The influence of opinion leaders and the type of posted information on the following behavior of Weibo users

Opinion leaders' comments frequently shape public opinion, even dictate users' choices and behaviors, and effect the depth and scope of social event communication. Understanding how to effectively guide opinion leaders in communicating public opinion is crucial for information control. This paper divides Weibo opinion leaders into four groups according to their authority based on trait professionalism and topic professionalism, including trait professional topic professional, trait professional topic nonprofessional, trait nonprofessional topic professional, and trait nonprofessional topic nonprofessional. Subjective information based on personal experience and objective information based on facts make up the two types of information that opinion leaders shared. The first phrase involved gathering 319 tweets on Weibo from various opinion leaders on seven trending topics and analyzing users' following behavior (retweeting, commenting, and liking). Findings showed that opinion leaders with professional traits who offered fact-based, objective information on their professional topics, and opinion leaders with nonprofessional traits who posted subjective information based on personal experience, would attract the most following behavior. We discovered that users' following behaviors were influenced by both the authority of opinion leaders and the type of information they shared. The results can offer advice and new perspectives on how to use opinion leaders on Weibo for information guide and be further applied to effective policy implementations for program management.