from a more academic point of view, barak libai, eitan muller and renana peres constructed a research in the subject which is among the first to shed light on the actual value created by word of mouth programs and explore issues such as how targeting opinion leaders creates more value than targeting random customers. in seeding programs, word-of-mouth can gain customers who would not otherwise have bought the product, this is called expansion. however, word-of-mouth can also accelerate the purchase process of customers who would have purchased anyway, the faster the adoption, the greater the profits. these processes of expansion and acceleration integrate to create social value in a word-of-mouth seeding program for a new product. furthermore, when deciding upon an optimal seeding program, the researchers conclude that “influencer seeding programs” yield higher customer equity than “random seeding programs”. of course, the decision about which program type to adopt depends on how much the company is willing to invest in discovering their influencers.