social media presence for companies research paper

Social Media Presence and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Study on Companies’ Presence on Twitter

Nivo Ravaonorohanta University of Sherbrooke
Michel Sayumwe University of Quebec at Montreal

Author Biographies

Nivo ravaonorohanta, university of sherbrooke, michel sayumwe, university of quebec at montreal, how to cite.

Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)

Strengthen Your Professional Presence on Social Media

Michelle Gibbings

social media presence for companies research paper

Connect, create, and be consistent for the best results.

Have you ever thought of using social media to strengthen your career? There are many social media platforms and each has different offerings that may benefit you more or less depending on your current job and future career goals.

First, decide where to spend your time. Figure out what features are must-haves, nice-to-haves, and irrelevant for showcasing your skills and building a strong presence. While you don’t need to choose just one platform, trying to build a professional presence on too many at once can be a waste of valuable time — especially if a platform isn’t serving your career needs or goals.
Next, remember that just being on a social media platform isn’t enough. What matters is your visibility, your impact, and how both things are pushing you closer to your career goal. Who knows you is as important as who you know . Use your social media account like a online business card and share it with people you meet. Follow people on their professional social media pages, engage with their content, comment on their posts, and reach out with an ask or offer directly related to their interests or work.
Then, create a content strategy for your account. Think about what types of content you will share, when you’ll share it and how your content will create value for your followers. Use your content to showcase your thoughts and perspectives so people can get to know you.
Lastly, be consistent. Ensure that what you share and how you comment and behave on professional social platforms align with your values and how you want people to think about you.

When it comes to your career, social media can be your friend and your enemy. On the one hand, research has found that looking at people’s career-related posts on social media can affect our perception and feelings about our own progress . Seeing friends, colleagues, and even strangers post stories about their successes can lead us to unhealthy comparisons, self-criticisms, and feelings of frustration.

MG Michelle Gibbings is bringing back the happy to workplace culture. The author of three books and a global keynote speaker, she’s on a mission to help leaders, teams and organizations create successful workplaces where people thrive and progress is accelerated.

Partner Center

Media Science
Social Science
Social Media

THE IMPACT OF EMPLOYER BRANDING ON CORPORATE IMAGE BUILDING: EXPLORING THE CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA

East West University (Bangladesh)

Lamar University

Discover the world's research

25+ million members
160+ million publication pages
2.3+ billion citations
Int J Innovat Tech Manag

Gilda Antonelli

T.C. Melewar

EUR J MARKETING
Julia Marcet Alonso

Daniela Pirani

Recruit researchers
Join for free
Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

Social media influencer marketing: foundations, trends, and ways forward

Open access
Published: 25 June 2023

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

Yatish Joshi 1 ,
Weng Marc Lim ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7196-1923 2 , 3 , 6 ,
Khyati Jagani 4 &
Satish Kumar 4 , 5

71k Accesses

49 Citations

1 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

The increasing use and effectiveness of social media influencers in marketing have intrigued both academic scholars and industry professionals. To shed light on the foundations and trends of this contemporary phenomenon, this study undertakes a systematic literature review using a bibliometric-content analysis to map the extant literature where consumer behavior, social media, and influencer marketing are intertwined. Using 214 articles published in journals indexed by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS), and Web of Science (WOS) from 2008 to 2021, this study unpacks the articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs (antecedents, moderators, mediators, and consequences) in extant research on social media influencer marketing. Noteworthily, the review highlighted that the major research streams in social media influencer marketing research involve parasocial interactions and relationships, sponsorship, authenticity, and engagement and influence. The review also revealed the prominent role of audience-, brand-, comparative-, content-, influencer-, social-, and technology-related factors in influencing how consumers react to social media influencer marketing. The insights derived from this one-stop, state-of-the-art review can help social media influencers and marketing scholars and professionals to recognize key characteristics and trends of social media influencer marketing, and thus, drive new research and social media marketing practices where social media influencers are employed and leveraged upon for marketing activities.

Influencer Marketing as a Counterstrategy to the Commoditization of Marketing Communications: A Bibliometric Analysis

Influencer Marketing: Current Knowledge and Research Agenda

What Do We Know About Influencers on Social Media? Toward a New Conceptualization and Classification of Influencers

Explore related subjects.

Artificial Intelligence

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Social media influencers are increasingly popular and affecting consumers’ attitudes, perceptions, preferences, choices, and decisions. Social media influencers are regular everyday people who have created an online presence from the grassroots level through their social media channel or page and, in the process, have created an extensive network of followers (Bastrygina and Lim [ 10 ]. In that sense, social media influencers are different than traditional celebrities or public figures, who rely on their existing careers (e.g., actors, singers, politicians) to become popular and exert influence [ 88 ].

Influencers first appeared in the early 2000s, and have since progressed from a home-based hobby to a lucrative full-time career. Influencer marketing has become so attractive that with the growing industry, there is an ever-growing set of social media users that aim to become an influencer. Influencers are now capitalizing on their popularity and visibility to further their career in mainstream media such as the film and television industry [ 1 ]. The segmentation of influencers is on the number of followers they have, whereby influencers can be classified as micro-, meso- and macro-influencers [ 44 ]. According to Lou and Yan [ 88 ], posts by influencers have two essential purposes from a marketing perspective: the first purpose is to increase the purchase intention of their followers, and the second purpose is to enhance their followers’ attractiveness and product knowledge. Influencers often curate posts with information and testimonials about the features of the product that they are promoting, which results in increased information value and product knowledge. In the process, they leverage and relay their attractiveness and aesthetic value through the use of sex appeal and posing [ 104 ].

Social media influencers have been defined by many scholars in numerous ways. Freberg et al. [ 44 ] characterized social media influencers as a new type of independent third-party endorser who shapes audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media. Abidin [ 1 ] construed social media influencers as a form of microcelebrities who document their everyday lives from the trivial and mundane to the exciting snippets of the exclusive opportunities in their line of work, thereby shaping public opinion through the conscientious calibration of persona on social media. De Veirman et al. [ 28 ] defined social media influencers as people who built a large network of followers and are regarded as trusted tastemakers in one or several niches. Ge and Gretzel [ 45 ] denoted social media influencers as individuals who are in a consumer’s social graph and has a direct impact on the behavior of that consumer. More recently, Dhanesh and Duthler [ 30 ] described social media influencers as people who, through personal branding, build and maintain relationships with their followers on social media, and have the ability to inform, entertain, and influence their followers’ thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. When these definitions are taken collectively and espoused through a marketing lens, social media influencers are essentially people who develop and maintain a personal brand and a following on social media through posts that intertwin their personality and lifestyle with the products (e.g., goods, services, ideas, places, people) that they promote, which can influence the way their followers behave (e.g., attitudes, perceptions, preferences, choices, decisions), positively (e.g., purchase) or negatively (e.g., do not purchase) .

Social media influencers, as digital opinion leaders, participate in self-presentation on social media. They form an identity by creating an online image using a rich multimodal narrative of their everyday personal lives and using it to attract a large number of followers [ 59 ]. Most critical to their success is the influencer-follower relationship [ 1 ], which future follower behavior (e.g., interaction, purchase intention) is dependent upon [ 13 ], [ 37 ], [ 126 ]. Indeed, social media influencers are often perceived to be credible, personal, and easily relatable given their organic rise to fame [ 28 ], [ 31 ], [ 104 ].

In collaborations between brands and social media influencers, the role of a social media influencer is to act as a brand ambassador by designing sponsored content for the brand to convey and enhance its brand image and brand name [ 104 ], and to drive brand engagement and brand loyalty [ 72 ]. Such content is often curated by social media influencers, as independent third-party endorsers, by sharing their experiences and lives in relation to the brand through pictures, texts, stories, hashtags, and check-ins, among others [ 28 ]. Indeed, social media influencers are highly sought after by brands because they have established credibility with their followers as a result of their expertise, which allow them to exert influence on the decision-making of their followers [ 60 ]. Moreover, influencer marketing through social media can provide opportunities to influencers and their followers to contribute to the co-creation of the brand’s image on social media [ 88 ].

With the growing importance of influencer marketing and the popularity of social media influencers, various brands have started promoting their products with the help of social media influencers in an attempt to influence consumers to behave in desired ways (e.g., forming positive brand attitudes and encourage product brand purchases) [ 104 ]. However, consumer behavior is highly complex [ 81 ], and increasing inconsistency has been noted in the effectiveness of this medium [ 124 ]. Thus, it is essential to understand the factors (i.e., antecedents) underpinning consumer decision making (i.e., consequences or decisions) toward brands promoted by social media influencers, including the factors (i.e., mediators and moderators) responsible for the inconsistency in consumer responses. In this regard, attempts to consolidate extant knowledge in the field is arguably relevant to address the extant gap and needs of marketing scholars and professionals interested in social media influencer marketing.

In recognition of the growing influence of social media influencers and influencer marketing in consumer decision making, this study aims to provide a one-stop, state-of-the-art overview of the articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs (antecedents, moderators, mediators, and consequences) relating to social media influencer marketing using a systematic review of articles in the area from 2008 to 2021. Though a recent review on social media influencers was conducted by Vrontis et al. [ 124 ], the present review remains warranted because the existing review only considered a small sample of 68 articles published in journals indexed in the Chartered Association of Business Schools Academic Journal Guide, and thus, cannot holistically encapsulate the state of the field. Indeed, the insights and the integrative framework resulting from their review was relatively lean, which can be attributed to the sample limitations that the authors had imposed for their review. The same can be said about another recent review by Bastrygina and Lim [ 10 ], which considered only 45 articles in Scopus that narrowly focused only on the consumer engagement aspect of social media influencers. To overcome these limitations , the present review will consider a more inclusive search and inclusion criteria while upholding to the highest standards of academic quality by relying on a broader range of indexing sources. The motivation of the present review is also in line with the call by Lim et al. [ 86 ] and Paul et al. [ 98 ] for new reviews that address the shortcoming of existing reviews in order to redirect research in the area onto a clearer and more refined path for progress. In addition, the present review adopts a bibliometric-content analysis to consolidate current findings, uncover emerging trends and extant gaps, and curate a future agenda for social media influencer marketing. Noteworthily, the rigorous multi-method review technique (i.e., the combination of a bibliometric analysis and a content analysis) adopted for the present review is in line with the recommendation of Lim et al. [ 86 ] to facilitate a deeper dive into the literature, and thus, enabling the curation of a richer depiction of the nomological network characterizing the field [ 94 ], in this case, the field of social media influencer marketing. In doing so, this study contributes to answering the following research questions (RQs):

RQ1. What is the publication trend of social media influencer marketing research, and which are the key articles?

RQ2. Where is research on social media influencer marketing published?

RQ3. How has social media influencer marketing research been conducted?

RQ4. What are the theories that can be used to inform social media influencer marketing research?

RQ5. What are the major themes of social media influencer marketing research?

RQ6. What are the constructs (i.e., antecedents, mediators, moderators, and consequences) employed in social media influencer marketing research?

RQ7. Where should social media influencer marketing be heading towards in the future?

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next section provides an account of the methodology used in the research, followed by the findings and conclusions of the study in subsequent sections.

2 Methodology

This study conducts a multi-method systematic literature review on social media influencer marketing using a bibliometric-content analysis in line with the recommendation of Lim et al. [ 86 ] and recent systematic literature reviews (e.g., Kumar et al. [ 64 ]. The assembling, arranging, and assessing techniques stipulated in the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews ( SPAR-4-SLR ) protocol by Paul et al. [ 98 ] to carry out a systematic literature review are also adopted and explained in the next sections.

2.1 Assembling

Assembling relates to the identification (i.e., review domain, research questions, source type, and source quality) and acquisition (i.e., search mechanism and material acquisition, search period, search keywords) of articles for review. In terms of identification , the review domain relates to social media influencer marketing, but within the subject areas of business management, social sciences, hospitality, tourism, and economics due to their immediate relevance to the review domain, and thus, articles in other subject areas such as computer science, engineering, medical, and mathematics, which are peripheral to the review domain, were not considered. Next, the research questions underpinning the review pertain to the articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs in the field and were presented in the introduction section. Only journals were considered as part of source type as they are the main sources of academic literature that have been rigorously peer reviewed Nord & Nord, [ 96 ]. The source quality was inclusive yet high quality, whereby articles published in journals indexed in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS), and Web of Science (WOS) were included. In terms of acquisition , the search mechanism and material acquisition relied on the WOS database, which is connected to myriad publishers such as Emerald, Sage, Springer, Taylor and Francis, and Wiley. The search period starts from 2008 and ends in 2021. The year 2008 was selected as the starting year because it was the year that the concept of influencer was first introduced by Kiss and Bichler [ 63 ], and thus, a review staring from 2008 can provide a more accurate and relevant account of the extant literature on influencer marketing, particularly from the lenses of consumers and social media influencers. The end year 2021 was selected because it is the most recent full year at the time of search—a practice in line with Lim et al. [ 83 ]. The search keywords—i.e., “consumer behavio*” (truncation technique), “social media,” “influencer,” and “marketing”—were curated through brainstorming and endorsed by disciplinary experts in marketing and methodological experts in review studies. In total, 320 articles were returned from the search, but 17 articles were removed as they were related to engineering, mathematics, and medicine, which resulted in only 303 articles that were retrieved for the arranging stage.

