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What is an Opinion Leader? Meaning.

An Opinion Leader (OL) is an individual capable to repeatedly persuade and influence other people's behaviors according to her/his own preferences.

An Opinion Leader, also known as Influential, is someone who has the power to informally manipulate attitudes and behaviors of other individuals. The concept has been researched by Robert Merton in 1949 and lately developed by Katz and Lazarsfeld.

Opinion leadership is achieved and sustained through a leader’s technical competence, social skills and compliance with values and norms of his current social system. It is a type of informal leadership where the persuasion is indirect and frequent in time. Usually the relationship between an OL and his followers is based on their admiration and willingness to look like the leader.

Often in the followers’ perspective, OLs are of a higher social status, more exposed to international activities and relationships, and more concerned with any forms of external communication. These characteristics are not necessarily true, they could be only the followers’ perception.

Due to their exposure and their influencing abilities, OLs play a fundamental role in society when it comes to spread new ideas, values and beliefs. See also: Persuasion Theory and Persuation Techniques. In addition, they are often exploited to launch new trends and to position products in prospects mind. According to Bass’s Model of Innovation Diffusion OLs are among the first to adopt new hi-tech products. See also: Innovation Adoption Curve.

Types of Opinion Leadership

Marketing and communication literature distinguishes two types of opinion leadership:

Monomorphic opinion leadership. This applies when a leader’s influence is limited to one specific topic. This is a typical leadership style of modern industrial societies characterized by specialization of roles and division of labor. Nowadays, this is the most common style of opinion leadership in developed countries.
Polymorphic opinion leadership. This applies when a leader’s influence covers different topics. This is a more conventional leadership style, nowadays obsolescent, typical of traditional societies. In small towns not dominated by industrial logics and media culture, some elder and highly respected people might give advices on a variety of topics manipulating thus behaviors of surrounding people.

Targeting Opinion Leaders

Recent marketing thinking sees OLs as the most powerful tools for advertising. In a world where Word-of-Mouth is challenging media effectiveness, more and more companies are targeting OLs in their marketing campaigns. In a research from Ed Keller and Jon Berry (“The Influentials”, The Free Press, 2003) there is evidence of a shifted preference of today’s consumers towards getting advices and buying inspirations from the neighbor, the friend of the friend, and any individual retained competent in certain fields.

Limitations of Opinion Leaders. Disadvantages

One limitation in the use of opinion leadership for marketing purposes is the difficulty to identify them at local level and target them according to their influence range. According to Keller and Berry’s research, in the USA one individual out of ten is a good candidate for an opinion leadership position. The characteristics of OLs are not homogeneous as far as social and economical backgrounds are concerned: they might be of any age, social status and adopting any lifestyle as long as they are regarded as leaders in their group or social context.
Another issue is that even if human behavior tends to cluster among friends and in time, the reasons behind this effect are not clear. Perhaps it is due to one person influencing another, perhaps it is simply based on other phenomena, such as the sociological phenomenon called 'homophily" - people's propensity to associate with others who are like them. According to Sinan Aral (What would Ashton do, and does it matter?, HBR May 2013), to accurately estimate social influence by an OL, for example to determine the effect of some marketing campaign, one needs to distinguish behavioral tendencies from behavioral changes to find the effect of someone's behavior over and above other people's prior probability of purchasing.

Opinion Leaders Special Interest Group

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Forum about Opinion Leaders

Discussions about Opinion Leaders.

	Finding Opinion Leaders in a Market How can we identify the (key) opinion leaders in a particular (healthcare) market? What kind of tools exist to locate op (...)

	The Value of an Opinion of Someone Everyone with access to the Internet opines. Opinions have value only to its owner and those that choose to share the sa (...)

	Opinion Leader Personalities I think different personalities can be identified for different leadership aspects. The outcome of their contribution wi (...)

	Transformational Opinion Leaders Opinion leaders who are truly influencial at all levels are also transformational and relate to those above and below th (...)

	Polymorphic Leadership is Everywhere This page is really interesting. But I do not agree with the statement, that polymorphic leadership is only present in t (...)

Best Practices about Opinion Leaders

Here you find the most valuable discussions from the past.

🔥	NEW From Mass to Influencer Marketing According to some views, today’s marketing is losing its effectiveness and is even considered “broken” (Brown and Hayes, (...)

Expert Tips about Opinion Leaders

Here you will find advices by experts.

	Social Persuasion: Determining the Potential of Social Influencers Social Media Marketing, Social Influence, Opinion Leadership (...)

	The Importance of Customer Differences in Markets with Network Effects: the Limits of Scale Network Effect, Network Strategy, First Mover Advantage, Second-mover Strategy, Customer Intimacy, Market Segmentation (...)

Information Sources about Opinion Leaders

Here you will find powerpoints, videos, news, etc.

	Opinion Leadership, Worth-Of-Mouth and Buzz Marketing Opinion Leadership, Buzz Marketing, Worth-Of-Mouth Communication, Cool Hunting (...)

	Group Influences and Opinion Leadership Groupthink, Group Dynamics, Word of Mouth Marketing, Sales, Opinion Leadership, Convincing People, Persuation (...)

	The Internet / Social Media Revolution Social Media, Internet Strategy, Internet Impact, Digital Revolution (...)

Compare with: Two Steps Flow Model | 10 Commandments for Media Consumers | Online Corporate Reputation | Personal Power

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