The traditional communication process has undergone a
transformation, evolving from a one-to-many structure to
many-to-many. This evolution was made possible by the emergence of
the Internet as a medium, which changed the way companies connect
with their consumers (Hoffman & Novak, 1996), and opening space
for new behaviors based on interactions and experiences (Lamberton
& Stephen, 2016). This change has even generated a questioning
about the future of traditional advertising (Kumar & Gupta,
2016; Schultz, 2016) since companies must deal with an increasingly
dispersed and organized target audience in micro communities in
social media. The practical implication of this situation is a
phenomenon in which people distribute themselves in community
networks that provide information, a sense of belonging, and build
connections with others they may not know personally but share the
same interests (Wellman, 2001). Individuals recognized as opinion
makers can form such networks by bringing together their set of
followers and serving as vehicles for brands that wish to advertise
products or services, as the endorsement of such individuals
transfers the endorser's recognition, trust, and respect to the
announced product (Kumar & Gupta, 2016).
Endorsement represents a marketing technique in which a person
endowed with public recognition lends this advantage to a product
or service. The practice of endorsement can represent the
psychological process of social influence and deals with every
component of human behavior not determined by biology, in which
individuals influence the opinions and behaviors of others. In
general, the agencies and the companies themselves state that
celebrity endorsement has a positive effect on the attitude towards
the endorsed object, although it does not affect the behavioral
intentions of consumers, and has as a positive aspect to achieve
the dissemination of their product or service in a segmented and
which tends to generate better performance. Many companies rely on
an endorsement of virtual social networks as a means of attracting
attention to their products or services, due to the decrease in
consumer attention in traditional forms of advertising. In general
the effects of this tactic on online environments is still in its
early stages but has already been used as a marketing strategy for
small and large companies.
The most traditional virtual tool for disseminating content to
followers in a particular network is the blog. It is a regular
publication, organized chronologically in postings combining images
and texts (Castro & Santos Júnior, 2015). However, bloggers
have gradually migrated to more modern virtual platforms with
broader, deeper and agiler broadcasting properties (Zhang &
Peng, 2015), such as virtual social networks. Specifically, in
Brazil, Instagram is the space where opinion makers play the role
of digital influencers by bringing together followers around an
individual profile, from where they advertise products and
services. The phenomenon seems to have begun in the fashion
segment, where model profiles or personalities bring together up to
4.7 million followers (Fernandez, 2016), but has spread to other
areas. Market data consolidated by a Brazilian digital agency
reveal two young people, a comedian and an actress, who gather five
and eight million subscribers, respectively in their private
channels in a social network of videos (IInterativa, 2016). On the
one hand, this strong dynamic of advertising activity in social
media like Instagram seems to be peculiar to Brazil. Digital
influencers, apparently unknown to the general public, but known to
a particular group, also receive offers from companies to produce
sponsored posts that are viewed by followers located in the
"network" of these influencers. On the other hand, celebrity like
the American Selena Gomez charged almost $ 2 million for a post, a
price justified by the audience of the singer who has more than 100
million followers on Instagram, and also by the digital influence
of celebrities such as the singer, which can generate up to three
times more engagement on Instagram, and five times more than other
media in corporate profiles (Socialbakers, 2016). In spite of the
constant use of celebrities to promote products and services by
companies, digital influencers with a lower number of followers
have attracted the attention of companies that are looking for
alternative ways of disseminating their messages, mainly due to the
authenticity of their posts (Suhrawardi, 2016).
According to data from a virtual social media management
platform, 92% of consumers rely more on ads made by influencers
than through traditional media or celebrity use (Weinswig, 2016).
This trust is justified by the ability of influencers to create
authentic and personalized posts, which creates a sense of
credibility (Boyd, 2016). Therefore, the influencers have
characteristics that are related to the context in which it is
inserted, position in the virtual social network and the connection
with other members. A representation of this perceived credibility
is the case of YouTubers who are users who promote videos about
various topics through the Youtube online video tool and can
establish strong relationships with the users of their network
(Google, 2016). According to Google, the videos promoted by
YouTubers receive more engagement compared to celebrity videos,
promoting three times more views, twice as many actions and twelve
times more comments in the posts.
Measuring the real level of influence of these new opinion
makers is still a challenge for marketers (Terra, 2012; Uzunoglu;
Kip, 2014). In an advertising survey in which influencers in social
networks Facebook and Twitter are analyzed influencers can be
identified by a number of followers in a number of pages on the
web, as well as their index in the PageRank (form that Google
represents the importance of a page), if it has more than one
profile on social media, and also, through the Klout index (tool
that measures the influence of the user in a social network). In
this way, the challenge for agencies and companies is in
identifying the influencer for their target audience and a campaign
alignment so that the endorsement of the brand or product can be
positive.
Discussion Questions
1. What strategy could marketers follow to identify
influencers in virtual social networks aligned with their product
or brand?
2. How can companies evaluate the performance of actions with
digital influencers?
3. What indicators could the company use to assess the
remuneration of digital influencers?