2.2 Arranging

Arranging relates to the organization (i.e., organizing codes) and purification (i.e., exclusion and inclusion criteria) of articles returned from the search. In terms of organization , the content of articles was coded based on the key focus of each research question: journal title, method, theory, and construct (antecedent, mediator, moderator, consequence). The bibliometric details of the articles were also retrieved and organized accordingly in this stage. In terms of purification , 89 articles were eliminated as they were not published in journals indexed by ABDC and CABS, with the rest of the 214 articles included for review.

2.3 Assessing

Assessing relates to the evaluation (i.e., analysis method, agenda proposal method) and reporting (i.e., reporting conventions, limitations, and sources of support) of articles under review. In terms of evaluation , a bibliometric analysis and a content analysis were conducted.

For the bibliometric analysis, the Bibliometrix package in R studio software [ 4 ] was used to conduct (1) a performance analysis to reveal the publication trend as well as the key articles and journals (RQ1 and RQ2), and (2) a science mapping to uncover the major themes in the field (RQ5) in line with the bibliometric guidelines by Donthu et al. [ 32 ]. With regards to science mapping, a triangulation technique was adopted in line with the recommendation of Lim et al. [ 86 ] using:

co-citation using PageRank , wherein the major themes are revealed through the clustering of articles that are most cited by highly-cited articles,

bibliographic coupling , wherein the major themes are revealed through the clustering of articles that cite similar references, and

keyword co-occurrence , wherein the major themes are revealed through the clustering of author specified keywords that commonly appear together [ 32 ], [ 64 ].

For the content analysis, the within-study and between-study literature analysis method by Ngai [ 95 ] was adopted (RQ3, RQ4, and RQ6). The within-study literature analysis evaluates the entire content of the article (e.g., theoretical foundation, methodology, constructs), whereas the between-study literature analysis consolidates, compares, and contrasts information between two or more articles. The future research agenda proposal method is predicated on the expert evaluation of a trend analysis by the authors (RQ7). In terms of reporting , the conventions for the outcomes reported include figures, tables, and words, whereas the limitations and sources of support are acknowledged at the end.

The findings of the review are organized based on the research questions (RQs) of the study: articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs.

3.1 Articles

The first research question (RQ1) deals with the publication trend and key articles of social media influencer marketing research.

Figure 1 indicates that research on social media influencer marketing began to flourish 10 years (i.e., 2018 onwards) after the concept of was introduced in 2008 [ 63 ]. This implies that interest in social media influencer marketing is fairly recent (i.e., within the last five years at the time of analysis), wherein its stratospheric growth appears to have coincided with that of highly interactive and visual content-focused social media such as Instagram (e.g., Instagram Stories feature launched in December 2017) [ 17 ] and TikTok (e.g., international launch in September 2017) [ 129 ]. The growth of triple-digit publications observed in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic is especially noteworthy as it signals the importance of social media influencer marketing in the new normal and reaffirms past observations of an acceleration in technology adoption [ 77 ], [ 79 ].

Publication trend of social media influencer marketing research

Table 1 presents the top articles on social media influencer marketing. The most cited article is De Veirman et al.’s [ 28 ] (464 citations), which focused on social media influencer marketing using Instagram and revealed the impact of the number of followers and product divergence on brand attitudes among the followers of social media influencers. The burgeoning interest on Instagram as seen through this most cited article despite its recency corroborates the earlier observation on the stratospheric growth in research interest on highly interactive and visual content-focused social media. The top-cited articles in recent years demonstrate increasing research interest in comparative studies (e.g., celebrity versus social media influencer endorsements, [ 104 ],Instagram versus YouTube; [ 108 ], as well as review studies (e.g., Hudders et al., [ 48 ], [ 124 ], albeit the latter being limited (e.g., small review corpus, niche review focus) and thus reaffirming the necessity and value of the present review.

3.2 Journals

The second research question (RQ2) deals with the outlets that publish social media influencer marketing research and the source type chosen according to the recommendation of Paul et al. [ 98 ] is journals on the basis of academic quality and rigor. In total, the 214 articles in the review corpus were published in 87 journal titles indexed in ABDC, CABS, and WOS. Out of the 87 journal titles, 80 (37.38%) articles are published by the top 10 journals with the most articles on social media influencer marketing, with Journal of Business Research , International Journal of Advertising , and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services emerging as the top three journals in terms of numbers of articles published in the area (Table 2 ).

3.3 Methods

The third research question (RQ3) focuses on the methods that can inform social media influencer marketing research and were identified and coded manually using the within-study technique and consolidated to portray the outcome of a between-study literature analysis suggested by Ngai [ 95 ]. In total, seven categories of methods were employed in 214 articles on social media influencer marketing research (Table 3 ). As a category, quantitative methods in the form of surveys were most prevalent ( n = 64), followed by qualitative methods ( n = 52), with individual interviews being the most popular method ( n = 19). Experimental ( n = 38) and machine learning ( n = 33) methods were noteworthy too. Non-empirical methods ( n = 19) such as conceptual ( n = 9) and review ( n = 10) methods were less prominent. Similarly, mix methods ( n = 8) were the least popular. As a whole, the review indicates that extant research on social media influencer marketing were mostly empirical in nature albeit in silos (i.e., single rather than mixed methods).

3.4 Theories

The fourth research question (RQ4) pertains to the theories that can inform social media influencer marketing research and were identified, coded, and reported using the same Ngai [ 95 ] informed within- and between-study literature analysis as reported for the methods in the preceding section. In total, 46 different theories employed in 94 (43.93%) articles on social media influencer marketing research were revealed (Table 4 ). Persuasion knowledge theory emerged as the most popular theory with eight articles, whereas social learning theory, social comparison theory, social cognitive theory, social exchange theory, social identity theory, social influence theory, source credibility theory, reactance theory, theory of para-social interaction, theory of planned behavior, and uses and gratifications theory were among the other popular theories ( n ≥ 3). The broad range of theories indicate that social media influencer marketing is an area of research with multi-faceted aspects worthy of exploration and investigation. The sociological theories manifested in the most ways—namely Bourdieu’s theory, Graph theory, network theory, observational learning theory, optimal distinctiveness theory, social cognitive theory, social comparison theory, social exchange theory, social identity theory, social influence theory, social learning theory, structural hole theory, system justification theory, and theory of para-social interaction—whereas media theories were not far behind—namely advertising literacy theory, media dependency theory, megaphone effect theory, source credibility theory, transfer theory, two-step flow theory, uses and gratifications theory, and visual framing theory. The manifestation of theories that infused “media” and “sociology” together , such as social media influencer value model and social-mediated crisis communication theory, were observed as well. Psychological theories , such as associative learning theory, attachment theory, attribution theory, consistency theory, construal level theory, dissonance theory, dual process theory, elaboration likelihood model, halo effect theory, reactance theory, similarity-attraction model, theory of planned behavior, and theory of reasoned action, and marketing theories , such as Doppelganger effect theory, human brand theory, relationship management theory, and source effect theory, were also noteworthy. Management theories , such as charismatic and transformational leadership theory and resource dependency theory, were also observed. Interestingly, only one economic (i.e., cost-signaling theory) and one technology (i.e., technology acceptance model) theory were observed, which may indicate that the economic and technology aspects are underexplored as compared to the media, psychological, management, marketing, and social aspects of social media influencer marketing.

The fifth research question (RQ5) involves the mapping of extant research on social media influencer marketing. To do so, three science mapping techniques that rely on different sources of bibliographic data were relied upon—namely (1) a co-citation analysis using PageRank to identify clusters of articles that are most cited by highly-cited articles, (2) a bibliographic coupling to locate clusters of articles that share common references, and (3) a keyword co-occurrence analysis to uncover clusters of author specified keywords that commonly co-appear [ 32 ], [ 65 ].

3.5.1 Foundational themes (or foundational knowledge)

The foundational themes and the top articles for each foundational theme in social media influencer marketing research are depicted in Table 5 . In essence, foundational themes exemplify the perspectives that a field’s research relies upon, and thus, these themes may encompass articles inside and outside that field [ 32 ]. In the case of social media influencer marketing, four foundational themes were revealed by the co-citation analysis using PageRank. Noteworthily, the PageRank scores indicate article prestige, wherein a higher score indicates that the article is cited more by highly-cited articles in the field, whereas the betweenness and closeness centrality scores reflect the article’s relevance across and within themes, wherein a higher score indicates greater relevance across and within themes, respectively [ 32 ].

The first foundational theme depicts the foundations and models for social media influencer marketing . The articles in this foundational theme signify the key characteristics of concepts associated to social media influencer marketing, such as the concept of engagement [ 49 ], “Instafamous” [ 55 ], influencer marketing [ 88 ], and social media influencers [ 44 ], including the difference between traditional celebrities and contemporary social media influencers [ 104 ].

The second foundational theme denotes the influence and impact perspectives for social media influencer marketing . The articles in this foundational theme represent a collection of insights in relation to influence and impact. For example, the most prestigious article under this theme examines the impact of the number of followers of Instagram influencers and the divergence of the products promoted by these influencers on the brand attitudes of their followers [ 28 ]. Other examples of influence and impact outcomes include attitudes and behavioral intentions [ 37 ], engagement [ 120 ], perceptions Lee & Watkins, [ 67 ], and purchase decisions [ 31 ].

The third foundational theme highlights the importance of endorsement and resonance perspectives for social media influencer marketing . The articles in this theme, which are widely cited by highly cited articles on social media influencer marketing, emphasize the importance of endorsement and resonance literature in grounding the reasons for and outcome of social media influencer marketing. This can be seen by the prominence of celebrity endorsement (e.g., [ 34 ], Mccracken, [ 93 ], Silvera & Austad, [ 107 ]) and congruence (e.g., Till & Busler, [ 116 ]; [[ 128 ]] literature that make up the most prestigious articles under this theme.

The fourth foundational theme relates to the profiling and measurement perspectives for social media influencer marketing research . This theme signifies and reaffirms the value of personal characteristics (e.g., personalities, profiles; [ 31 ], Ferchaud et al., [ 40 ]), measurement scales (e.g., expertise trustworthiness and attractiveness; Ohanian, [ 97 ]), and evaluation methods (e.g., structural models; Fornell & Larcker, [ 43 ]) in guiding and informing social media influencer marketing research, and thus, they form a considerable part of the knowledge relied upon by research in the field.

3.5.2 Major themes (or major research streams)

The major themes build upon the foundational themes to curate new knowledge and understanding on social media influencer marketing [ 32 ]. To uncover the major themes, a keyword co-occurrence analysis was initially conducted to gain a sense of the nomological network for the major themes [ 94 ], followed by a bibliographic coupling to gain an in-depth understanding of the content under each major theme in the field [ 32 ].

The keyword co-occurrence analysis indicates that four major themes characterize the knowledge curated by extant research focusing specifically on social media influencer marketing (Fig. 2 and Table 6 ), which is triangulated by the six major themes revealed through bibliographic coupling, in which four bibliographic coupling clusters corresponds to two keyword clusters (Table 7 ). The key peculiarities of these themes are presented as follows.

