Social media influencer marketing emerged in Web 2.0 as a new form of celebrity endorsement in which the Internet-famous create word-of-mouth marketing for brands and organizations on their personal social media pages, blurring the line between organic and sponsored content for their followers. This book explores social media influencer marketing through the lens of philosophy of communication with a praxis-centered approach. Kati E. Sudnick utilizes a multitude of theoretical touchstones—including Christopher Lasch’s narcissistic culture, Marshall McLuhan’s global village, Daniel Boorstin’s human pseudo-event, Jacques Ellul’s propaganda, and the interplay between charismatic leadership and parasocial relationships—in order to consider consequences surrounding Hannah Arendt’s social condition, which appears in hyper-form within social media influencer marketing as a major integrated marketing communication tool. Sudnick applies these concepts to three major case studies surrounding Audible, BetterHelp, and Fyre Festival, drawing implications and conclusions for this integrated marketing communication tactic in an era entrenched within the banality of the social. Ultimately, the author argues for a more aware and conscientious public when it comes to engaging with influencers online. Scholars of communication, philosophy, and media studies will find this book of particular interest.

This book engages with scholarship surrounding philosophy of communication as a lens for understanding the effects of social media influencer marketing for consumers and integrated marketing communication professionals. Through theory-informed case studies, the author argues for a more conscientious consumer when engaging with influencers online.

This book seeks to draw a comprehensive picture of influencer collaborations from a strategic communication perspective. The contributors tackle strategic influencer communication from multidisciplinary perspectives, from varying actor foci, and from different methodological frameworks and methods. Influencers cross traditional boundaries in many ways and oscillate between intimacy and publicity, authenticity and commercialization, ingratiation and critical distance. From a strategic communication perspective, this variability makes influencers hard to capture: organizations can cooperate with influencers to achieve both marketing and PR objectives. Influencers can act as cooperation partners, integrating commercial content into organic narratives, or as independent critics. Influencers also combine different roles that have traditionally been occupied by separate actors such as intermediary, content distributor, creative content producer, community manager, testimonial, strategic counsellor, and event host. The combination of these roles in just one actor opens new opportunities for strategic communication and can produce appreciated synergy effects. It is therefore hardly surprising that influencer collaborations have become a firmly established instrument in the toolbox of strategic communicators. The chapters in this book were originally published in the International Journal of Advertising and the International Journal of Strategic Communication.

This small, inexpensive text is an in-depth yet simply stated discussion on the business and structure of integrated marketing communication (IMC). The book focuses exclusively on introductory issues concerning integrated marketing communication as both a communication device and as a profession.

Go beyond PR spin! Master better ways to communicate honestly and regain the trust of your customers and stakeholders with this book.

This book examines issues and implications of digital and social media marketing for emerging markets. These markets necessitate substantial adaptations of developed theories and approaches employed in the Western world. The book investigates problems specific to emerging markets, while identifying new theoretical constructs and practical applications of digital marketing. It addresses topics such as electronic word of mouth (eWOM), demographic differences in digital marketing, mobile marketing, search engine advertising, among others. A radical increase in both temporal and geographical reach is empowering consumers to exert influence on brands, products, and services. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and digital media are having a significant impact on the way people communicate and fulfil their socio-economic, emotional and material needs. These technologies are also being harnessed by businesses for various purposes including distribution and selling of goods, retailing of consumer services, customer relationship management, and influencing consumer behaviour by employing digital marketing practices. This book considers this, as it examines the practice and research related to digital and social media marketing.

In today’s society, the power of someone’s reputation, or influence, has been turned into a job: that of being a social media influencer. This role comes with promises, such as aspirational work, but is rife with challenges, given the controversy that often surrounds influencers. This is the first book on the regulation of social media influencers, that brings together legal, economic and ethical angles to further unveil the implications of influencer marketing.