Influencing Social Media Influencers Through Affiliation

Amy Pei () and Dina Mayzlin ()
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Amy Pei: Department of Marketing, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Dina Mayzlin: Department of Marketing, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089

Marketing Science, 2022, vol. 41, issue 3, 593-615

Abstract: Social media influencers are category enthusiasts who often post product recommendations. Firms sometimes pay influencers to skew their product reviews in favor of the firm. We ask the following research questions. First, what is the optimal level of affiliation (if any) from the firm’s perspective? Affiliation introduces positive bias to the influencer’s review but also decreases the persuasiveness of the review. Second, because affiliated reviews are often biased in favor of the firm, what is the impact of affiliation on consumer welfare? We find that the affiliation decision depends on the cost of information acquisition, the consumer’s prior and awareness, and the disclosure regime. When the consumer’s prior belief is low, the firm needs to affiliate less closely or not at all in order to preserve the influencer’s persuasiveness, the change in the consumer’s belief following the influencer’s review. In contrast, when the consumer’s prior belief is high, the firm fully affiliates with the influencer to both maximize awareness and prevent a negative review. We also show that the firm’s involvement can be Pareto improving if the information acquisition cost is relatively high, and a partial disclosure rule may increase consumer welfare.

Keywords: social media influencers; word of mouth; online reviews; recommendations; Bayesian persuasion; game theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:41:y:2022:i:3:p:593-615

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