Nomological network of research streams in social media influencer marketing research

Parasocial interactions and relationships in social media influencer marketing . This major theme is most prominent (eight keywords) and relatively recent (2020.1429–2020.7499). This theme highlights the importance of the “credibility” ( n = 6), “persuasion knowledge” ( n = 7), and “source credibility” ( n = 7) of social media influencers as essential “persuasion” ( n = 5) factors that influence the “parasocial interactions” ( n = 8) and “parasocial relationships” ( n = 12) in social media influencer marketing. Most research in this area is conducted in the context of “Instagram” ( n = 27), wherein “purchase intention” ( n = 13) is a common outcome expected and examined. Noteworthily, extant research concentrating on influencing parasocial interactions have highlighted the importance of self-influencer congruence (Shan et al., [ 105 ]; [ 128 ] and the value of message value [ 88 ] and credibility [ 108 ], including the moderating role of audience comments [ 102 ], in fostering consumer trust and purchase intention toward branded content [ 88 ], [ 102 ], Shan et al., [ 105 ], [ 108 ], [ 128 ], whereas those focusing on developing and managing parasocial relationships emphasized the importance of being entrepreneurial (Fink et al., [ 41 ]) and personal branding (Ki et al., [ 61 ]) in the pursuit of becoming famous and garnering brand equity and loyalty among followers [ 18 ], [ 55 ], [ 57 ].

Sponsorship in social media influencer marketing . This major theme is fairly prominent (six keywords) and recent (2019.8–2021). This theme highlights the importance of “sponsorship disclosure” ( n = 6) in “celebrity endorsement” ( n = 5) and among “social media influencers” ( n = 60) engaged for “native advertising” ( n = 7) in “influencer marketing” ( n = 63), with “YouTube” ( n = 9) featuring prominently in this space. Noteworthily, extant research on this theme is divided into two notable streams, wherein the first stream sheds light on the commercialization and value of social media influencer marketing (Britt et al., [ 16 ]; Harrigan et al., [ 47 ]; Hudders et al., [ 48 ]; [ 124 ],), which highlights the importance of the second stream pertaining to the impact of disclosure (i.e., macro, micro—e.g., declaring sponsorship to establish and reaffirm the credibility of social media influencers and the brands they represent) on the behavioral responses of social media followers [ 13 ], [ 30 ], [ 58 ], [ 104 ], [ 110 ].

Authenticity of marketing and public relations in social media influencer marketing . This major theme is fairly prominent (five keywords) but with a longer history (2017.4286–2021) than the other major themes. This theme highlights the continuing importance of “authenticity” ( n = 7) in the “marketing” ( n = 5) and “public relations” ( n = 7) endeavors of “influencers” ( n = 29) on “social media” ( n = 56). Thus, it is no surprise that extant research in this theme have focused on traditional marketing concepts such as advertorial campaigns [ 1 ], personal branding [ 59 ], rhetoric [ 45 ], strategic communication [ 33 ], and self-presentation [ 6 ].

Engagement and influence in social media influencer marketing . This major theme is fairly prominent (five keywords) and recent (2019.4–2020.6). This theme encapsulates “social media marketing” ( n = 16) research that concentrates on the “social influence” ( n = 5) of “opinion leadership” ( n = 5) and the equivalent outcome of “brand engagement” ( n = 5), with “Twitter” ( n = 7) featuring prominently in this space. Noteworthily, the prominent studies under this theme concentrate on the power of social networks of social media influencers, including examining the influence of the number of followers [ 28 ], measuring the influence of customer networks [ 63 ] and social media influencers [ 5 ], and the value of opinion leaders [ 87 ] and sponsored campaigns [ 49 ] across these networks.

Taken collectively, these themes, which were triangulated across two bibliographic sources of data (i.e., keywords and references) and analytical techniques (i.e., keyword co-occurrence analysis and bibliographic coupling), suggests that social media influencer marketing has tremendous commercial value, which justify the sponsorship that brands are willing to provide to social media influencers in return for marketing and public relation campaigns for their brands and products. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the power of social media influencers resides in their authenticity, which is a crucial reason as to why social media influencers are followed and relied upon by their followers. The management of parasocial interactions and relationships are also highly important as they are essential to foster desired engagement among followers and influence their behaviors in ways desired by social media influencers and the brands that they represent. The next section provides a deeper dive into the mechanisms (constructs) that transpire in social media influencer marketing.

3.6 Constructs

The sixth research question (RQ6) involves the unpacking of constructs that relevantly explain consumer behavior toward social media influencer marketing, which were revealed through the same within- and between-study literature analysis as reported in the methods and theories sections previously [ 95 ]. The constructs (Fig. 3 ) were arranged according to testable categories in the form of antecedents (Table 8 ), mediators (Table 9 ), moderators (Table 10 ), and consequences (Table 11 ), with each category having sub-categories that encapsulate relevant constructs that fall under the theme of that sub-category. The thematic naming of sub-categories are mostly self-explanatory (i.e., audience-, brand-, content-, influencer-, social-, and technology-related), with only one sub-category being uncommon yet sensible due to the unique nature of the context under study—that is, the comparative-related sub-category, which captures the essence of constructs where comparison exist between two or more sub-categories (e.g., influencer-follower relationship is a construct that accounts for the comparison transcending the audience- and influencer-related sub-categories, whereas product-endorser fit is a construct that reflects the comparison between the brand- and influencer-related sub-categories).

Consumer behavior toward social media influencer marketing

In terms of antecedents , four sub-categories emerged, namely comparative-, content-, influencer-, and social-related antecedents (Table 8 ). The comparative-related antecedents (six counts) comprise of influencer-follower relationship (two counts) and perceived similarity (four counts). The content-related antecedents (36 counts) consist of authenticity (four counts), disclosure (14 counts), informativeness (nine counts), message construal (one count), perceived quality (two counts), perceived quantity (two counts), perceived originality (one count), and post credibility (three counts). The influencer-related antecedents (34 counts) consist of engagement and interaction (two counts), influencer attractiveness (10 counts), influencer credibility (six counts), influencer expertise (nine counts), influencer likeability (one count), perceived trustworthiness (five counts), and perceived uniqueness (one count). The social-related antecedent (four count) contains parasocial relationship (four count) only. In total, 18 antecedents emerged across four sub-categories. Content-related antecedents appear to be the most researched (36 counts), followed by influencer-related antecedents (34 counts), with few studies examining comparative- (six counts) and social- (four count) related antecedents. Disclosure (14 counts) is the antecedent that has been studied the most, followed by influencer attractiveness with 10 counts. As a whole, there is good breadth and depth for antecedents as a category, but is mixed for its sub-categories.

In terms of mediators , seven sub-categories were revealed, namely audience-, brand-, comparative-, content-, influencer-, social-, and technology-related mediators (Table 9 ). The audience-related mediators (13 counts) comprise of attachment (one count), attitude (five counts), interest (one count), psychological ownership (one count), and trust (five counts). The brand-related mediators (eight counts) consist of brand recognition (five counts), product attractiveness (one count), and sponsorship transparency (two counts). The comparative-related mediator (four counts) contains self-influencer connection (four counts) only. The content-related mediators (seven counts) encapsulate disclosure (two counts), message appeal (one count), message credibility (one count), message process involvement (one count), and source credibility (two counts). The influencer-related mediators (15 counts) encompass engagement and interaction (two counts), expertise (two counts), influencer credibility (five counts), opinion knowledge leadership (five counts), and perceived popularity (one count). The social-related mediators (three counts) include electronic word of mouth (one count) and parasocial interaction (two counts). The technology-related mediators (two counts) incorporate perceived ease of use (one count) and perceived usefulness (one count). In total, 22 mediators were revealed across seven sub-categories. Influencer- and audience-related mediators appear to be the most researched with 15 and 13 counts respectively, followed by brand- (eight counts) and content- (seven counts) related mediators. Attitude, brand recognition, influencer credibility, opinion leadership knowledge, and trust are the mediators studied the most with five counts each. Overall, there is reasonable breadth and depth for mediators as a category, but is mixed for its sub-categories.

In terms of moderators , six sub-categories were unpacked, namely audience-, brand-, comparative-, content-, influencer-, and social-related moderators (Table 10 ). The audience-related moderators (10 counts) comprise of advertisement literacy (one count), audience engagement (two counts), domains of interest (one count), envy identification (one count), interaction propensity (one count), purchase intention (one count), self-discrepancy (two counts), and social identification with social commerce (one count). The brand-related moderator (one count) consists of brand attitude (one count) only. The comparative-related moderators (three counts) contain perceived closeness (one count), perceived fit (one count), and product-endorser fit (one count). The content-related moderators (nine counts) encapsulate audience comments (one count), disclosure (one count), download volume (one count), message process involvement (one count), message valence (one count), number of hashtags (one count), online ratings (one count), structural assurance (one count), and visionary insights (one count). The influencer-related moderators (four counts) encompass influencer socio-economic status (one count), number of followers (one count), perceived self-serving motive (one count), and type of influencer (one count). The social-related moderators (two counts) include parasocial relationship (one count) and parental mediation (one count). In total, 27 moderators were unpacked across six sub-categories. Audience-related moderators (10 counts) appear to be the most researched, followed by content-related moderators (nine counts). All moderators had only one count except audience engagement and self-discrepancy, which have two counts, and thus indicating its breadth but not depth.

In terms of consequences , three sub-categories were unveiled, namely brand-, influencer-, and social-related consequences (Table 11 ). The brand-related consequences (73 counts) comprise of brand attitude (17 counts), brand awareness (one count), brand involvement (two counts), brand purchase or patronage (46 counts), brand recall (two counts), and brand trust (five counts). The influencer-related consequences (19 counts) consist of engagement and interaction (11 counts), following influencer (five counts), and influence (three counts). The social-related consequences (12 counts) contain recommendation and referral propensity (nine counts) and social sharing (three counts). In total, 11 consequences were unveiled across three sub-categories. Brand-related consequences (73 counts) appear to be the most researched, followed by influencer- (19 counts) and social- (12 counts) related consequences. Brand purchase or patronage (46 counts) represent the most studied consequence, followed by brand attitude (17 counts) and engagement and interaction (11 counts). Taken collectively, the consequences unveiled indicate its depth but not breadth.

4 Trend analysis and future research directions

Agendas for future research are a hallmark of systematic literature reviews [ 84 ]. While there are many approaches to develop future research agendas, the present study adopts an approach that the authors found to be most objective and pragmatic—that is, a trend analysis from thematic and topical perspectives. The suggestions for future research based on the analysis from these perspectives are presented in the next sections.

4.1 Thematic perspective

The thematic perspective comprises a trend analysis of bibliographic clusters representing the major themes of social media influencer marketing research. The choice of focusing on bibliographic clusters as opposed to keyword clusters was a deliberate decision taken in light of the finer-grained research streams in the former (six clusters) over the latter (four clusters), as well as the availability of the alternative perspective (i.e., the topical perspective) that will use keywords to shed light on the topical trend in the field.

The productivity of the six major themes (research streams) in social media influencer marketing research has generally improved in recent years, particularly in 2021, with the exception of research on parasocial relationships in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 6), which experience a slight decline (i.e., seven in 2020 to six in 2021). Though closely-related research on parasocial interactions has proliferated (Cluster 5), the difference between the two research streams and their relatively lower number of studies as compared to other research streams suggest that new research in both streams is very much required. Similarly, the research stream on disclosures (Cluster 4) is highly important, yet it remains relatively low as compared to its more popular counterpart, that is, the research stream on commercialization and value of social media influencer marketing (Cluster 3), both of which are important research streams to the larger umbrella research stream on sponsorship revealed by the keyword co-occurrence analysis. While the research streams on authenticity (Cluster 2) and engagement and influence (Cluster 1) in social media influencer marketing are highly popular, further research remains necessary in light of the evolving changes in the social media landscape. Notwithstanding the productivity of the research streams, several promising avenues avail for advancing knowledge across all research streams.

In terms of engagement and influence in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 1), the emergence of augmented, virtual, and mixed realities, including the metaverse, signals the need for new research that unpacks the opportunities for engagement in these new social avenues along with the effectiveness of these avenues as compared to existing avenues for social media influencer marketing. In addition, the nature of engagement will benefit from finer-grained examination to account for the differences between its varied cognitive, affective, and behavioral manifestations [ 80 ], [ 85 ], which remains underexplored in social media influencer marketing.

In terms of authenticity in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 2), the key markers of authenticity and the strategies to communicate and strengthen a sense of authenticity are potential avenues to enrich understanding of this area. Noteworthily, future research on authenticity will need to go beyond traditional measures (e.g., scales; Ohanian, [ 97 ]) and engage in purposeful exploration to uncover the attributes and actions that if available and taken will enhance followers’ perceptions of the authenticity of social media influencers. In this regard, future qualitative and experimental research in this research stream is encouraged, wherein the former will lead to the discovery of new authenticity markers that the latter can test for cause and effect. Such research should lead to meaningful extensions on the understanding of authenticity that goes beyond treating the concept as a singular construct in the field.

