Opinion Dissemination and Influencer Marketing in the Social Media Era: Reconsidering Digital Opinion Leadership and Consumer Response

HE Shuying

Abstract

This article examines how social media influencers reshape the circulation of public opinion and how this process contributes to the persuasive power of influencer marketing. Drawing on opinion leadership theory, source credibility theory, parasocial interaction, electronic word-of-mouth, and recent influencer marketing research, the article develops a process-based framework for influencer-mediated communication. It argues that influencers do more than deliver commercial messages. They select, interpret, contextualize, and personalize information before presenting it to audiences, thereby making promotional content easier to evaluate within everyday social relationships. Three connected processes are identified: selective interpretation, relational persuasion, and networked amplification. Expertise and trustworthiness create an initial basis for acceptance, while similarity, authenticity, and parasocial connection strengthen the perceived social meaning of recommendations. Platform affordances and algorithmic visibility can then extend a message beyond the original follower group. The article concludes that influencer effectiveness depends less on audience size alone than on the fit among communicator credibility, message value, audience relationships, and platform conditions, and it proposes directions for future research.

Keywords

Opinion disseminationSocial media influencersOpinion leadershipInfluencer marketingParasocial interactionElectronic word-of-mouthConsumer response

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