Influence in OSNs
In this paper, we present the need, characteristics, and different methods to identify an opinion leader. In the present scenario, an OSN is becoming very popular, it plays a vital role not only in the economy but also in a person’s life to share their ideas and interact with each other. People while making some decisions seek for other people’s advice or views they trust. An opinion leader is someone who has the ability to influence people’s choices and decisions with their decision, opinions, or views. The opinion leadership concept was developed in the 1940s by U.S. socialist Paul Lazarsfeld and his colleagues, and then it was further developed by different studies and theories. According to a study in[1], it is basically a two-step process. In the first step, the opinion leader understands and analyzes the views and ideas of other people and in the second step they form their own views and provide it to people. After the emergence of Web 2.0 technology, the opinion leader concept has been developed drastically. They play an important role in a person’s life since at some point of time everyone looks for advice or opinion.
According to Roger and Cartano[2], opinion leaders can be anyone including friends, family, relatives, or an online friend whoever is in a person’s social network. An online opinion leader is envisaged and resembling an opinion leader in reality. When an opinion leader happens to be the one from somebody’s own circle a person trusts them even more compared to some other person from the outer circle.
Opinion leadership can be distinguished into two types: monomorphic and polymorphic. Generally, opinion leadership is viewed as a domain-specific measure of people’s differences, that is a person can be an opinion leader in one domain and be a follower in another domain. In contrast, polymorphic opinion leaders are the ones that can influence other people in almost any domain by their views and ideas.
Mass Media and Opinion Leaders
According to the model, the two-step flow of communication model [1], mass media doesn’t directly influence a person. In fact, the information flows from mass media to the opinion leaders who understand and analyze the information and put it into context for the wider population. Thus people have a feeling of more trust towards opinion leaders as compared to the advertised media. Opinion leaders can identify in several domains.
Online Networking and Leadership in Marketing
In marketing and digital marketing, whenever an opinion leader reviews a certain thing or service, the prevalence and the sales of these items increase early as compared to other things. So, opinion leaders can influence the choice or decision of another person by providing them with more information about things through their own experiences[4]. According to a study[5] by Hsu, Lin and Chiang(2013) it is shown that recommendation does influence a person’s purchase choice. Their studies also verify that consumers get influenced by online product recommendations before making the final purchase decision. Likewise, an opinion leader can be seen in online reviewing something and can influence online consumer behaviour and a person’s choice and decision by their own information and experience.
From the previous studies, it has been shown that an opinion leader is a progressively complex, profound mastermind and to some extent has higher social status and higher skill level when contrasted to other individuals. Generally, opinion leaders can be seen as dependable or trustworthy, and non-purposive. When people seek advice for something they listen to other people or an opinion leader’s experiences and information with an aim of not getting deceived in a specific direction. However, the media can be seen as a fortifying agent while an opinion leader can be seen as having a more decisive role in a person’s decision or choice.
