Literature Review Influencer Marketing

Word-of-mouth is the major factor to help people make decisions on buying high-involvement products (Gu, Park, & Konana 2012, p. 182).

In his book, The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference (2000), Malcolm Gladwell highlights the power of intelligent action and the potential of little changes for starting epidemics. Concepts such as the law of few, the stickiness factor, and the power of context arouse epidemics both in macro-level and in micro-level. In detail, the law of few affirms the influence on communication. Connectors, mavens, and salesmen each has abilities to conjoin, collect, and cajole; they distribute information globally. The stickiness factor refers to a technique, which emphasize and allow information to stick in the minds of consumers. Last, the power of context stresses that both individual’s reaction and community’s cohesion can

We are successfully utilizing social media as a powerful way to gain positive exposure and connect with our internet-savvy customers in a global and local level. We rely heavily in word-of-mouth advocacy”. (John Mackey, 2012)

“Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas. The Law of the Few says that Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen are responsible for starting word-of-mouth epidemics,

In the novel Contagious: Why Things Catch On, author Jonah Berger explained why ideas and behaviors get spread to different people and places. There are many marketing and advertising on products, but only a few products become the hot topic of people’s conversations. These products succeed in being spread around because it is just plain better and has attractive pricing and many advertising. By being better, flat screen computer monitors weigh less and have higher pixel screen qualities than those of the old-fashioned ones. Lower price products have more sales than the similar products with higher price tags.

This novel was extremely helpful for my knowledge in the public relations field. I learned many facts that I thought the opposite of before reading it. For an example, although I was not exceedingly familiar with the idea of word of mouth, I would have never expected the percentage of social media in word of mouth to be so low (Berger 2013). After reading about word of mouth I began realizing how much I spoke about products on a day to day basis. The best part about this novel was the immense amount of examples. Berger utilized facts and experiments to

With the influence of online websites and social media, marketers are able to endorse their creation

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are popular social media platforms that millennials frequent. Facebook and Twitter are perfect outlets for Star Athletics to keep the consumer in the know about the brand and new products. Using these social media platforms will allow the company to interact with the consumer in real time and track responses about the brand through consumer post and hashtag tracking. YouTube vloggers also known as micro-influencers can do product reviews and give their honest opinions about the brand and product. Their audience is far smaller, but the level of engagement, trust and authenticity that a micro-influencer can foster with his or her followers makes it exponentially more likely that their audience will travel through the funnel. Micro-influencers’ engaged reach is like the ultimate stamp of peer-approved credibility that Millennials crave, which makes it exponentially more likely they will convert on that content (Burke 2016).

In the book Influencer, propinquity is defined as “physical proximity” (2013, p. 267). The text then explains “how it affects our behaviors and relationships” (2013, p. 267). It discusses how the actual distance between colleagues affect not only their ability to work with another but their willingness. The book suggests the “everyone suffers from the negative effects of space and distance” (2013, p. 268). I would agree with this perspective. On our base my job requires me to coordinated vehicle use and maintenance with multiple shops. The more I am able to get out and get come to know the person I am working with, I find they are more willing to work with me. We build a sense of comfort ability and trust with another that allow us to more

Taking the nature of the business and culture of secrecy into consideration, two co-founders expect to target their pitches precisely by using limited social media. According to Nielsen’s research, 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising (Whitler 2014), therefore WOMM (word-of-mouth marketing) will be first priority.

Many companies are convinced that there are a limited number of “influencers” on the web that can endorse products and attract the attention of massive amounts of consumers (O'Brien & Marakas, 2011). Supposedly these people have a near mythical ability to create an internet sensation by the mere mention of a business’ wares, and finding these individuals is important to marketing departments since studies have shown that people are more receptive to the advice of third parties above the information provided in the advertising from the product companies (Matthews, 2013). However, firms have found these Michael Jordan’s of social media to be extremely difficult to find and marketers from LinkedIn, BzzAgent, and Umbria have concluded that this

It is no secret that people trust the judgment of other people when it comes to buying a product or finding something new online, we turn to yelp, google reviews and as mentioned before our facebook friends. Because of our willingness to trust people that seem trustworthy, often times companies use influencers to showcase specific products. By having an influencer use a product in a picture or show the product in a video consumers often trust it and want to buy it and this ultimately leads to greater sales. While I am sure there are no little league influencers, there are many really well known little league teams in

Over the last several years the process of reaching out to customers has been continually changing. Part of reason for this is because more people are turning to the Internet as a way to be able to promote their products and communicate to a larger audience. A good example of this can be seen with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, with him using this medium as a way to gain support and funding for his campaign. This allowed him to utilize this new technology to effectively connect with and inform voters about key issues. Over the course of time this helped his campaign to gain momentum. Once this occurred is when he was able to stand out against his rivals through effectively utilizing these tools. (Miller, 2008)

If you’ve already built the relationship, then this is much more likely to be successful, because the influencer knows you and understands you want to share his or her information as well.

The important role of e-WOM has and has been acknowledged as the most important communication source between consumers .At its core, WOM is a process of personal influence, in which interpersonal communications between a sender and a receiver can change the receiver's behavior or attitudes . The role that interpersonal communication plays in influencing opinions has also long been acknowledged by sociologists, who identified the importance of “opinion leaders” in this process. The ability of individuals to influence other people's opinions is of particular interest to organizations seeking to market