RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 What Drives Consumers To Engage with Influencers?
JF Journal of Advertising Research
JO J Advert Res
FD WARC
SP 35
OP 48
DO 10.2501/JAR-2021-017
VO 62
IS 1
A1 Justine Rapp Farrell
A1 Colin Campbell
A1 Sean Sands
YR 2022
UL http://www.journalofadvertisingresearch.com/content/62/1/35.abstract
AB 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.