In terms of commercialization and value of social media influencer marketing (Cluster 3), the potential of non-economic returns of social media influencer marketing could be explored in future research. With the advent of corporate social responsibility and environmental social governance (Lim et al., [ 83 ], it is imperative that the expectations and evaluations of returns goes beyond those that are economic in nature (e.g., sales) [ 78 ]. The advocacy and support of socio-environmental causes (e.g., hashtags of actions and statements) could be explored, which can be subsequently useful to develop sustainability ratings beneficial for illustrating the impact of both social media influencers and the brands that they represent.

In terms of disclosure in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 4), future research could explore the different ways in which explicit and implicit disclosures could be curated and signaled by social media influencers to their followers. Such research should be potentially useful as not all social media platforms provide options of explicit labels (e.g., sponsor ad) to social media users, especially when such social media posts are not paid to extend its reach and thus relies on social media users themselves to self-disclose. Moreover, the effectiveness of these forms of disclosure, including their combination, have not been adequately studied and thus should be worthwhile exploring. The negative connotation that may be attached to such disclosures should also be addressed in ways that make such disclosures an asset rather than a liability.

In terms of parasocial interactions in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 5), the multitude ways in which parasocial interactions could be curated represent a potentially fruitful avenue for future exploration. At present, the general focus has been on the influence of social media influencer credibility and the congruence of such interactions to follower expectations and perceptions [ 108 ]. In this regard, future research is encouraged to explore the different ways in which parasocial interactions could be curated, and in the midst of doing so, theorizing the entry points and sustaining factors that make such interactions parasocial between social media influencers and their followers. Given the complex nature of parasocial interactions, future research in this space could benefit from employing neuroscientific tools (e.g., eye tracker, wearable biosensors, [ 73 ], [ 74 ] to gain nuanced insights into biological responses that can be used to supplement self-reported responses in order to better ascertain the parasocial nature of interactions among social media influencers and their followers.

In terms of parasocial relationships in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 6), deeper insights on what makes parasocial relationships gratifying and lasting should be developed in future research. Such research should provide a better understanding on the constitution of parasocial relationships and how social media influencers can foster and maintain them over time. Nevertheless, errors or mistakes are bound to happen (e.g., slip of inappropriate word, unintentional non-disclosure of sponsorship). Thus, the repair and recovery of negatively-affected parasocial relationships among social media influencers and their followers could also be given scholarly attention in future research.

Taken collectively, these suggestions for future research should enrich research across all research streams in social media influencer marketing. The next section builds on the insights from this section and takes a closer look on topical trends in the field (Fig. 4 ).

Productivity trend of major themes in social media influencer marketing research. Note: Cluster 1 = Engagement and influence in social media influencer marketing. Cluster 2 = Authenticity in social media influencer marketing. Cluster 3 = Commercialization and value of social media influencer marketing. Cluster 4 = Disclosure in social media influencer marketing. Cluster 5 = Parasocial interactions in social media influencer marketing. Cluster 6 = Parasocial relationships in social media influencer marketing

4.2 Topical perspective

The productivity of topical research in social media influencer marketing has evolved over the years (Fig. 5 ). Noteworthily, the extant literature on social media influencer marketing has been largely predicated on “communication management”, “centrality”, and “viral marketing” up to 2018. Newer research has nonetheless made a stronger and more explicit connection to “influencer marketing” and “social media”, with “Instagram” emerging as the most prominent social media in the field. The transmission of “eWOM” or “electronic word-of-mouth” and how this translates into “parasocial interaction” or “immersion” between “social media influencers” and “followers” has taken center stage alongside “online marketing” and “social media marketing” considerations such as “advertising”, “brands”, “brand awareness”, and “purchase intention” from a “neoliberalism” perspective.

Productivity trend of major topics in social media influencer marketing research

Notwithstanding the trending topics in social media influencer marketing revealed by the trend analysis, it is clear that new research focusing on new phenomena is very much required. For example, new social media platforms such as Clubhouse and TikTok have been extremely popular platforms for social media influencers in recent years, and thus, future research should also consider exploring social platforms other than Instagram. Furthermore, the proliferation of augmented and virtual realities remains underexplored for social media influencer marketing. The rebranding of Facebook to Meta is a signal of the future rise of the metaverse . New research in this direction focusing on new-age technologies for social media influencer marketing should provide new knowledge-advancing and practice-relevant insights into contemporary trends and realities that remain underrepresented in the literature. Similarly, the diversity and evolution of social media followers also deserve further attention in light of accelerated technology adoption by societies worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the new normal [ 77 ], as well as the changing nature of generational cohorts in the society [ 79 ].

5 Conclusion

The importance of consumerism for business survival and growth albeit in a more authentic, meaningful, and sustainable way [ 76 ] along with the increasing use of digital media such as social media [ 82 ] have led to the proliferation of social media influencer marketing and its burgeoning interest among academics and professionals [ 10 ], [ 124 ]. This was evident in the present study, wherein the consumer behavior perspective of social media influencer marketing took center stage. Using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol as a guide, a bibliometric-content analysis as a multi-method review technique, and a collection of 214 articles published in 87 journals indexed in ABDC, CABS, and WOS as relevant documents for review, this study provides, to date, the most comprehensive one-stop state-of-the-art overview of social media influencer marketing. Through this review, this study provides several key takeaways for theory and practice and additional noteworthy suggestions for future research.

5.1 Theoretical contributions and implications

From a theoretical perspective, this study provides two major takeaways for academics.

First, the review indicates that most articles on social media influencer marketing published in journals indexed in ABDC, CABS, and WOS were not guided by an established theory, as only 94 (43.93%) out of the 214 articles reviewed were informed by theories (e.g., persuasion knowledge theory, social learning theory, source credibility theory, theory of planned behavior). This implies that most articles relied on prior literature only to explain their study’s theoretical foundation, which may be attributed to a lack of awareness on the possible theories that may be relevant to their study. In fact, a similar review on the topic albeit with a relatively smaller sample of articles (i.e., 68 articles only) due to protocol limitations (i.e., CABS-indexed journals only) had acknowledged the issue but unfortunately failed to deliver a collection of theories informed by prior research [ 124 ]. In this vein, this study hopes to address this issue as it has revealed 46 different theories that were employed in prior social media influencer marketing research, which can be used to ground future research in the area. Furthermore, the list of theories can be used to justify the novelty of future research where a new theory is applied. In addition, future studies can take inspiration from the manifestation of theories emerging from multiple theoretical perspectives, such as the social influencer value model and the social-mediated crisis communication theory informed by the media and sociological theoretical perspectives, to develop new theories in the field, which may be challenging but certainly possible [ 81 ]. Alternatively, future studies can consider theoretical integration by using two or more theories in a single investigation, which can reveal richer insights on the phenomenon (e.g., which theoretical perspective is more prominent or which factors from which theoretical perspective yield strong impacts and therefore warrant investment prioritization).

Second, the review shows that social media influencer marketing research does not have to be limited to a simple direct antecedent-consequence relationship or the multiply of such relationships. Instead, research in the area can benefit from testing the mediating and moderating effects of various factors to enrich the insights derived from their study. Interestingly, the review reveals that antecedents can also play the role of mediators (e.g., engagement and interaction) and moderators (e.g., parasocial relationship) and vice versa, which implies that the conditions in research design setup are fundamental to the conclusions made about the consequences of social media influencer marketing [ 75 ], which can take the form of consumer responses to the brand (e.g., brand purchase or patronage), the influencer (e.g., following influencer), and the community (e.g., recommendation, social sharing). In total, seven categories in the form of audience-, brand-, comparative-, content-, influencer-, social-, and technology-related factors that could manifest as antecedents, mediators, and moderators were revealed. Noteworthily, the comparative-related factors such as perceived closeness, perceived fit, perceived similarity, self-influencer connection, and product-endorser fit transcended across multiple categories (e.g., audience and influencer, brand and influencer), which indicate the promise of social media influencer marketing as a research context suitable for the development of new factors to describe consumer behavior of a comparative nature. Indeed, comparative-related factors is, to the best knowledge of the authors, a new categorization that has not been revealed by prior systematic literature reviews, and thus, represent a key contribution to the literature that should be noted in future research and reviews. Moreover, the mapping of constructs in Fig. 3 and their counts in Tables 8 , 9 , 10 , and 11 provide useful starting points to identify the extant gaps in prior research (e.g., brand-related factors remain underexplored as moderators, comparative-related factors remain underexplored as mediators) and to inform the direction of future research accordingly. Finally, the constructs and their associated categories revealed can also be compared and contrasted in future investigations to delineate the difference in impact between constructs of different categories, and when paired with appropriate theories, can provide stronger grounds for managerial recommendations to brands and influencers interested to leverage off the benefits of social media influencer marketing to attract and persuade desired consumer behavior.

5.2 Managerial contributions and implications

From a managerial perspective, this study provides two major takeaways for brands and influencers.

First, the review indicates that brands indirectly influence consumers through influencers—that is to say, the strategy of brands engaging in influencer marketing on social media places influencers at the forefront, with brands taking a backseat in that strategy. This was evident from the literature review, where brand-related antecedents were absent; instead, the influence of brands manifests in the form of mediators (e.g., brand recognition, product attractiveness, sponsorship transparency) and moderators (e.g., brand attitude). In that sense, it is important that brands identify and engage with influencers strategically, particularly those who are perceived to be attractive, credible, engaging and interactive, experts, a good fit for their products, likeable, opinion leaders, popular, trustworthy, unique, and without overly self-serving motives in order to encourage desired consumer behavior toward their brands (e.g., brand purchase and patronage, brand trust), as revealed by the review herein.

Second, the review reveals that social media influencers directly influence consumer behavior toward the brands they promote (e.g., brand attitude, brand awareness, brand involvement, brand recall, brand trust), the influencers themselves (e.g., follower, influence), and the social media community at large (e.g., recommendation, social sharing). In particular, the content that influencers curate on social media can affect how consumers respond to these stakeholders. The review indicates that such content should be authentic, credible, informative, original, and transparent (disclosure). The message appeal and message process involvement are also important mediators to strengthen the influencer’s ability to encourage desired consumer behavior among their followers (e.g., positive audience, brand, influencer, and social behavior), whereas audience comments, assurance, hashtags, insights, and volume of posts can moderate or nullify the potential desired impact that influencers could elicit from their followers on social media. Indeed, the importance of electronic word of mouth, parasocial interaction, and perceptions of closeness and fit have also been highlighted through the review. Importantly, when promoting to kids and youth, it is essential that influencers consider what parents would think about their posts, as parental mediation was observed to occur in the review.

5.3 Review limitations and future review directions

From a review perspective, this study acknowledges three major limitations that can inform the curation of future reviews.

First, the systematic literature review herein does not capture article performance (i.e., citations) because it was mainly interested in unpacking the articles, journals, theories, methods, and content (themes, constructs) underpinning existing research on social media influencer marketing, and it kept in mind the space limitation of the journal. Notwithstanding the comprehensive and rigorous insights revealed using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, future reviews may wish to pursue an impact analysis, which can lead to rich insights pertaining to article performance (e.g., difference in citations [e.g., total citations, average citations per year, h -index, g -index] between papers with and without theory, using empirical and non-empirical methods, or across different methods and thematic categories).

Second, the systematic literature review herein encapsulates only a qualitative evaluation of the constructs in existing social media influencer marketing research. To build on the insights herein, future reviews may wish to pursue a meta-analytical review, where a meta-analysis involving the antecedents, mediators, moderators, and consequences revealed in Tables 8 , 9 , 10 , and 11 in this review (in the short run) or unveiled in future reviews (in the long run) is performed. Such an endeavor should also provide finer-grained insights on conflicting findings and provide a resolution to such findings in the same study.

Third, the systematic literature review herein focuses only on the consumer behavior perspective of social media influencer marketing, which is mainly due to the maturity of research from this perspective [ 98 ], as seen through the number of articles available for review (i.e., 214 articles) under a rigorous protocol (i.e., the SPAR-4-SLR protocol). Moving forward, future reviews may wish to pursue a systematic review of social media influencer marketing from the business and industrial perspective, wherein the impact of influencer marketing on social media for business and industrial brands in general and across different industries are reviewed and reported.

Abidin, C. (2016). Visibility labour: Engaging with Influencers’ fashion brands and# OOTD advertorial campaigns on Instagram. Media International Australia, 161 (1), 86–100.

