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The world is becoming more and more interconnected. People of all ages and from all countries use internet to access information, to make an online purchase or to create new relationships and to share ideas and opinions about products and services. According to the 2016 Eurostat survey on the availability of information and communication technologies (ICT), 79% of the population of the European Union aged 16 to 74 spend a significant portion of their time online (Eurostat, 2016). Since the emergence of web 2.0 and web 3.0, there has been a strong growth in digital media.
Social networks, sharing and blogging sites continue to spread through all aspects of the private life and businesses. Digital technology continues to generate new services that completely alter our interaction and use of digital media and therefore they deserve to be studied. In the context of this digital revolution, it is necessary to study how service companies can identify market opportunities in a business environment in which technology is constantly evolving (Lamberton & Stephen 2016).
Digital media have deeply influenced the way people communicate, connect and collaborate with others, and businesses have recognized their ability to interact with their customers. Among these digital media, blogs are social or interactive marketing tools; they are used by consumers to express their personal opinions. Currently, blogs have considerably been grown by companies through the hiring of some bloggers by publishing and press companies, the development of advertising, the use of sponsored articles and the delivery of free products to influential bloggers, etc. (De Lassus & Mercanti-Guérin, 2013).
Ha, Bae and Son (2015) consider that blogs are the most used media because more than 12,000 new blogs are created daily and an average of 4.6 blogs are updated every second. A study by Datametrics Launchmetrics Company (2015) has revealed that 84% of the 600 marketing and communications professionals surveyed in 32 countries are expected to launch influencer campaigns in the next period (Brady & Lerigo-Jones, 2017). Hence the growing importance of blogs in the media landscape as well as in the commercial strategies of brands; however, the number of studies devoted to this subject is still low (Cissé-Depardon & Zouari, 2016).
Thus, companies want to collaborate with influencers for the marketing of their products; however the choice of suitable bloggers, who are able to influence the amateurs and inspire their confidence, remains a very delicate step (De Lassus & Mercanti-Guérin, 2013). Consumers' reluctance to trust readers has paved the way for bloggers to expose their private lives, generating wide online peer tracking whom they can influence through their opinions (Brady & Lerigo-Jones, 2017). These influencers have been recognized as modern thought leaders who have the opportunity to change their minds, raise awareness of a brand or ruin it. They are able to reach such an importance or status by focusing on their influential profiles, especially by exposing a blogger's private life.
The privacy variable is very influential as far as new and evolving digital media services are concerned; hence bloggers' development of strategies that attract and convince their visitors by intentionally revealing elements of their private lives (De Lassus & Mercanti-Guérin, 2013). Bloggers have made disclosure of their privacy a deliberate strategy to attract and retain readers.
Although the literature deals with the social influence of blogs on the consumer's online shopping behavior (Ha et al., 2015, Morimoto & Trimble, 2012, Carr & Hayes, 2015), the effects of bloggers' comments on credibility and branding in social media (Hayes & Carr, 2015, Carr & Hayes, 2015), and the reasons why bloggers are led to reveal their private lives (De Lassus & Mercanti-Guérin, 2014). Very little research has been done to analyze the Blogger's privacy exposure in the beauty and fashion industries