Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-25-2024
Abstract
Many customers choose products based on information from social media influencers. Companies can pay these influencers to promote their products. We develop a model in which customers read an influencer’s sponsored post for a mix of entertainment and product information, and those who purchase the product can leave comments for future customers. We derive conditions in which a large celebrity influencer endorses all products, whereas a microinfluencer adopts a policy of endorsing only high-quality products. In equilibrium, the microinfluencer screens for high-quality products so his followers do not waste time reading informative comments about low-quality products. By contrast, the celebrity influencer attracts so many uninformative comments his followers do not use his comments as a source of product information, and the value of his endorsement arises solely from generating product awareness.
Recommended Citation
Cristina Nistor, Matthew Selove (2024) Influencers: The Power of Comments. Marketing Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2022.0186
Supplemental Appendices
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
INFORMS
Comments
This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Marketing Science in 2024 following peer review. This article may not exactly replicate the final published version. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2022.0186.