Article Google Scholar

Araujo, T., Neijens, P. C., & Vliegenthart, R. (2017). Getting the word out on Twitter: The role of influentials, information brokers and strong ties in building word-of-mouth for brands. International Journal of Advertising, 36 (3), 496–513.

Argyris, Y. A., Wang, Z., Kim, Y., & Yin, Z. (2020). The effects of visual congruence on increasing consumers’ brand engagement: An empirical investigation of influencer marketing on Instagram using deep-learning algorithms for automatic image classification. Computers in Human Behavior, 112 , 106443.

Aria, M., & Cuccurullo, C. (2017). bibliometrix: An R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis. Journal of Informetrics, 11 (4), 959–975.

Arora, A., Bansal, S., Kandpal, C., Aswani, R., & Dwivedi, Y. (2019). Measuring social media influencer index-insights from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 49 , 86–101.

Audrezet, A., de Kerviler, G., & Moulard, J. G. (2020). Authenticity under threat: When social media influencers need to go beyond self-presentation. Journal of Business Research, 117 , 557–569.

Aw, E., & Chuah, S. (2021). Stop the unattainable ideal for an ordinary me! Fostering parasocial relationship with social media influencers: The role of self-discrepancy. Journal of Business Research , 132 (7), 146–157.

Balaji, M. S., Jiang, Y., & Jha, S. (2021). Nanoinfluencer marketing: How message features affect credibility and behavioral intentions. Journal of Business Research , 136 , 293–304.

Barry, J. M., & Gironda, J. (2018). A dyadic examination of inspirational factors driving B2B social media influence. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 26 (1–2), 117–143.

Bastrygina, T., & Lim, W. M. (2023). Foundations of consumer engagement with social media influencers. International Journal of Web Based Communities .

Belanche, D., Casalo, L. V., Flavian, M., & Ibanez-Sanchez, S. (2021). Building influencers’ credibility on Instagram: Effects on followers’ attitude and behavioral responses toward the influencer. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , 61 , 102585.

Berne-Manero, C., & Marzo-Navarro, M. (2020). Exploring how influencer and relationship marketing serve corporate sustainability. Sustainability, 12 (11), 4392.

Boerman, S. C. (2020). The effects of the standardized Instagram disclosure for micro-and meso-influencers. Computers in Human Behavior, 103 , 199–207.

Boerman, S. C., & Van Reijmersdal, E. A. (2020). Disclosing influencer marketing on YouTube to children: The moderating role of para-social relationship. Frontiers in Psychology, 10 , 3042.

Breves, P. L., Liebers, N., Abt, M., & Kunze, A. (2019). The perceived fit between Instagram influencers and the endorsed brand: How influencer–brand fit affects source credibility and persuasive effectiveness. Journal of Advertising Research, 59 (4), 440–454.

Britt, R. K., Hayes, J. L., Britt, B. C., & Park, H. (2020). Too big to sell? A computational analysis of network and content characteristics among mega and micro beauty and fashion social media influencers. Journal of Interactive Advertising , 20, 1–25.

Cakebread, C. (2017). Instagram updates its Stories feature, copying Snapchat again. Insider . Available at https://www.insider.com/instagram-added-two-news-features-to-stories-2017-12

Campbell, C., & Farrell, J. R. (2020). More than meets the eye: The functional components underlying influencer marketing. Business Horizons, 63 (4), 469–479.

Casalo, L. V., Flavian, C., & Ibanez-Sanchez, S. (2018). Influencers on Instagram: Antecedents and consequences of opinion leadership. Journal of Business Research, 117 , 510–519.

Chae, J. (2018). Explaining females’ envy toward social media influencers. Media Psychology, 21 (2), 246–262.

Chatterjee, P. (2011). Drivers of new product recommending and referral behaviour on social network sites. International Journal of Advertising, 30 (1), 77–101.

Chen, K., Lin, J.-S., & Shan, Y. (2021). Influencer marketing in China: The roles of parasocial identification, consumer engagement, and inferences of manipulative intent. Journal of Consumer Behaviour , 20 (6), 1436–1448.

Chetioui, Y., Benlafqih, H., & Lebdaoui, H. (2020). How fashion influencers contribute to consumers’ purchase intention. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 24 (3), 361–380.

Cooley, D., & Parks-Yancy, R. (2019). The effect of social media on perceived information credibility and decision making. Journal of Internet Commerce, 18 (3), 249–269.

Croes, E., & Bartels, J. (2021). Young adults’ motivations for following social influencers and their relationship to identification and buying behavior. Computers in Human Behavior , 124 , 106910.

Cuevas, L. M., Chong, S. M., & Lim, H. (2020). Influencer marketing: Social media influencers as human brands attaching to followers and yielding positive marketing results by fulfilling needs. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 55 , 102133.

De Cicco, R., Iacobucci, S., & Pagliaro, S. (2020). The effect of influencer–product fit on advertising recognition and the role of an enhanced disclosure in increasing sponsorship transparency. International Journal of Advertising., 40 (5), 733–759.

De Veirman, M., Cauberghe, V., & Hudders, L. (2017). Marketing through Instagram influencers: The impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude. International Journal of Advertising, 36 (5), 798–828.

De Vries, E. L. (2019). When more likes is not better: The consequences of high and low likes-to-followers ratios for perceived account credibility and social media marketing effectiveness. Marketing Letters, 30 (3), 275–291.

Dhanesh, S. G., & Duthler, G. (2019). Relationship management through social media influencers: Effects of followers’ awareness of paid endorsement. Public Relations Review, 45 (3), 101765.

Djafarova, E., & Rushworth, C. (2017). Exploring the credibility of online celebrities’ Instagram profiles in influencing the purchase decisions of young female users. Computer in Human Behavior, 68 , 1–7.

Donthu, N., Kumar, S., Mukherjee, D., Pandey, N., & Lim, W. M. (2021). How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 133 , 285–296.

Duan, J. (2021). The impact of positive purchase-centered UGC on audience’s purchase intentions: Roles of tie strength, benign envy and purchase type. Journal of Internet Commerce.

Google Scholar

Enke, N., & Borchers, N. S. (2019). Social media influencers in strategic communication: A conceptual framework for strategic social media influencer communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 13 (4), 261–277.

Erdogan, B. Z. (1999). Celebrity endorsement: A literature review. Journal of Marketing Management, 15 (4), 291–314.

Erz, A., Marder, B., & Osadchaya, E. (2018). Hashtags: Motivational drivers, their use, and differences between influencers and followers. Computers in Human Behavior, 89 , 48–60.

Evans, N. J., Hoy, M. G., & Childers, C. C. (2018). Parenting “YouTube natives”: The impact of pre-roll advertising and text disclosures on parental responses to sponsored child influencer videos. Journal of Advertising, 47 (4), 326–346.

Evans, N. J., Phua, J., Lim, J., & Jun, H. (2017). Disclosing Instagram influencer advertising: The effects of disclosure language on advertising recognition, attitudes, and behavioral intent. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 17 (2), 138–149.

Farivar, S., Wang, F., & Yuan, Y. (2021). Opinion leadership vs. para-social relationship: Key factors in influencer marketing. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , 59 , 102371.

Feng, Y., Chen, H., & Kong, Q. (2020). An expert with whom I can identify: The role of narratives in influencer marketing. International Journal of Advertising., 40 (7), 972–993.

Ferchaud, A., Grzeslo, J., Orme, S., & Lagroue, J. (2018). Parasocial attributes and YouTube personalities: Exploring content trends across the most subscribed YouTube channels. Computers in Human Behavior , 80 , 88–96.

Fink, M., Koller, M., Gartner, J., Floh, A., & Harms, R. (2020). Effective entrepreneurial marketing on Facebook – A longitudinal study. Journal of Business Research , 113 , 149–157.

Folkvord, F., Roes, E., & Bevelander, K. (2020). Promoting healthy foods in the new digital era on Instagram: An experimental study on the effect of a popular real versus fictitious fit influencer on brand attitude and purchase intentions. BMC Public Health, 20 (1), 1–8.

Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research , 18 (1), 39–50.

Freberg, K., Graham, K., McGaughey, K., & Freberg, L. A. (2011). Who are the social media influencers? A study of public perceptions of personality. Public Relations Review, 37 , 90–92.

Ge, J., & Gretzel, U. (2018). Emoji rhetoric: A social media influencer perspective. Journal of Marketing Management, 34 (15–16), 1272–1295.

Gupta, Y., Agarwal, S., & Singh, P. B. (2020). To study the impact of Instafamous celebrities on consumer buying behavior. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 24 (2), 1–13.

Harrigan, P., Daly, T., Coussement, K., Lee, J., Soutar, G., & Evers, U. (2021). Identifying influencers on social media. International Journal of Information Management , 56 , 102246.

Hudders, L., De Jans, S., & De Veirman, M. (2021). The commercialization of social media stars: A literature review and conceptual framework on the strategic use of social media influencers. In N. S. Borchers (Ed.), Social Media Influencers in Strategic Communication . New York: Routledge.

Hughes, C., Swaminathan, V., & Brooks, G. (2019). Driving brand engagement through online social influencers: An empirical investigation of sponsored blogging campaigns. Journal of Marketing, 83 , 78–96.

Hu, H., Zhang, D., & Wang, C. (2019). Impact of social media influencers’ endorsement on application adoption: A trust transfer perspective. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 47 (11), 1–12.

Jang, W., Kim, J., Kim, S., & Chun, J. W. (2020). The role of engagement in travel influencer marketing: The perspectives of dual process theory and the source credibility model. Current Issues in Tourism, 24 (17), 2416–2420.

Jiménez-Castillo, D., & Sánchez-Fernández, R. (2019). The role of digital influencers in brand recommendation: Examining their impact on engagement, expected value and purchase intention. International Journal of Information Management, 49 , 366–376.

Jin, S. A. A., & Phua, J. (2014). Following celebrities’ tweets about brands: The impact of twitter-based electronic word-of-mouth on consumers’ source credibility perception, buying intention, and social identification with celebrities. Journal of Advertising, 43 (2), 181–195.

Jin, S. V., & Ryu, E. (2019). Celebrity fashion brand endorsement in Facebook viral marketing and social commerce: Interactive effects of social identification, materialism, fashion involvement, and opinion leadership. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 23 (1), 104–123.

Jin, S. V., Muqaddam, A., & Ryu, E. (2019). Instafamous and social media influencer marketing. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 37 (5), 567–579.

Jin, S. V., & Ryu, E. (2020). Instagram fashionistas, luxury visual image strategies and vanity. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 29 (3), 355–368.

Jun, S., & Yi, J. (2020). What makes followers loyal? The role of influencer interactivity in building influencer brand equity. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 29 (6), 803–814.

Kay, S., Mulcahy, R., & Parkinson, J. (2020). When less is more: The impact of macro and micro social media influencers’ disclosure. Journal of Marketing Management, 36 (3–4), 248–278.

Khamis, S., Ang, L., & Welling, R. (2017). Self-branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of social media influencers. Celebrity Studies, 8 (2), 191–208.

Ki, C.-W.C., & Kim, Y.-K. (2019). The mechanism by which social media influencers persuade consumers: The role of consumers’ desire to mimic. Psychology & Marketing, 36 (10), 905–922.

Ki, C., Cuevas, L. M., Chong, S. M., & Lim, H. (2020). Influencer marketing: Social media influencers as human brands attaching to followers and yielding positive marketing results by fulfilling needs. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , 55 , 102133.

Kim, D. Y., & Kim, H. Y. (2020). Influencer advertising on social media: The multiple inference model on influencer-product congruence and sponsorship disclosure. Journal of Business Research., 130 , 405–415.

Kiss, C., & Bichler, M. (2008). Identification of influencers—Measuring influence in customer networks. Decision Support Systems, 46 (1), 233–253.

Kumar, S., Lim, W. M., Sivarajah, U., & Kaur, J. (2022a). Artificial intelligence and Blockchain integration in business: Trends from a bibliometric-content analysis. Information Systems Frontiers, 25 (2), 871–896.

Kumar, S., Sahoo, S., Lim, W. M., & Dana, L. P. (2022b). Religion as a social shaping force in entrepreneurship and business: Insights from a technology-empowered systematic literature review. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 175 , 121393.

Lahuerta-Otero, E., & Cordero-Gutiérrez, R. (2016). Looking for the perfect tweet. The use of data mining techniques to find influencers on twitter. Computers in Human Behavior, 64 , 575–583.

