Opinion Leaders In Online Word-of-Mouth

In nowadays' environment of networking society, marketing and brand imaging with the use of word-of-mouth (WOM) are very important and effective marketing strategies. Significant number of studies on the WOM communication have revealed that opinion leaders play a very important role in the formation and diffusion of WOM information. In addition, the opinion leaders have become influential in WOM communications in online environment as well, for their extent of influence on people's perception and the rate at which they can change people's perception have rapidly augmented through the use of internet.Blogs are one of the key media of information in online WOM. Among hundreds and thousands of blogs on the internet, those significantly popular blogs, which attract huge number of visitors and exert significant influence on other bloggers with quality contents, are commonly referred as power blogs. The owners of the power blogs, often referred as power bloggers, are bloggers who possess significant level of knowledge and interest on certain topics, with knowledge level comparable to the level exhibited by specialists in relevant fields. Power bloggers, as emerging forms of WOM media and opinion leaders, exercise powerful influence. Hence, this study explores power bloggers' increasing influence over consumers as well as consumers' perception about them.This study is comprised of three parts:1) a study performed from the perspective of blog users a study performed from the perspective of power bloggers, and 3) a study performed from the perspective of professional marketers. The study's focus is on the power bloggers' influence on consumers and consumers' perception about the power bloggers. Following are the summaries of the study's findings:Part 1 of the study is summarized as follows:Consumers define information posted on blogs as online personal diary. Even though consumers obtain information from blogs, because they perceive the information as based on personal experiences, they maintain that they only view the i(?)rmation for a reference purpose.While consumers also visit power blogs for the same purpose, which is to obtain information for reference, majority of them distinguish the differences between power blogs and regular blogs as well as view the information from power blogs as highly professional and credible.Furthermore, most consumers not only feel satisfied by their experience in power blogs, but also change their attitudes and perceptions about power blogs after visiting them.Consumers'opinions towards commercial power blogs were that, even though the blogs were created for commercial purposes, the blogs must provide objective and impartial information that is objective and impartial in consumers'perspectives.Part 2 of the study is summarized as follows:The study has discovered that power bloggers'motivation before and after becoming a power blogger has changed. Even though they created blogs for personal interest, after becoming power bloggers, they develop a sense of responsibility such as "providing accurate information," which in turn changes their motivation towards (?)naintaining their blogs.In addition, because some consumers view power blogs as public space rather than a private space, the selection of power blog's main topics or the creation of blog (?)ents seemed to be influenced. For instance, when bloggers created contents, they did so in the perspectives of consumers or in a neutral position.Power bloggers value their interaction with blog users, through which the study has observed that their motivation of "providing accurate information" was further reinforced. The study discovered that bloggers'relationships with blog users had positive influence on power bloggers. Moreover, power bloggers maintained good relationships with other bloggers, and this also had positive influence in improving the content quality. Other findings included positive opinions as well as negative opinions about power blogs'interaction with corporations or public media.Part 3 of the study is summarized as follows:Consumers in general maintain positive attitudes towards power blogs and power bloggers and regard them as credible sources of information. Furthermore, consumers classify power blogs as a type of media and indicate that marketing effects resulting from power blogs are beyond imagination. Towards the relationship between power blogs and public media, consumers state that power blogs go beyond the role of merely transferring information from public media to consumers. Consumers view the relationship as that of collaboratively complementing each other's information contents.This research study contributes to power blogs'influence in terms of following elements:·Consumers'trust about power blogs·Number of blog users·Power bloggers beyond the role of online opinion leaders·Active attitudes of power bloggersThis research study identifies power bloggers'shortcomings in the following area:·Lack of objectivity·Lack of interaction between power bloggers and blog users other than repeat users·Lack of advertising to promote power blogs...