文档介绍：womma
Wordof Mouth MarketingAssociation
MEASURING
WORDOF
MOUTH
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Word of Mouth Marketing Association
Challengingthe Influentials
Hypothesis
DuncanJ. Watts, Columbia University
Abstract
Whetherthey are called "opinion leaders" (Katz and
Lazarsfeld1955; Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet
'1968;
1968),"influentials" (Merton Weimann1994;
Kellerand Berry 2003), "influencers" (Ran d 2004),"e-
fluentials" (Burson-Marsteller 20Oi), "hubs" (Rosen
2000),"mavens" (Gladwell 2O0O) , or bysome other
name,the idea that a smallnumber of "special"
individualshave an important effect on the opinions,
beliefs,and consumption habits of a largenumber
of "ordinary"individuals has e conventional
wisdomin the word-of-mouth munity.
Inthis paper I challengethis idea, which I labelthe
"influentialshypothesis" both in terms of the available
empiricalevidence, and also in terms of itstheoretical
underpinnings,and argue that it hasnever been
adequatelydemonstrated, oreven precisely specified.
I alsodiscuss how biases inherent to
MeasuringWord of Mouth,Volume 3
MeasuringWord of Mouth
anecdotalevidence have enabled the hypothesisto remainpopular in spiteof its ings, and ar-
guethat influentialsidentified retr