Lee, J. E., & Watkins, B. (2016). YouTube vloggers influence on consumer luxury brand perceptions and intentions. Journal of Business Research , 69 (12), 5753–5760.

Lee, J. A., & Eastin, M. S. (2020). I like what she’s # endorsing: The impact of female social media influencers’ perceived sincerity, consumer envy, and product type. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 20 (1), 76–91.

Lee, S., & Kim, E. (2020). Influencer marketing on Instagram: How sponsorship disclosure, influencer credibility, and brand credibility impact the effectiveness of Instagram promotional post. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing , 11 (3), 232–249.

Li, X., & Feng, J. (2022). Engaging social media influencers in nation branding through the lens of authenticity. Global Media and China , 7(2), 219–240.

Lim, X., Radzol, J. M., Cheah, J. H., & Wong, M. W. (2017). The impact of social media influencers on purchase intention and the mediation effect of customer attitude. Asian Journal of Business Research, 7 (2), 19–36.

Lim, W. M. (2018a). Demystifying neuromarketing. Journal of Business Research, 91 , 205–220.

Lim, W. M. (2018b). What will business-to-business marketers learn from neuro-marketing? Insights for business marketing practice. Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, 25 (3), 251–259.

Lim, W. M. (2021a). Conditional recipes for predicting impacts and prescribing solutions for externalities: The case of COVID-19 and tourism. Tourism Recreation Research, 46 (2), 314–318.

Lim, W. M. (2021b). Empowering marketing organizations to create and reach socially responsible consumers for greater sustainability. In J. Bhattacharyya, M. K. Dash, C. Hewege, M. S. Balaji, & W. M. Lim (Eds.), Social and sustainability marketing: A casebook for reaching your socially responsible consumers through marketing science. New York: Routledge.

Lim, W. M. (2021c). History, lessons, and ways forward from the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Quality and Innovation, 5 (2), 101–108.

Lim, W. M. (2022a). The sustainability pyramid: A hierarchical approach to greater sustainability and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with implications for marketing theory, practice, and public policy. Australasian Marketing Journal, 30 (2), 142–150.

Lim, W. M. (2022b). Ushering a new era of Global Business and Organizational Excellence: Taking a leaf out of recent trends in the new normal. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 41 (5), 5–13.

Lim, W. M., & Rasul, T. (2022). Customer engagement and social media: Revisiting the past to inform the future. Journal of Business Research, 148 , 325–342.

Lim, W. M., & Weissmann, M. A. (2023). Toward a theory of behavioral control. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 31 (1), 185–211.

Lim, W. M., Ahmad, A., Rasul, T., & Parvez, M. O. (2021a). Challenging the mainstream assumption of social media influence on destination choice. Tourism Recreation Research, 46 (1), 137–140.

Lim, W. M., Ciasullo, M. V., Douglas, A., & Kumar, S. (2022a). Environmental social governance (ESG) and total quality management (TQM): A multi-study meta-systematic review. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence . https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2022.2048952

Lim, W. M., Kumar, S., & Ali, F. (2022b). Advancing knowledge through literature reviews: ‘What’, ‘why’, and ‘how to contribute.’ The Service Industries Journal, 42 (7–8), 481–513.

Lim, W. M., Rasul, T., Kumar, S., & Ala, M. (2022c). Past, present, and future of customer engagement. Journal of Business Research, 140 , 439–458.

Lim, W. M., Yap, S. F., & Makkar, M. (2021b). Home sharing in marketing and tourism at a tipping point: What do we know, how do we know, and where should we be heading? Journal of Business Research, 122 , 534–566.

Lin, H. C., Bruning, P. F., & Swarna, H. (2018). Using online opinion leaders to promote the hedonic and utilitarian value of products and services. Business Horizons, 61 (3), 431–442.

Lou, C., Ma, W., & Feng, Y. (2020). A sponsorship disclosure is not enough? How advertising literacy intervention affects consumer reactions to sponsored influencer posts. Journal of Promotion Management, 27 (2), 278–305.

Lou, C., & Yuan, S. (2019). Influencer marketing: How message value and credibility affect consumer trust of branded content on social media. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 19 (1), 58–73.

Lou, C., Tan, S. S., & Chen, X. (2019). Investigating consumer engagement with influencer-versus brand-promoted ads: The roles of source and disclosure. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 19 (3), 169–186.

Luoma-aho, V., Pirttimäki, T., Maity, D., Munnukka, J., & Reinikainen, H. (2019). Primed authenticity: How priming impacts authenticity perception of social media influencers. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 13 (4), 352–365.

Magno, F., & Cassia, F. (2018). The impact of social media influencers in tourism. Anatolia, 29 (2), 288–290.

Martinez-Lopez, F. J., Anaya-Sanchez, R., Giordano, M. F., & Lopez-Lopez, D. (2020). Behind influencer marketing: Key marketing decisions and their effects on followers’ responses. Journal of Marketing Management, 36 (7–8), 579–607.

Mccracken, G. (1989). Who is the celebrity endorser? Cultural foundations of the endorsement process. Journal of Consumer Research , 16 (3), 310–321.

Mukherjee, D., Lim, W. M., Kumar, S., & Donthu, N. (2022). Guidelines for advancing theory and practice through bibliometric research. Journal of Business Research, 148 , 101–115.

Ngai, E. W. T. (2005). Customer relationship management research (1992–2002): An academic literature review and classification. Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 23 , 582–605.

Nord, J. H., & Nord, G. D. (1995). MIS research: Journal status assessment and analysis. Information and Management , 29 (1), 29–42.

Ohanian, R. (1990). Construction and validation of a scale to measure celebrity endorsers’ perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Journal of Advertising , 19 (3), 39–52.

Paul, J., Lim, W. M., O’Cass, A., Hao, A. W., & Bresciani, S. (2021). Scientific procedures and rationales for systematic literature reviews (SPAR-4-SLR). International Journal of Consumer Studies, 45 (4), O1–O16.

Pick, M. (2020). Psychological ownership in social media influencer marketing. European Business Review, 33 (1), 9–30.

Piehler, R., Schade, M., Sinnig, J., & Burmann, C. (2021). Traditional or ‘instafamous’ celebrity? Role of origin of fame in social media influencer marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing , 30 (4), 408–420.

Pittman, M., & Abell, A. (2021). More trust in fewer followers: Diverging effects of popularity metrics and green orientation social media influencers. Journal of Interactive Marketing , 56 (1), 1–13.

Reinikainen, H., Munnukka, J., Maity, D., & Luoma-aho, V. (2020). ‘You really are a great big sister’—Parasocial relationships, credibility, and the moderating role of audience comments in influencer marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 36 (3–4), 279–298.

Saima, & Khan, M. A. (2020). Effect of social media influencer marketing on consumers’ purchase intention and the mediating role of credibility. Journal of Promotion Management, 27 (4), 503–523.

Sánchez-Fernández, R., & Jiménez-Castillo, D. (2021). How social media influencers affect behavioural intentions towards recommended brands: The role of emotional attachment and information value. Journal of Marketing Management, 37 (11–12), 1123–1147.

Schouten, A. P., Janssen, L., & Verspaget, M. (2020). Celebrity versus influencer endorsements in advertising: The role of identification, credibility, and product-endorser fit. International Journal of Advertising, 39 (2), 258–281.

Shan, Y., Chen, K. J., & Lin, J. S. (2020). When social media influencers endorse brands: the effects of self-influencer congruence, parasocial identification, and perceived endorser motive. International Journal of Advertising , 39 (1), 1–21.

Shin, E., & Lee, J. E. (2021). What makes consumers purchase apparel products through social shopping services that social media fashion influencers have worn? Journal of Business Research , 132 , 416–428.

Silvera, D., & Austad, B. (2004). Factors predicting the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement advertisements. European Journal of Marketing , 38 (11/12), 1509–1526.

Sokolova, K., & Kefi, H. (2020). Instagram and YouTube bloggers promote it, why should I buy? How credibility and parasocial interaction influence purchase intentions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 53 , 101742.

Sokolova, K., & Perez, C. (2021). How parasocial relationships, and watching fitness influencers, relate to intentions to exercise. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , 58 , 102276.

Stubb, C., & Colliander, J. (2019). This is not sponsored content—The effect of impartiality disclosure and e-commerce landing pages on consumer responses to social media influencer posts. Computers in Human Behavior, 98 , 210–222.

Stubb, C., Nyström, A.-G., & Colliander, J. (2019). Influencer marketing: The impact of disclosing sponsorship compensation justification on sponsored content effectiveness. Journal of Communication Management, 23 (2), 109–122.

Su, B., Wu, L., Chang, Y., & Hong, R. (2021). Influencers on social media as references: Understanding the importance of parasocial relationships. Sustainability , 13 , 1–19.

Sun, J., Leung, X., & Bai, B. (2021). How social media influencer’s event endorsement changes attitudes of followers: the moderating effect of followers’ gender. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management , 33 (7), 2337–2351.

Tafesse, W., & Wood, B. (2021). Followers’ engagement with Instagram influencers: The role of influencers’ content and engagement strategy. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services , 58 , 102303.

Taillon, B. J., Mueller, S. M., Kowalczyk, C. M., & Jones, D. N. (2020). Understanding the relationships between social media influencers and their followers: The moderating role of closeness. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 29 (6), 767–782.

Till, B., & Busler, M. (2000). Matching products with endorsers: Attractiveness versus expertise. Journal of Consumer Marketing , 15 (6), 576–586.

Torres, P., Augusto, M., & Matos, M. (2019). Antecedents and outcomes of digital influencer endorsement: An exploratory study. Psychology & Marketing, 36 (12), 1267–1276.

Trivedi, J. P. (2018). Measuring the comparative efficacy of an attractive celebrity influencer vis-à-vis an expert influencer—A fashion industry perspective. International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management, 11 (3), 256–271.

Trivedi, J., & Sama, R. (2020). The effect of influencer marketing on consumers’ brand admiration and online purchase intentions: An emerging market perspective. Journal of Internet Commerce, 19 (1), 103–124.

Uzunoglu, E., & Kip, S. M. (2014). Brand communication through digital influencers: Leveraging blogger engagement. International Journal of Information Management, 34 (5), 592–602.

Valsesia, F., Proserpio, D., & Nunes, J. C. (2020). The positive effect of not following others on social media. Journal of Marketing Research, 57 (6), 1152–1168.

van Reijmersdal, E. A., & van Dam, S. (2020). How age and disclosures of sponsored influencer videos affect adolescents’ knowledge of persuasion and persuasion. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49 (7), 1531–1544.

van Reijmersdal, E. A., Rozendaal, E., Hudders, L., Vanwesenbeeck, I., Cauberghe, V., & van Berlo, Z. M. (2020). Effects of disclosing influencer marketing in videos: An eye tracking study among children in early adolescence. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 49 , 94–106.

Vrontis, D., Makrides, A., Christofi, M., & Thrassou, A. (2021). Social media influencer marketing: A systematic review, integrative framework and future research agenda. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 45 (4), 617–644.

Weismueller, J., Harrigan, P., Wang, S., & Soutar, G. N. (2020). Influencer endorsements: How advertising disclosure and source credibility affect consumer purchase intention on social media. Australasian Marketing Journal, 28 (4), 160–170.

Wojdynski, B. W., Bang, H., Keib, K., Jefferson, B. N., Choi, D., & Malson, J. L. (2017). Building a better native advertising disclosure. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 17 (2), 150–161.

Woodcock, J., & Johnson, M. R. (2019). Live streamers on Twitch.tv as social media influencers: Chances and challenges for strategic communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 13 (4), 321–335.

Xu, X., & Pratt, S. (2018). Social media influencers as endorsers to promote travel destinations: An application of self-congruence theory to the Chinese Generation Y. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 35 (7), 958–972.

Yang, Y., & Goh, B. (2020). Timeline: TikTok's journey from global sensation to Trump target. Reuters . Available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-timeline-idUSKCN2510IU

Download references

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Management Studies, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, Prayagraj, India

Yatish Joshi

School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia

Weng Marc Lim

Faculty of Business, Design and Arts, Swinburne University of Technology, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

Flame University, Pune, Maharashtra, India

Khyati Jagani & Satish Kumar

Indian Institute of Management Nagpur, Nagpur, India

Satish Kumar

Sunway Business School, Sunway University, Sunway City, Selangor, Malaysia

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

This paper uses the SPAR-4-SLR protocol as a guide, a collection of 214 articles published in 87 journals indexed in ABDC, CABS, and WOS as relevant documents, and a bibliometric-content analysis to curate an enriching one-stop, state-of-the-art review on the articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs (antecedents, moderators, mediators, and consequences) in extant research on social media influencer marketing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Weng Marc Lim .

