How to choose the right influencer for a marketing strategy

Abstract

This paper attempts to build a new model for deciding which social media influencers (SMIs) are suitable for the marketing strategies of businesses. How to choose social media influencers is an unanswered question in the literature, and this study attempts to fill this gap. The study employs a Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method, the fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory model (DEMATEL), to determine the relevance of criteria constructed. It observed SMIs on Instagram and reviewed insights from the literature. Five criteria are proposed for selecting the correct influencers: 1) positioning; 2) target; 3) budget; 4) past campaigns; and 5) the number of followers. Businesses were asked to evaluate these criteria according to their experience with using SMIs. The results suggest that the most important criterion is ‘target’, whereas ‘past campaigns’ is the least influential.