Trends in Influencer Marketing: A Review and Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Influencer marketing has steadily grown in the past decade as a strategy utilized by digital marketers for spreading brand messages with the help of social media influencers (SMIs). The main objective of this study is to review the academic literature related to influencer marketing between 2011 and 2019 with the help of both bibliometric analysis and content analysis. This review uses the Bibliometrix R-tool and the BiblioShiny app for data analysis and scientific mapping. This review presents a background of how influencer marketing research has evolved and examines the performance analysis based on sources, authors, documents, countries, and keywords. In addition, different knowledge structures were examined and interpreted to determine the most influential aspects of the literature. The trends observed in this research area from the content analysis and bibliometric analysis in terms of the significant methods, theories, emergent topics, thematic evolution, models, variables, industry focus, platforms used, leading research streams, data sources, and context of studies are the focus of the Discussion section. Finally, based on the findings of this analysis, future research directions are recommended to offer the potential to advance research on influencer marketing and SMIs.