Abstract
Recent years have seen a significant increase in influencer advertising, a strategy applied to drive brand awareness and purchase by leveraging everyday opinion leaders on social media. Although a growing body of research focuses on what makes influencers effective, the authors took a step back to determine what drives consumers to follow influencers. To address two research questions, the authors explored consumer heterogeneity to understand how consumers derive value from the influencers they follow. Following a large-scale survey of consumers across five social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitter), the authors used latent class segmentation to uncover six consumer segments. These segments differ in why people follow, and how they react to, influencers. The findings provide both brands and influencers with insights that can guide better management of influencer–consumer relationships.
- Received August 20, 2020.
- Received (in revised form) February 16, 2021.
- Accepted April 8, 2021.
- Copyright © 2021 ARF. All rights reserved.
ARF MEMBERS
If you are a member of the Advertising Research Foundation, you can access the content by logging in here
Log In
Pay Per Article - You may access this article (from the computer you are currently using) for 30 days for US$20.00
Regain Access - You can regain access to a recent Pay per Article purchase if your access period has not yet expired.
Log in using your username and password
Vol 64 Issue 4
