Short description:

Influencers offer brands the ability to deliver the ?right? communication and marketing messages to a specific target audience. This is one of the first textbooks to explore the phenomenon of Influencer Marketing and how it fits within marketing communications to build brands and their communities.

Long description:

Influencers offer brands the ability to deliver the 'right' communication and marketing messages to a specific target audience. This is one of the first textbooks to explore the phenomenon of influencer marketing and how it fits within marketing communications to build brands and their communities.

Across four core sections, this book brings together the key theory and practical implications of this new marketing tool: how it works as part of communications campaigns, including how to select the right influencers and measure their success, the dark side of influencer marketing, and the legal and ethical framework. Readers will gain a comprehensive understanding of influencer marketing from the perspectives of influencers, agencies, brands, and platforms. This 2nd edition has been fully updated to refresh and add content on agency recruitment, brand-influencer partnerships, analysis of cultural differences and cross-border promotions in China, Egypt, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and South Africa, influencer crisis and care, emerging regulations, sharenting, de-influencing, virtual influencers, the impact of AI, and metrics and measurements for efficacy. It also delves into regulatory impacts on influencers, agencies, and brands. Interviews with influencers and agencies help the reader delve into lived experiences. Underpinned by academic theory, the book incorporates case studies, questions, platform considerations, and ethical implications to stimulate discussion amongst students and show how the theory is applied in practice.

Influencer Marketing should be core and recommended reading for advanced undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education students of Digital Marketing, Advertising, Marketing Communications, Brand Management, and Public Relations. With its accessible style and practical content, it is also highly valuable for Marketing Communications, Branding, and PR specialists.

Online resources include PowerPoint slides, podcasts, an instructor manual, and test banks.

Table of Contents:

Part 1: Exploring Influencer Marketing: Ecosystems, Partnerships, and Selection  1. The Influencer Ecosystem and What it Means to be an Influencer  2. Leveraging Brand-Influencer Partnerships: Strategies and Typologies for an Effective Marketing Collaboration  3. Swipe Right: Ensuring Congruence in Selection and Recruitment of Influencers  4. Brand and Influencer Partnerships: Not Just for One Campaign  Part 2: Global Perspective on Influencer Marketing  5. Influencer Marketing in Egypt: An Exploration into Generational Perspectives  6. Hidden Influences in Chinese Streaming Platforms Under an Algorithmic Gaze: How Influencers Use Straightbaiting and Queer Representation  7. The Engaging Tripods of Influencer Marketing, Influencers and Affiliate Marketing: Establishing Current Nexus between Nigeria and South Africa Contexts  8. Trendsetters Unveiled: Exploring the Dynamics of Influencer Marketing in Pakistan and India  Part 3: The Dark Side of Influencer Marketing  9. Sharenting or Oversharing: Parents, Children and Family Influencers  10. Influencers at Risk: Cancel Culture  11. The De-influencing Movement: Will it Harm or Help Influencer Marketing?  12. Artificial Intelligence: Helping or Harming the Creative Spirit  13. Influence Under Siege: Safeguarding Influencers from Cyber Threats  Part 4: Ethical and Future Aspects of 'Influencer Marketing'  14. Villains, Victims, or Champions? Unmasking the Polarising Narratives Surrounding Influencers and Ethics  15. Virtual Influencers: The New Faces of Fame in the Metaverse and Beyond  16. Influencer Marketing: Lessons Learned in the Second Wave and Moving Forward