Research and applied evidence suggest that online opinion leaders are important promoters of products and services. However, managers and firms need to choose which opinion leaders to work with and better understand how to collaborate with those leaders to promote different types of products and services. Online opinion leaders should be used to promote the experiential (hedonic) and functional (utilitarian) value of products and services over different online forums. In this article, we describe how online opinion leaders can serve appeal leadership functions, serve knowledge leadership functions, and take multiple roles (e.g., experts, celebrities, micro-celebrities, micro-influencers, early adopters, market mavens, enthusiasts). We then present a five-stage planning process designed to guide partnerships with online opinion leaders. Specific steps in the process include: planning (setting the objectives of the campaign and the role of online opinion leaders), recognition (identifying influential and relevant online opinion leaders), alignment (matching online opinion leaders and online forums with the products or services promoted), motivation (rewarding online opinion leaders in a way that aligns with their social role), and coordination (negotiating, monitoring, and supporting the influence of the online opinion leaders).

Brand post popularity positively relates to consumers' purchase intentions, actual sales, and stock prices. Research suggests that social media posts should be vivid, practical, interesting, personalized, and interactive. However, cross-cultural research also suggests that practices might not be equally effective across different regional markets. While vividness and practicality could be consistently important across cultures, characteristics of interest, personalization, and interactivity might need to be adapted to the cultural conditions of specific target markets. We consider how individualism/collectivism, long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and high-context/low-context cultures could influence brand post effectiveness. We provide suggestions for how to manage social media brand post popularity from a cross-cultural perspective to inform both domestic and global social media marketing campaigns. Suggested practices include: (1) making brand posts engaging; (2) targeting the 'I' in individualistic cultures and the 'we' in collectivist cultures; (3) focusing on consumers' identity in less long-term oriented cultures and on functional information in more long-term oriented cultures; (4) ensuring that posts help reduce uncertainty; (5) planning for one-way communication in higher power distance countries and two-way communication in lower power distance countries; and (6) making messages less direct in higher context cultures and more direct in lower context cultures.