Özet:

Marketing activities that used to be carried out in traditional channels have started to shift to digital platforms and these developments have contributed to the development of the field of activity called influencer marketing, which is translated into Turkish as "influence marketing" or "influencer marketing". In this study, the concept of "influencer marketing" is used as its Turkish equivalent. The main purpose of this study is to examine how the subject of influencer marketing, which has an important place in public relations activities especially for marketing purposes, is handled in graduate studies in Turkey. In this context, 38 theses on influencer marketing registered in YÖK Thesis Center in Turkey were analyzed using bibliometric analysis method. Nvivo program was used for qualitative analysis in the study. When the postgraduate studies conducted in Turkey were analyzed, it was seen that the majority of the theses (20 out of 38 studies in total), that is, approximately 52%, aimed to measure the effect of influencer marketing on consumers' purchasing behavior. Looking at the distribution of theses according to their types, it was seen that 4 theses were written as doctoral theses and 34 theses were written as master's theses. Looking at the years in which the theses were submitted, it was seen that they were written in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. It was seen that 50% of the postgraduate theses were written in state and 50% in foundation universities. It was observed that 45% of the postgraduate theses were mostly written within the Department of Business Administration. It was seen that 60% of the theses were written using quantitative method, 32% qualitative method and 8% mixed method. Similarly, in the international literature, it has been observed that the effect of influencer marketing on purchase has been investigated in studies on the subject. When these results are evaluated together, it is seen that the theses in Turkey are in parallel with the international literature in terms of the effect of influencer marketing on purchasing in academic studies on influencer marketing. It was observed that the theoretical foundations of postgraduate studies were discussed in the context of "digital marketing", "Word of Mouth" (WOM) (Word of Mouth marketing). When the main findings of the thesis studies are examined, it is seen that the use of influence marketing technique positively affects the purchasing behavior of consumers and that influence marketing is a more effective technique than traditional marketing. It has been observed that the most basic deficiency seen in postgraduate studies is that none of the studies have addressed the negative dimensions of influence marketing, such as the ethical dimension or the negative impact on the consumer. In this context, it has been seen that the most fundamental deficiency in graduate studies is the lack of a critical perspective and the handling of the subject only on the basis of dominant approaches and the industry and its interests. The fact that our study fills the gap in the literature by addressing the subject of influencer marketing with a bibliometric perspective in postgraduate theses points to the importance of the study. As a limitation of our study, it can be seen as a limitation that only studies on influencer marketing in postgraduate theses are analyzed and academic articles on this subject are not analyzed.