The Influence of Opinion Leaders towards Consumer Information Adoption in the Virtual Communities of Consumption

Abstract

With the appearance and popularity of virtual communities of consumption, potential consumers begin to search for and share information with others in such kind of platforms and to be affected by the electronic word of mouth of certain products or services. Meanwhile, opinion leaders begin to exert influence on these individuals by helping them to filter, categorize and figure out the most valuable pieces of information. Consequently, how to utilize opinion leaders to affect consumer behavior by term of electronic word of mouth becomes one of the hottest topics in the relevant fields. This article utilizes the Information Adoption Model to study how opinion leaders exert influence on consumer information adoption process so as to provide implications about how to utilize opinion leaders in the virtual communities of consumption.