on a case study of a pioneer Chinese reality production, namely The Great Challenge for Survivor (GDTV, 2000-2006). The general concern of this thesis is an examination of the localizing of popular foreign outdoor survival formats (the Japanese top-rating Airway Boys and the international format Survivor) within a Chinese context. The study of this subject consists of field research into a major Party-state owned television broadcaster and a comparative analysis of the six broadcast seasons of the selected example. The research outcome presented here highlights some distinctive Chinese patterns in the outdoor survival reality strand prevailing early in this century and articulates the complex roles that a nationalized television station was required to play in the industrialized reform era. By recognizing the GDTV crew’s continuous efforts to improve production quality and to satisfy their assumed audiences’ needs, the thesis further addresses some key factors of the specific institutional system and broad media environment shaping local reality programme makers' decision making. Facing a “special television zone” in China, the local producer’s continuous modification of their reality programming was on the cutting edge of commercialization and globalization in the early 2000s. The production of the studied case was an exploratory enterprise which involved a set of negotiations, arguments and compromises while dealing with a range of issues which emerged in such areas as the cultural landscape, social environment, political discourse and economic power. To a large extent, the manifested transition taking place in this studied local production mirrors unprecedented social and economic changes occurring in contemporary China