Classifying bloggers based on content creation approaches: implications for influencers marketing strategies

Today bloggers represent an established type of influencers and undiscussed marketing tool for promotional purposes. However, due to the multitude of bloggers acting as influencers that exist today, marketers might experience difficulties in identifying the most suitable bloggers. The aim of the paper is to build an empirically-based multidimensional framework which classifies consumer bloggers based on their content creation approaches. In particular, taking a social-practice theory perspective, content creation is considered as a routinised behaviour influenced by what the blogger considers as meaningful within a particular socio-cultural context. The analysis is based on a netnographic analysis of Australian music bloggers. The paper argues that a blogger’s content creation approach predominantly depends on the subjective importance that the blogger gives to one of following dimensions: personal influences, audience influences, community influences, commercial influences. According to the identified content creation approaches, the paper develops a bloggers’ classification multidimensional framework relevant for marketing practitioners wanting to identify bloggers for their promotional strategies.