專家或明星：以產品知識及社會連結程度區分意見領袖類型

Abstract

人際間的口耳相傳是消費者重視的資訊來源之一，廠商透過正面的口碑效果傳遞產品訊息，是最具有效率的行銷策略。而意見領袖在人際間資訊的傳播占有關鍵的地位，根據傳統傳播學的二級傳播理論，資訊是先由大眾媒體流向意見領袖，再經由意見領袖傳遞給其他人，因此行銷人員如何找到並影響意見領袖，便成了重要的課題。 過去學者對於意見領袖的衡量和特質已多所著墨，不過對於意見領袖類型的區分則討論不多。根據過去文獻，產品知識和社會連結是一般認為意見領袖普遍具有的兩種特質，而在不同產品知識水準和社會連結程度下，不同類型的意見領袖具備何種特質，又是如何影響他人，是本研究想要探討的主題。本研究以旅遊產品為例，利用聯合分析法衡量個人偏好結構和群體偏好結構的差距，做為意見領袖程度的指標。探討主觀知識、經驗知識與社會網絡分析中的內向程度中心性對意見領袖程度的影響。並利用產品知識和社會連結兩個構面將意見領袖區分為「權力型意見領袖」、「社會型意見領袖」、「專家型意見領袖」與「無為型意見領袖」，並探討不同類型意見領袖在內外控傾向、自我監控程度和認知需求程度的差異。 實證結果發現，主觀知識、經驗知識和內向程度中心性對意見領袖程度有正向影響。而產品知識與社會連結皆高的權力型意見領袖，具備高自我監控及高認知需求的特性；社會連結高但產品知識低的社會型意見領袖，明顯具備高自我監控的特質；至於產品知識和社會連結皆低的無為型意見領袖，則具備內控及高自我監控的特色。行銷人員可以利用本研究的結果，調整通路、廣告和促銷策略，進一步接觸並影響各種類型的意見領袖，使意見領袖在進而影響更多的消費大眾，使行銷策略達到事半功倍之效。

The interpersonal communication is one important source of product information which consumer respect for, and it is the most efficient marketing strategy to deliver product information through positive Word-of-Mouth. Opinion leaders play a key role in interpersonal communication. According to two-step flow of communication theory, the information flows from mass media to opinion leaders at first, and then it flows to someone else via opinion leaders. Therefore how to find out opinion leaders and how to influence them is an important issue to marketers. Researchers have made a lot of discussion about the measurements and characteristics of opinion leaders, but they didn’t pay much attention on how to discriminate opinion leaders. According to past studies, “product class knowledge” and “social ties” are two major characteristics those opinion leaders generally posses. The main goal of my thesis is to discuss that under different levels of product class knowledge or social tie, what kind of personality do opinion leaders have, and how they influence others. This thesis use travel products for example, and utilizes conjoint analysis to measure the distance of individual and group’s preference structure as an index of opinion leadership. Then we discuss the relationship between subjective knowledge, experiential knowledge, and in-degree centrality from social network analysis with degree of opinion leadership. This thesis also separates opinion leaders into “Powerful opinion leaders,” “Social opinion leaders,” “Expert opinion leaders,” and “Inactivate opinion leaders” by product class knowledge and social tie. Finally the main idea is on the difference of each type of opinion leaders in locus of control, self-monitoring and need for cognition. According to experimental result, subjective knowledge, experiential knowledge, and in-degree centrality have positive effect to the degree of opinion leadership. Powerful opinion leaders, with high degree of product class knowledge and social tie, are highly self-monitoring and eager for others’ cognition. Social opinion leaders, with high degree of social tie but low degree of knowledge, are also highly self-monitoring. Inactivate opinion leaders, with low degree of knowledge and social tie, are good at internal control and highly self-monitoring. Marketers can use these results to adjust the channel, advertising and promotion strategy, also they can utilize these different characteristics to contact with and influence on each type of opinion leaders, and then let them to influence on more consumers. Therefore, the marketing strategy can be practiced more efficient.