An integrated marketing communications framework for social media influencers

Abstract

This discussion proposes a framework for a more comprehensive understanding of how social media influencer (SMI) marketing works. SMI research has grown rapidly in the past few years, but is still at an early stage. There are many contradictory results and little integration of various theory fragments into a more comprehensive whole. Using a ‘theory synthesis’ approach to conceptualisation, motivations for following SMIs are examined, tying them to SMI levels (mega, macro, micro), and the SMI levels are mapped to an integrated marketing communications (IMC) perspective on the stages of the decision process SMIs are best able to influence. This integration of usually separate research topics positions SMI marketing more strongly within the field’s comprehensive knowledge of how marketing communication works in the consumer decision process.