Who influences the influencer - a network analytical study of an influencer's peer-based importance Online publication date: Wed, 01-May-2024
by Jens K. Perret
International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing (IJEMR), Vol. 15, No. 3, 2024
Abstract: In contrast to studies focusing on determinants of influencers' relevance which are limited to mostly qualitative discussions, this study focuses on the similarity between social media influencers as relevant figures of a network and the mathematical study of social networks, i.e., the use of network statistics and centrality measures. A dataset of 255 influencers spanning a period of four years from the field of women's fashion present on the social media platform Instagram has been used to empirically determine a model of an influencer's relative importance in the network of its peers. By using regression analysis (panel and cross-sectional) as well artificial neural networks, the importance of the four main factors: followers, reach, engagement rate and posting frequency can consistently be established as well as their causal effects and the path dependency of an influencer's importance across years.
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