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Article
Identifying influencers on social media
International Journal of Information Management
  • Paul Harrigan, University of Western Australia
  • Timothy M. Daly, Zayed University
  • Kristof Coussement, IÉSEG School of Management
  • Julie A. Lee, University of Western Australia
  • Geoffrey N. Soutar, University of Western Australia
  • Uwana Evers, University of Western Australia
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-1-2021
Abstract

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd The increased availability of social media big data has created a unique challenge for marketing decision-makers; turning this data into useful information. One of the significant areas of opportunity in digital marketing is influencer marketing, but identifying these influencers from big data sets is a continual challenge. This research illustrates how one type of influencer, the market maven, can be identified using big data. Using a mixed-method combination of both self-report survey data and publicly accessible big data, we gathered 556,150 tweets from 370 active Twitter users. We then proposed and tested a range of social-media-based metrics to identify market mavens. Findings show that market mavens (when compared to non-mavens) have more followers, post more often, have less readable posts, use more uppercase letters, use less distinct words, and use hashtags more often. These metrics are openly available from public Twitter accounts and could integrate into a broad-scale decision support system for marketing and information systems managers. These findings have the potential to improve influencer identification effectiveness and efficiency, and thus improve influencer marketing.

Publisher
Elsevier Ltd
Disciplines
Keywords
  • Big data,
  • Influencers,
  • Market mavens,
  • Social media,
  • Twitter
Scopus ID
85091964781
Indexed in Scopus
Yes
Open Access
Yes
Open Access Type
Bronze: This publication is openly available on the publisher’s website but without an open license
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102246
Citation Information
Paul Harrigan, Timothy M. Daly, Kristof Coussement, Julie A. Lee, et al.. "Identifying influencers on social media" International Journal of Information Management Vol. 56 (2021) p. 102246 ISSN: <a href="https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/issn/0268-4012" target="_blank">0268-4012</a>
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/tim-daly/1/