BEHAVIOURAL STUDIES

Behavioural Studies



Behavioural Studies

Introduction

Understanding customers is one of the fundamental requirements of marketing and entails recognition of the decision-making process that both individual customers and groups of customers undergo. In the modern digital world, understanding word of mouth (WoM), the role of social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), and effect of opinion leaders in influencing consumers during a marketing campaign becomes particularly important (Sullivan, 2008, Pp. 16-17). This paper discusses discuss the characteristics of opinion leaders and their role in marketing campaigns.

Discussion

The identification and management of opinion leaders is an important component of a marketing campaign. The society is partitioned into opinion leaders, followers, and independent actors. Followers are free to choose their own opinion leaders. Opinion leaders are influential members of a community, group, or society to whom others turn for advice, opinions, and views. Various studies have attempted to understand the attributes and roles of opinion leaders (Weimann, Tustin, Vuuren, & Joubert, 2007, Pp. 173-190). Consumers might interact in the regular course of their daily lives, read reviews online, and employ online social networks to share their opinions about a product, or simply influence others by using the product in a visible way (Gilbert, Jager, Deffuant & Adjali, 2007, Pp. 813-815).

As per Solomon (1994), opinion leaders are people who are well-informed regarding a variety of topics and whose suggestion is taken sincerely by other people (Solomon, 1994, Pp. 306-307). Opinion leaders represent the prototypes for the rest and with their whole behaviour encourage their group to follow their example. Opinion leaders can cause major impact on the successful campaign of a product and have an important role for the implementation of an organization's policy and strategic goals. They are usually well respected persons and they often tend to be very social within their group or community.

The opinion leaders, due to their image and the influence they have to the consumer's behaviour and possible actions as models are very important for the marketing sector. According to Voss (1984) “Even in this era of mass communications and mass advertising, it has been estimated that as much as 80% of all buying decisions are influenced by someone's direct recommendation” (M-10).

Characteristics of opinion leaders:

Below I will analyze some of the main characteristics of opinion leaders and through this analysis we will get our conclusions according opinion leaders and their importance in marketing campaigns. These characteristics will give as an image about the profile of opinion leader.

Opinion leaders are usually persons of high social status that have strong influence within their group and are characterized by their high sociability. They are usually people of high knowledge and great interest and involvement. Opinion leaders have big exposure to mass media that are relevant to their area of interest.

They are people who are based in a central position of social networks and this adds a lot to their self confidence making them the most appropriate persons to spread the message of a marketing campaign. Opinion leaders are like the mediators of ideas and information ...