SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS AND ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH: THE COMMUNICATION IMPACT ON RESTAURANT PATRONIZING

Innovative forms of digital communications using blogging, vlogging, etc. have led to wider recognition and acceptance of social media influencer marketing by business entities. The purpose of this study is to explore the characteristics of electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) generated by food blogging, that has an impact on consumers when they seek out the reviews by social media influencers to make dining decisions. More precisely, the study identifies four independent variables; The expertise of Source (EX); Popularity of Source (PO); Convenience of Information (CO) and Familiarityof Source (FA); and examines its impact on consumers’ Intention to Purchase (IN). The study starts off with a discussion of the coming of digital marketing communication, allowing traditional word of mouth marketing to evolve into the electronic word of mouth. The study followed quantitative methodology and the data was gathered using self-administered questionnaires. 353 usable responses were received, and the data were statistically analyzed using SPSS. The results show that the consumers’ the intention was strongly impacted by the familiarity of source and convenience of information, while the correlation is low for the expertise of source and popularity of source. The findings fill in the lack of studies in this area, specific to the food and beverage industry in the geographical context, and provide marketers a clearer picture of what is being valued by the consumers when they seek out opinions by the social media influencers. This in turn helps their decision-making when choosing food bloggers as part of their social media marketing strategy.