As blogs continue to grow in importance, they have quickly become one of the largest and most established forms of non-traditional media (Onishi and Manchanda, 2012; Stephen and Galak, 2012). Due to this popularity, brands are striving to connect to consumers through the blogosphere. One of the most popular approaches is incentivization, whereby the brand incentivizes the blogger to write a review of a given product (Uribe, Buzeta and Velásquez, 2016; Hwang and Jeong, 2016). However, incentivization may pose significant risks for bloggers, who are perceived to be independent from corporate interests and a credible source of information. We employed three experimental studies to show that intrinsic, as compared to extrinsic, incentivization acceptance motives mitigate the negative effect of positive incentivized reviews on perceived independence, credibility and ultimately, blog loyalty. In our final experiment, we find that that followers who are attached to a blog are more likely to continue to browse, revisit and recommend the blog, regardless of incentivization acceptance motives.

Purpose - The aim of this study is to analyze fashion bloggers, in order to discover their characteristics and their influence. Thanks to the Internet, they are able to have a global presence, to reach a massive market and they have become a new communication channel for brands. Fashion bloggers are a new phenomenon with a higher perspective to represent the new influentials. Design/methodology/approach – First an online questionnaire was designed focused on the three key attributes of an influential, a sample of 253 bloggers was obtained. Secondly, we studied 40 most important Spanish blogs, quantitative study was conducted by looking at one of the most important parameters for the influence that is interaction in the blog and social networks. Findings – Findings show de profile of influential fashion blogger: personal characteristics, knowledge criteria and social factors. It also shows that they are very little blogs that really can have a great influence or at least a daily influence. Research limitation/implication - Future studies may deepen the impact of fashion bloggers at the time of purchase quantifying a company's sales through communication campaigns supported in fashion blogs Practical implications – The study help fashion companies to indentify influential fashion blogger in order to do successful strategies and communication campaigns in fashion companies. Originality/value – The study not only confirms previous findings regarding bloggers and the importance for prescription, but it also expands the description of this key actors and how to find them.

Fashion bloggers and their personal brands have attracted significant attention in recent years, as prior research has indicated their importance in shaping the fashion industry. As fashion is cultural-specific social construct, to understand how bloggers’ personal brands are developed, it is critical to examine the practices of bloggers from two different cultures, namely, Taiwanese and American. The two cultures are chosen because fashionable persons in the U.S. are well established and can be considered as qualified brands that accumulate a significant amount of followers and fame. However, this institutional process is still under development in Taiwan where routine practices, norms and rules, and the structural features that serve to guide and constrain the behaviours of individuals have yet been established. To focus on the practices within the institution, the framework of practice theory is applied to analyze how individual bloggers negotiate their ways to become branded persons. Focusing on the best practices in the field, 20 most popular fashion blogs from the U.S. and Taiwan were selected in the sample. The verbal and visual texts visible in these blogs are analyzed. The results suggest that moving from amateur bloggers who take interests in fashion to establishing a well-connected fashionable persona in the fashion industry is a long process of celebrities in the making. The contrasts between the two countries indicate that cultural elements are important factors to consider in understanding the formation of persona-fied brands. It appears that the usual assumption of distinction between the public persona and the private persona does not always imply in persona-fied brands. When the external institutions have yet been established, the practices of such a distinction may prove to be challenging. While all the bloggers included in the sample are still unified persons that encompass both the creation and the execution of the personal brands. U.S. bloggers are slowly moving toward professional management of the brands where they see themselves as persona-fied brands and where other persons may execute the brandable qualities on their behalf. On the other hand, Taiwanese bloggers rarely make such a distinction. In fact, most of the bloggers have yet identified the two facets in their personas. They do not see themselves as micro-celebrities that stand in a higher level of the hierarchy than their fans. They regard themselves as part of a fashionable community where others appreciate their taste. This is evident by the practices of how they organize their communities and how they interact with their fan bases.