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Joshi, Y., Lim, W.M., Jagani, K. et al. Social media influencer marketing: foundations, trends, and ways forward. Electron Commer Res (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-023-09719-z

Download citation

Accepted : 14 February 2023

Published : 25 June 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-023-09719-z

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Influencer marketing
Social media
Social media influencer
Systematic literature review
Find a journal
Publish with us
Track your research

Share on Facebook
Share this on X
Share on LinkedIn
Print this page
Email this page

Research Research: The Fortune 500 adapt to the sudden and unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic.

How the pandemic impacted social media use among the fortune 500, conducted by:, nora ganim barnes, ph.d., shannen pavao, mba, bethany fernandes, mba candidate, introduction.

Fortune Magazine annually compiles a list of America’s largest corporations, aptly named the “Fortune 500” (F500) given their size and wealth. Due to the hugely influential role that these companies play in the business world, studying their adoption and use of social media tools offers important insights into the future of commerce. These corporations provide a look at emergent social media trends among America’s most successful companies.

Each May, the list of the top 500 corporations is released in a special issue of Fortune Magazine. The F500 list includes publicly and privately held companies for which revenues are publicly available. For more information on the methodology used to select the F500 corporations, please visit https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2013/faq/ .

In 2008, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research released one of the first studies on social media adoption among the F500 and has repeated that study every year since. Initially only focusing on the use of blogs, the study has been expanded over the years to include the use of Twitter and Facebook, two popular mainstays in social media, as well as other popular social media platforms and tools like new emergent Tik Tok. Social media platforms have been added or deleted as the study attempts to reflect current trends. In addition, the study includes business networking platforms (LinkedIn) as well as indicators of engagement such as the number of Twitter followers, Facebook “likes” and Instagram followers.

It should be noted that the data for this study was collected during the summer of 2020, several months into the COVID-19 pandemic. It uniquely offers a look into how these exceptional companies changed their use of social media during one of the most challenging times for businesses in America.

Methodology

The following definition was used to locate 2020 F500 corporations with a social media presence: A company was counted as having a presence on each platform studied if the primary corporation had an active account. This was determined by examining both the date of the last post and the patterns of posting. Typically, a post in the last 30 days qualified for an active account, but in rare cases there were patterns of posting every 45 days. These were considered active as well.

It is worth noting that there is evidence of usage of social media tools such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. inside branches of these corporations. This research did not look at that subject, but instead focused on public-facing corporate blogs and social media tools as a barometer of social media usage to engage the public.

Due to the complexity of corporate legal structures in this group and no clear methodology on how subsidiaries have been located or analyzed by others, the research presented here continues to focus on the primary/listed corporation. While we acknowledge that mergers and acquisitions along with expansions have resulted in segments or subsidiaries with social media, our focus has consistently been at the corporate level.

All corporations were analyzed using multiple steps. First, working from the published 2020 F500 list, all corporate home pages were examined for links to, or mention of, social media accounts. If a link wasn’t found on the company’s home page, a search was performed using search engines. Any links resulting from these searches were followed and evaluated using the established criteria. This proved to be an effective method since additional social media accounts were located. The process was repeated for each social media platform.

Important Notice:

In the 2020 F500 there is one company not using any of the social media platforms or tools examined in this study.

Old Republic International, Rank: 427, Industry: Insurance, Property & Casualty (Stock)
Blogs : Corporate blogs became a lifeline for consumer and business communication during the 2020 pandemic. There are now 387 or 77% of the Fortune 500 currently using this tool for an array of reasons described later in this report.
Twitter : 89% of Fortune 500 companies are actively using Twitter, a 7% drop from last year. The decline may be attributable to companies suspending their activity on Twitter during the pandemic, and presenting as an “inactive account” in accordance with our methodology.
Facebook : 86% of the F500 companies are actively using Facebook, which is down 10% from 2019. As with the decline in Twitter use, Facebook accounts that did not show activity were classified as inactive.
Instagram : Instagram also has declined usage, with 65% of F500 companies using the platform, a 9% drop from last year. Though Instagram has proven to be an important marketing tool for companies, many corporate accounts were found to be inactive. This decline is likely due to the forced closures of corporations during the COVID-19 pandemic, since Instagram has traditionally seen an increase in usage over the past five years.
YouTube : 78% of the F500 have a YouTube account, a 13% decline from last year. Content creation may also have been impacted by pandemic-related restrictions.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn continues to keep its #1 spot on the social media usage chart for the seventh year in a row with 99% using the platform, the same percentage as last year. Our studies suggest that LinkedIn will maintain its popularity as a business networking and recruiting tool, despite adversity, going forward.

Highlights:

1a.corporate blogs.

Traditional blogging has had its ups and downs since we began tracking corporate blogs in 2008. This year, public facing corporate blogs have demonstrated an increase in use for the fifth time since 2015. In fact, blog usage has more than tripled since its all-time-low was recorded in 2015 at 21%.

This year 387 (77%) of the Fortune 500 are using their blogs during the 2020 pandemic.

Although blogging has shown a big increase, it is important to note that many companies are adopting different methods to showcase their announcements of new products or services, news reports, philanthropic involvement, etc. by placing this information in press releases or “newsroom” sections of their website. At times, blog and newsroom posts often appear quite similar, and are being used interchangeably. For the scope of this study, the focus was placed on corporate “blogs”, which totaled 77% usage among the 2020 Fortune 500. This increase in blogging activity may have been stimulated by the pandemic and addressing consumer issues.

1b.Level of Interaction on Corporate Blogs

The range of topics of these blog posts varies among corporations. Posts usually revolve around new and updated company products or services, news reports regarding the corporation or its products/services and reports on the industry at large.

Many companies like Amazon have blogs dedicated to how they are helping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Their blog is simply called “Amazon responds to COVID-19”. Like Amazon, companies can use their blogs to create value by educating their audience. Posts on how their brand is helping during the pandemic, tips for working from home, staying healthy and other useful content that positions the company as socially responsive and caring will pay dividends going forward. In addition, blogs can help grow an email list and improve a website’s SEO. 2020 was a year to use blogs to help consumers through a challenging time.

All blogs were examined to determine the level of interactivity the blog allowed. This was done by looking at the blog to see if comments were accepted and checking the date of the last post to determine how current it was. In 2019, 49 (18%) of active corporate blogs allowed readers to make comments on their posts, down 22% from 2018. This year, 15% of blogs allow comments.

Many of the blogs which allow comments have little to no interaction on the comment threads, which could explain why companies are increasingly doing away with the comment feature on their blogs.

1c.Corporate Blogs by Rank

Since our first study in 2008, it has been documented that rank influences adoption of blogging in the F500. Those corporations ranked in the top 200 have consistently out blogged those in the bottom 200. Perhaps the top companies are effectively demonstrating a strong consumer or B2B engagement attitude that impacts their bottom line. In 2020, the companies ranked in the top 200 made up 49% of those with blogs, 29% of those ranked in the bottom 200 of the Fortune 500 list had active blogs.

1d.Corporate Blogs by Industry

Some of the top industries using blogs in 2020 include:

Food Consumer Products
General Merchandise
Insurance: Life, Health (stock)
Internet Services and Retailing
Information Technology Services

In contrast, some of the Fortune 500 industries without corporate blogging include:

Automotive Retailing Services
Motor Vehicles and Parts
Utilities: Gas and Electric
Mining, Crude Oil Production

2a.Corporate Twitter Accounts

Four hundred and forty-six companies (89%) in the 2020 F500 have active corporate Twitter accounts, which is down 7% from 2019. Each of the top ten corporations on the Fortune 500 list (Walmart, Amazon, Exxon Mobil, Apple, CVS Health, Berkshire Hathaway, UnitedHealth Group, McKesson, AT&T and AmerisourceBergen) consistently post on their Twitter accounts even during the Covid-19 pandemic.

2b.Corporate Twitter Followers

The main measure of Twitter popularity is the number of followers an account has. Facebook, in its seventh year on the F500 list, continues to dominate with 13.3 million followers, followed by Starbucks, Netflix, Microsoft, Discovery, Nike and Tesla. It is interesting to note Netflix’s continued growth of Twitter followers, moving up from the sixth most followed company on the F500 to the third. Contrary to Netflix’s growth in followers, Starbucks experienced a negative growth rate, losing over 400,000 followers since 2019, along with Facebook ( down 200,000 followers).

Having a large following on Twitter can lead to or reflect an increase in sales for a company. This holds true for Netflix’s growth on Twitter, likely caused by the large influx of users who took to using the popular streaming platform while in quarantine during the global pandemic.


Facebook	13,3000,000
Starbucks	11,000,000
Netflix	9,100,000
Microsoft	9,000,000
Discovery	8,700,000
Nike	8,200,000
Tesla	6,200,000

2c.Corporate Twitter Accounts by Industry

Seventy-four of seventy-five industries represented in the 2020 F500 had at least one company with a corporate Twitter account (the exception being the Forest and Paper Product Industry). The percentage of corporations with Twitter accounts varies by industry. There are 35 industries that did not have 100% of their corporations with an active Twitter account. A sample of those 35 industries is represented below.


Utilities: Gas and Electric	21/22	95%
Insurance: Life, Health, (Stock)	13/14	93%
Chemicals	12/13	92%
Food Consumer Products	12/13	92%
Diversified Financials	11/12	92%
Automotive Retailing, Services	9/10	90%
Wholesalers: Diversified	9/10	90%
Internet Services and Retailing	8/9	89%
Computers, Office Equipment	7/8	88%

3a.Corporate Facebook Pages

Four hundred and twenty-seven (85%) of the 2020 F500 have active corporate Facebook pages.

As in 2019, 100% of the top ten corporations on the Fortune 500 list (Walmart, Amazon.com, Exxon Mobil, Apple, CVS Health, Berkshire Hathaway, UnitedHealth Group, McKesson, AT&T and AmerisourceBergen) have active Facebooks. While corporate Facebook usage is down 10% in the F500 compared to 2019, the decline is likely attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.

3b.Corporate Facebook “Likes”

The main measure of engagement on Facebook is the number of people who “like” the company. Facebook took a major dive in likes, plummeting from the number one most “liked” company on the 2019 Fortune 500 to the 22nd most “liked” in 2020. McDonald’s replaced Facebook’s spot as the most liked company on the F500 list, followed by Netflix, Walt Disney, Discovery, Intel, Starbucks, and Nike. Netflix, as on Twitter, is growing in popularity on Facebook at a rapid rate, up 9.5 million likes since 2019. For the third consecutive year, Netflix moves up a spot on the top “liked” companies on the Fortune 500. Following suit is Walt Disney, who went from the fourth most liked company on the Fortune 500, to the third.


McDonald’s	80,562,452
Netflix	69,210,325
Walt Disney	52,487,853
Discovery	39,361,278
Intel	37,458,651
Starbucks	36,728,885
Nike	34,445,204

3c.Corporate Facebook Pages by Industry

Seventy-four of seventy-five industries represented in the 2020 F500 had at least one company with a corporate Facebook account (the exception being the Forest and Paper Product Industry).

The percentage of corporations with Facebook accounts varies by industry. There are 38 industries that did not have 100% of their corporations with an active Facebook account. A sample of those 38 industries are represented below.


Utilities: Gas and Electric	21/22	95%
Commercial Banks	19/20	95%
Insurance: Life, Health, (Stock)	13/14	93%
Chemicals	12/13	92%
Semiconductors & other Electronic Components	11/12	92%
Aerospace and Defense	10/11	91%
Wholesalers: Diversified	9/10	90%

4a.Corporate Instagram Pages

Instagram is used both as a means to advertise a company’s products and services and as a call to action to purchase. A link can be included with a specific image, leading users to more information and a means of buying. Companies will also post images of products and representations of services without links, of their location(s) and of their employees; often participating in charitable events, business-related conferences and meetings, or receiving some form of recognition. Instagram helps to build a company’s brand and goodwill with consumers.

Instagram’s use by the F500 is down 9% in the year 2020, decreasing from 367 (73%) active users, to 321 (64%). One hundred percent of the top ten F500 companies are using Instagram, including Amerisource Bergen, who did not have an active Instagram account in 2019.

