Influencer Marketing: A Triadically Interactive Relationship Between Influencers, Followers, and Brands

The rise of influencers on social media has created new opportunities for brands to advertise their products. However, the novelty of the influencer phenomenon is not always well understood, because influencer marketing resembles the well-established practice of celebrity endorsement. This chapter aims to demonstrate the specificities of the influencer phenomenon as a new form of opinion leadership. It conceptualizes this phenomenon as a triadic relationship between influencers, their followers, and the brands they endorse. This chapter examines the influencer-follower, influencer-brand, and follower-brand relationships involved in this triadic interplay. Drawing on the influencer marketing literature, it discusses how and why all three actors engage in a digitally mediated dialogue. This dialogue takes the form of likes, comments, tags, and other social media interactions, and it revolves around the content that influencers create and share with their followers in which they feature brands. All in all, marketing managers should not view influencer marketing as a mere substitute for celebrity endorsement. Rather, managers should acknowledge that the interactive nature of the influencer phenomenon has the potential to trigger brand-related conversations and instant sales. This chapter notably recommends two tactical marketing tools to trigger instant sales: shoppable posts and livestream shopping sessions.