“HOW DO LIFESTYLE BLOGGERS INFLUENCE A

READER’S BUYING DECISIONS?”

LITERATURE SUMMARY & IMPLICATIONSJAMES WRAGG

REVIEWED AIM

To explore the relationship between lifestyle bloggers and readers. Seeking how and why readers' buying decisions are influenced by their content and the factors that affect influence.

REVIEWED OBJECTIVES

To find• What is a lifestyle blogger? • Why bloggers seek to influence purchasing decisions?• How bloggers influence? • Factors affecting influence

With this information a framework to plot blog influence will be developed.

WHAT IS A LIFESTYLE BLOGGER? Traditionally multi-genre (Wren, 2011)

A blogger represents a personally branded writer that uses different media to promote their posts (Alexander, 2011)

Use digital marketing techniques to promote posts (Scott, 2011)

Utilise Wordpress or Blogger (Wordpress, 2014 / Blogger, 2015)

Less than 6% of UK population blog (ONS, 2014)

Globally 58% blogs male written (Coosto, 2014) but lifestyle predominantly female (Hilgenberg, 2012)

OPINIONS ON LIFESTYLE BLOGSSome view as ‘unrealistic’ (Denno, 2014) Allow under-represented minorities to express themselves (Hilgenberg, 2012)

WHY WOULD THEY WANT TO INFLUENCE?

ENDORSEMENT

• Market Maven (Feick and Price, 1987) • Opinion Leader (Lyons and

Henderson, 2005) • Brand Evangelist(Singh

and Sonnenburg, 2012) Figure 1, Market Maven, opinion leader or Brand Evangelist? (Doss and Carstens, 2014)

MONETARY GAIN

3 main types (Wren, 2011)1. Banner Advertising (Adsense) (Google, 2015) 2. Affiliate Marketing (Amazon Affiliates,2015)3. Sponsored posts (Product for free or cash) (Cross, 2011)

WHY USE BLOGGERS?Readers :• Are more influenced by camouflaged advertising (Wren, 2011)• Can be blind to banner advertising (Lee and Cho, 2010) meaning it can be

ineffectual (Danaher and Dagger, 2013). • Depend upon opinions of others to avoid risk when purchasing Brown and

Reingen, 1987)

How can you be sure this recommendation is genuine? (Cross, 2011)

HOW DO THEY INFLUENCE?

IN POST INFLUENCE

Blogging originates from a ‘written web log’ (Kumar et al., 2005) Persuasive writing is the art of asserting your opinions validity and altering other beliefs (Graff and Birkenstein, 2010)

Ethos Ethical

Logos Logical

Pathos Emotional

(Aristotle and Lawson – Tancred, 1991)

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

A consumer will not buy a product based on a single recommendation (Vakratsas and Ambler, 1999) Humanistic ; difficult to define human behaviour, seeks consumer basis individually (Hirschman, 1986)

SOCIAL INFLUENCE

Raven (2008) Defined 6 bases of power; coercive, legitimate, reward, expert, referent and information. Last 4 applicable to bloggers.Cialdini (2007) 6 similar principles; Reciprocation, social proof, commitment and consistency, liking, authority and scarcity

ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH

• Godin (2008) likens blogging in conjunction with social media as necessary tools to tighten an online tribe. Negative word of mouth spreads faster (Tyversky and Kahneman, 1981)

• Electronic word of mouth can be described as ‘Word of mouth on steroids’ (Qualman, 2009) • Average social network size is 153.5 people (Hill and Dunbar, 2003)

• The average Facebook users has 338 friends (Sedghi, 2014)

This spread of brand evangelism is organic eWom between a blogger and their audience, amplified eWom is manipulated through marketer influenced activity (Kulmala, Mesiranta and Tuominen, 2013)

FACTORS AFFECTING BLOGGER INFLUENCE

TYPE OF GOOD

Zou, Yu and Hao (2011) classify goods as two types, • Experience – A restaurant• Search – A digital camera

The type of good affects the susceptibility of a reader to persuasion

TRUST

• Trustworthiness within blogging can be defined as the level of reliability of A bloggers opinion as perceived by the reader (Riley et al., 1954, Nelson, 1970)• Trust is affected by the other factors within this section

AUTHENTICITY

• A lot of bloggers do so for money (Hilgenberg, 2012) Do bloggers endorse products they love or merely just for money? (Sprague and wells, 2010)

• Asda recently collaborated with Zoella (Zoella, 2014, Langet, 2013, Faull, 2015)

• Controversy around Zoella’s book being ghost-written (Flood, 2014) would alter a reader’s opinion and reduce her capacity to influence due to the unconscious dislike and attribution of negative qualities (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977)

ATTRACTIVENESS

Physical & opinion attractiveness can assist in influencing a person (Chaiken, 1979, Cialdini, 2007) These positive features would lead to the reader unconsciously liking the blogger by attributing these positive traits (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977)

REPUTATION

• If a blogger is revered they will have more capacity to influence others through expert power (Raven, 2008) or authority and possess testimonials regarding social proof and their reputation (Cialdini, 2007)

• It can also be seen that bloggers rely on celebrity endorsement to influence. Since they are extraverted individuals who seek to endorse products explicitly / implicitly (McCraken, 1989)

LEGALITY• The FTC changed legislation that posts cannot make outlandish

claims in regards to products, should be briefed by advertising company. A blogger must disclose if a product was supplied for review or if a post was paid. (Federal Trade Commission, 2015)

• This appeared in recent media wherein the ASA (2015) Locked horns with Vloggers endorsing Oreo biscuits without disclosing (Sweney, 2014)

• Can affect a readers opinion of authenticity due to the fact that is disrespectful to lie to your fans (Sweney, 2014)

CONCLUSIONS

IMPLICATIONS

For Blogger• Do paid bloggers really love the products they endorse? • Authenticity prevalent theme. How can their readers trust their opinionsFor Marketer• Best to seek brand evangelists• Must brief bloggers on sponsorship – respect legality• Plotting ‘influence’ can be difficult, seek authentic bloggers but paradoxically

jeopardise authenticity.

FURTHER RESEARCH

Marketer• Are evangelists or monetary bloggers equally influenced?• Technical side of sponsored posts (Search engine benefits)Blogger• Into practise that alter factors (I.e community engagement,

particular blog lay out or focus upon sub genre)• Saturation of blogging scene and acquiring ‘influence’

TO DO:

• Add implications columns to literature review summary table• Design framework regarding influence to plot blogs.Implications for reader, how this research affects those whom read lifestyle blogs

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