4b.Corporate Instagram “Likes”

The main measure of engagement on Instagram is the number of people who “follow” the company. Nike remains the top followed F500 company on the platform by a landslide with 122 million followers (up 35% since 2019). Netflix continues to grow in popularity on Instagram as well, moving up one position from the fourth most followed F500 company on Instagram to the third, along with Apple who moved from the fifth to the fourth.


Nike	122,000,000
Walt Disney	26,100,000
Netflix	24,700,000
Apple	23,700,000
Starbucks	18,300,000
Discovery	12,900,000
Ralph Lauren	12,000,000

4c.Corporate Instagram Pages by Industry

Seventy of seventy-five industries represented in the 2020 F500 had at least one company with a corporate Instagram account (the exceptions are Building Materials/Glass,Forest and Paper Products, Metals, Publishing/Printing, and Tobacco).

The percentage of corporations with Instagram accounts varies by industry. There are 62 industries that did not have 100% of their corporations with an active Instagram account. A sample of those 62 industries are represented below.


Specialty Retailers: Other	16/17	94%
Aerospace and Defense	10/11	91%
Information Technology Services	7/8	88%
Telecommunications	7/8	88%
Apparel	6/7	86%
Food Consumer Products	11/13	85%
Household and Personal Products	5/6	83%

5a.Corporate YouTube Accounts

Three hundred and ninety-one (78%) of the 2020 Fortune 500 have an active corporate YouTube account, down 13% from last year. All of the top ten companies on the F500 list have active YouTube accounts. Some of the many ways businesses are utilizing this video-driven platform are to reach their target audience, boost engagement, acquire new customers, and to build brand awareness.

6a.LinkedIn (Business-Oriented Social Networking Site)

LinkedIn continues to remain the top used platform among the 2020 F500. Businesses have set up shop on the site to tell their story, network, stimulate word of mouth and recruit. Four hundred and ninety-two companies (99%) on the F500 list are using LinkedIn in 2020.

7a.Corporate TikTok Accounts

TikTok, a social media platform made up of short one minute or less videos, has become popular due to its huge user base, not limited to Gen Zers, and a vast amount of content. It was added to this study for the first time this year.

TikTok is so attractive because it optimizes the user experience by letting the user be both the producer and consumer. Even as the newest social media platform on the rise, 8% of corporations on the Fortune 500 list have a corporate TikTok account. This percentage is likely to grow as companies look to target TikTok’s primary user demographic (Gen-Z and Millennials).

Major corporations in the F500 top 5 like Walmart, Amazon and Apple are some of the most notable corporations who have TikTok accounts. With algorithm technology based on big data and enhanced user loyalty, TikTok is a niche social media platform for corporations to reach a particular audience. These listed corporations above have large target markets that overlap with TikTok’s demographic.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way the F500 are using their social media platforms. Since 2008, this study has chronicled social media use by counting “active” accounts. In 2020, “inactive” accounts became far more prevalent as companies dealt with the impacts and restrictions of the COVID-19 virus. It is not surprising that platforms characterized by almost daily postings like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram would decline in usage. It is the increased use of blogging that once again points to this very mature tool as a unique communications vehicle. Blogs have long been touted as the only form of social media that provides ownership, freedom from oversight and restrictions in length or content and an opportunity for long form storytelling or thought leadership. It appears that more companies turned to their blogs during the pandemic to provide useful content, demonstrate social responsibility and improve SEO.

Ultimately, we are seeing the F500 adapt to this sudden and unprecedented global pandemic. Perhaps retreating to older, more familiar tools is a form of comfort on a corporate level. For 2020, there is simply less activity on the most popular platforms. Only time will tell what the post-pandemic landscape will look like when it comes to social media and the Fortune 500.

About the Authors

Nora Ganim Barnes is a Chancellor Professor of Marketing and Director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Nora has worked as a consultant for many national and international firms. Working closely with businesses in the Northeast US, Nora and her students have provided marketing research assistance to hundreds of small businesses.

She has published articles in academic and professional journals and proceedings, has contributed chapters to books, and has been awarded numerous research grants and teaching awards. Her work has been covered online and in print by Business Week, the NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Computer World, Time Magazine and the Harvard Business Review among others. She has been named Co-chair of Research by the Society for New Communications Research at the Conference Board.

Barnes is a frequent speaker at corporate meetings and keynote at conferences. She can be reached at [email protected].

Shannen Pavao graduated from The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and Management. She went on to obtain her MBA from The Charlton College of Business at UMass Dartmouth with a Marketing concentration. Shannen has worked on numerous research projects from various industries ranging from banking to fraternal organizations. She is a published author and has conducted multiple studies on college-aged Millennials and Generation-Z. Her areas of expertise include: SPSS analysis, database management, Qualtrics, survey development, and social media.

She can be reached at [email protected]

Bethany Fernandes works as a Graduate Assistant in the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where she obtained a BS in Marketing with a minor in Management. She is continuing her education at the University in pursuit of a Master’s in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing. She has conducted both qualitative and quantitative research for a range of business clients.

She can be reached at [email protected] .

Related features

Oct 29, 2020 The Fortune 500 adapt to the sudden and unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic.

Sep 7, 2020 College-Level generation Z COVID-19 Impact Study

May 12, 2020 A Review and Analysis of Private School Choice in the United States

Feb 11, 2020 Increases in Use of Instagram and Paid Social But Not Social Planning: Social Media Among the 2019 Inc. 500

Jan 9, 2020 Oversaturation & Disengagement: The 2019 Fortune 500 Social Media Dance

Categorized as

IMAGES

(PDF) THE IMPACT OF THE PRESENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS ON BRAND
38+ Research Paper Samples
(PDF) Impact of Social Media Application in Business Organizations
📗 Social Media Research Paper: Geo-social Contents. Free Essay
(PDF) A Research Paper on Social media: An Innovative Educational Tool
Social Media Presence For Company

VIDEO

Social Media Content Creation Tactics to Leverage Your Reviews for Maximum Impact
Building a Powerful Social Media Presence for Your Business Tips from a Successful Entrepreneur
Effect of social media
Boost Your Social Media Presence with these Proven Strategies
Social Media for Psychological Research in Ethical, Productive, and Prosocial Ways
Social media is doing this to you…

COMMENTS

(PDF) Social Media Presence and Organizational Performance: An
Social Media Presence and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Study on Companies' Presence on Twitter July 2020 Contemporary Management Research 16(2):123-144
Social Media Adoption, Usage And Impact In Business-To ...
Social media plays an important part in the digital transformation of businesses. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the use of social media by business-to-business (B2B) companies. The current study focuses on the number of aspects of social media such as the effect of social media, social media tools, social media use, adoption of social media use and its barriers, social ...
Brand Communication in Social Media: A Research Agenda
Distribution of Papers across Journals and Years. All identified articles were published between 2008 and 2018. Figure 1 shows that research on social media started to flourish in the top advertising and marketing journals in 2011, with 18 articles published that year. The highest number of articles was published in 2017 (25), followed by 2014 (23).
A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Brands' Owned Social Media on Social
For the link between owned social media and social media engagement, we retrieved 1,349 elasticities (110 focus on owned social media volume, 227 on owned social media valence, and 1,012 on the presence of owned social media). A few papers focusing on social media engagement operationalize the dependent variable in terms of valence (e.g ...
The Role of Social Media Content Format and Platform in Users
The purpose of this study is to understand the role of social media content on users' engagement behavior. More specifically, we investigate: (i)the direct effects of format and platform on users' passive and active engagement behavior, and (ii) we assess the moderating effect of content context on the link between each content type (rational, emotional, and transactional content) and ...
PDF [Publication] The effects of social media marketing on brand ...
who desires to leverage social media networks to develop online presence in a cost-effective way. During the working time at company X, the author is encouraged to address and deliver ... The main question in this research is: "How social media marketing impacts on brand awareness?" To answer the question, theoretical and empirical research ...
Social Media Impact on Business: A Systematic Review
Abstract. Social media is a multifaceted phenomenon that significantly affects business competence mainly because of spearheading the evolutionary process. The primary purpose of the systematic review is to encompass the evaluation of social media as a model that influences business enterprises in the local and international levels.
The impact of social media in business growth and performance: A
The purpose of this research is to investigate the status and the evolution of the scientific studies on the applications of social media in the business. The present research is an applied ...
Social media in marketing research: Theoretical bases, methodological
1 INTRODUCTION. The exponential growth of social media during the last decade has drastically changed the dynamics of firm-customer interactions and transformed the marketing environment in many profound ways.1 For example, marketing communications are shifting from one to many to one to one, as customers are changing from being passive observers to being proactive collaborators, enabled by ...
The future of social media in marketing
Social media allows people to freely interact with others and offers multiple ways for marketers to reach and engage with consumers. Considering the numerous ways social media affects individuals and businesses alike, in this article, the authors focus on where they believe the future of social media lies when considering marketing-related topics and issues. Drawing on academic research ...
Full article: Unlocking the power of social media marketing
The most popular and influential brands on social media have high numbers of likes and comments, which indicate the vitality of their social media presence (de Vries et al., Citation 2012). The Interaction Capabilities of SMM represent companies' skills to encourage customer engagement in conversation and events.
Beyond the basics: Exploring the impact of social media marketing
1. Introduction. Social media platforms offer businesses a unique opportunity to expand their reach, increase their visibility, and establish a strong brand presence in the global market [[1], [2], [3]].Social media networking platforms have developed as an instrumental tool for businesses and marketers to acknowledge customers' needs and offer viable resolutions to their marketing challenges ...
Social Media Presence and Organizational Performance: An Empirical
Social media has garnered increased attention amongst individuals and organizations. At organizational levels, social media gives companies a way to connect with the market in a real-time manner. It becomes an essential component of marketing and business. However, the economic advantage of the presence of companies on social media platforms remains hardly studied.
Full article: The impact of social media on consumer-brand loyalty: A
The paper adopted a quantitative research approach to gain a deeper understanding of consumer engagement in the social media space so far as the online based-brand community is concerned. For the purpose of achieving the aforementioned hypotheses, we first visited web pages of several SME's which had social media plugins connecting the brand ...
Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research
This section synthesizes the existing literature focusing on digital and social media marketing and discusses each theme listed in Table 1 from a review of the extant literature. Studies included in this section were identified using the Scopus database by using the following combination of keywords "Social media", "digital marketing" and "social media marketing".
Corporate Communication through Social Media: Strategies for Managing
A search for books on social media reveals a staggering number. From the highly acclaimed The Cluetrain Manifesto (2007) by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger to Erik Qualman's Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business (2009), there are several books that address business in general, and marketing in particular, using social media.
(PDF) Social media in modern business
335. SOCIAL MEDIA IN MODERN B USINESS. Krystyna Pol ańska, PhD. Warsaw School of Economics, Poland. Abstract. Social media help companies to reach new customers. New areas where companies. can ...
Enhancing Organisational Competitiveness Via Social Media
The use of social media in organisations has advanced from experimentation to mainstream level implementation (Pillet and Carillo 2016), with the aim of increasing competitiveness and gaining business value for organisations (Bughin and Chui 2013).Social media platforms are significant for enhancing competitiveness (Aswani et al. 2017) and obtaining business value as they instantaneously ...
Strengthen Your Professional Presence on Social Media
Lastly, be consistent. Ensure that what you share and how you comment and behave on professional social platforms align with your values and how you want people to think about you. When it comes ...
(Pdf) the Impact of Employer Branding on Corporate Image Building
To address this research gap, we conducted a scoping review that collected, analyzed and synthesized the corpus of published research on organizational and corporate identity and social media.
Social media influencer marketing: foundations, trends, and ways
The increasing use and effectiveness of social media influencers in marketing have intrigued both academic scholars and industry professionals. To shed light on the foundations and trends of this contemporary phenomenon, this study undertakes a systematic literature review using a bibliometric-content analysis to map the extant literature where consumer behavior, social media, and influencer ...
Full article: Social media advertisements and their influence on
6. Conclusion. The aim of this study was to determine the features of social media advertisements that influence consumer perception and their effect on purchase intention. Data was obtained with the help of a questionnaire and analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling methods.
Research Research: The Fortune 500 adapt to the sudden and
The following definition was used to locate 2020 F500 corporations with a social media presence: A company was counted as having a presence on each platform studied if the primary corporation had an active account. This was determined by examining both the date of the last post and the patterns of posting.