استفاده از رهبران عقیده آنلاین برای ترویج ارزش سودمند محصولات و خدمات Using online opinion leaders to promote the hedonic and utilitarian value of products and services

2. Online opinion leaders’ influence on utilitarian and hedonic value Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have played a critical role in the success of electronic commerce, have changed the way people interact, and have created platforms for online opinion leaders to serve as brand ambassadors and influencers for products and services. These sites provide the opportunity for opinion leaders to interact with their followers and to share information that consumers seek to acquire. Offline opinion leadership and traditional word-of-mouth communications involve face-to-face information exchange between friends, relatives, or acquaintances. In these interactions, the opinion leaders’ influence is direct and they are considered as individuals who are highly informed, respected, and socially connected. Online opinion leadership usually involves eWOM in which information and opinions are transmitted through writing, video, pictures, or emotion-laden characters (i.e., emoticons or emojis) over the internet. A result of these more detached and technological forms of eWOM is that online opinion leaders can have more diverse social connections that involve a greater number of what could be weaker relationships. From a marketing perspective, while online opinion leaders might have less influence on any one consumer that they interact with, they are more likely to have a much greater scope of influence, as they can reach thousands or even millions of potential customers. Online opinion leaders play a pivotal role in marketing communication, as they can provide informal consumption-related advice to others (Tsang & Zhou, 2005; Watts, 2007). Opinion leaders tend to be more socially connected with higher status, education, and social prestige, giving them the capability to influence followers (Li & Du, 2011). These characteristics make them respected sources of information who possess new and valuable insight, while also being personable and easy for potential customers to identify with. Indeed, online opinion leaders have played instrumental roles in previous marketing campaigns. When Dunkin’ Donuts launched its Latte Lite product it used 3,000 consumers to spread the word about the product, reaching 111,272 consumers over 12 weeks. The company experienced increased sales by 26% in test markets (Bao & Chang, 2014). In 2010, when mobile phone manufacturer HTC introduced a Windowsbased smartphone, it hired 1,000 T-Mobile or AT&T customers to write product reviews and post their comments on both Facebook and Twitter. HTC reached more than 234,000 consumers, increasing brand awareness significantly (Bao & Chang, 2014).