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Plenty studies have confirmed that practices such as word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendation can significantly influence the purchase decisions of other consumers. And its importance has grown further as additional ways for people to interact have emerged.
In this respect, social media for sure plays a hugely prominent role. Facebook, Twitter and other platforms where content is user-generated enables like-minded people to connect more readily than ever before. That consumers are just clicks away from a wealth of product-related information is of obvious interest to marketers.
Two types of opinion leaders
Growing prevalence of social networking ensures its impact doesn’t end there. Take opinion leaders, for instance. Firms have long-targeted these well-connected individuals because their record of shaping how other consumers act is almost second to none. With the advent of social media, the reach of opinion leaders could well be even more extensive.
It’s a safe bet to assume that the value of opinion leaders to organizations continues to rise accordingly. Their well-documented expertise and level of connectedness are obvious reasons for that. The former does come with a caveat though. To some degree, expertise is self-professed and perceptions might be deceptive about the true extent of opinion leadership. The likely reality is that expertise is somewhat niche and thus on a much smaller scale than assumed. Nonetheless, history shows that it remains more than useful for marketing purposes.
The worth of opinion leaders lies in their central role in the wider diffusion of new ideas and products. What is especially interesting is the notion that such individuals can be classified into two distinct types respectively based on expertise and...