Social Media Influencers as a Sales Tool and Medium for Online-to-Offline Sales

Background

Social media marketing (SMM) has gained much attention of scholars and many have defined the concept from different point of view. Yadav and Rahman (2017) defined SMM as a facilitator of connectivity and interaction with prospective customers with the intention of selling product and services. They further stated that SMM enhances the stakeholders’ value by facilitating interaction, sharing personalized recommendations and enabling electronic word of mouth (eWOM). Felix et al. (2017) examined the strategic level of social media marketing, which reviews an organization's decisions about social media marketing scope, culture, structure, and governance. From marketing perspective, Dwivedi, Kapoor, & Chen, (2015, p.291) highlighted that SMM as an interactive dialogue around a marketing offering that facilitates social media users get to know about organisations’ promotional information or learn from other users about their experiences of the marketing offering. Vinerean (2017, p.31) highlighted that organisations employ SMM to gain insights of prospective customers, acquire and to increase lifetime value of customers by retention strategies. He further stated that strategic importance of SMM for an organisation; Firstly as an advertising potential to reach prospective customers, secondly to increase e-WOM of brand experience through loyal customers as well as related social influencers and eventually to building social relationships with customers as an effort of CRM activity.