Examination of Evaluation Indices for Micro-Influencers Considering Community Structure and Post Contents

Abstract

Social networking services (SNS) have become indispensable communication tools. Consequently, influencer marketing, which leverages users with a significant influence on SNS, has garnered significant attention. Among these influencers, micro-influencers, who have substantial influence within specific domains, are particularly interesting to both academia and industry. This study proposes evaluation indices that can effectively select micro-influencers for product promotion using follower data and past posts from SNS accounts. Specifically, we propose four evaluation indices for micro-influencers: Virality, Commonality, Expertise and Credibility (VC-EC indices). VC indices are based on network features, whereas EC indices are based on language features. In this study, we present the concepts and specific calculation methods for the proposed indices. In addition, we demonstrate how to discover micro-influencers using the proposed methods with practical examples from accounts operated by actual stores.

Keywords: Social Networking Service, Influencer Marketing, Micro-influencers, Social Network Analysis

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005581