Özet:

The purpose of this study is to reveal how those who are considered to be leaders of opinion in society influence the buying behaviour of consumers through word-of-mouth marketing. For this purpose, the concepts of opinion leader and word-of-mouth marketing are defined, and the role of opinion leaders in the multi-step communication model is addressed. Within the scope of the study, a questionnaire was administered to some smart phone users relevant to the issue. The questionnaire form was administered to 388 consumers. The frequency and percentage distributions of the obtained data were calculated, the t-test and Variance (ANOVA) Analysis were utilised for comparative analyses, and a correlation analysis was carried out to determine the relationship between word-of-mouth marketing and opinion leaders. The findings obtained indicate that opinion leaders have a significant influence on the buying process of consumers and that there was a meaningful relationship between mouth-to-mouth marketing and opinion leader influence.

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