How Consumers Consume Social Media Influence
通过民族志研究千禧一代和Z世代美妆消费者，发现六种消费影响力的具体行为，并挑战了消费者认为网红与自己相似的假设，为营销者提供了网红营销飞镖盘工具。
A growing body of research has examined the efficacy of influencer marketing and how social media influencers (SMIs) produce influence through strategically manufacturing authenticity and relatability. Less clear, however, is what benefits consumers derive from influencers and how they incorporate influencer content into their own identity projects. In other words, advertisers and influencers do not know how consumers actually “consume” influence. The current research addresses this gap through developing a novel perspective on influencer marketing that highlights how consumers actively incorporate influencer content into their own practice performances. Based on a market ethnography of millennial and gen Z beauty consumers, this research uncovers six distinct actions through which consumers consume influence. Findings also challenge and update another core assumption of influencer marketing: that consumers generally perceive influencers to be similar to them. Altogether, this research introduces the Influencer Marketing Dartboard as a conceptual and managerial tool to better leverage influencers for marketing. Three contributions are offered that advance the influencer marketing and practice theory literatures: a deeper understanding of how companies can effectively utilize SMIs, a clearer differentiation between SMIs and celebrity endorsers, and insights into how mediated practices facilitate consumers’ identity projects.