Influencer Marketing on Instagram

Abstract

Whether it is for the brand or the consumers, marketers are always looking into the future to anticipate the upcoming trends in the market. With the rise of Web 2.0, more and more activities shift from offline to online; it has become critical for brands to differentiate themselves from competitors. Social media has fundamentally changed the balance of power between consumers and brands. Influencer marketing in its current digital form took hold in the early 2000s alongside the blogosphere. Over the years, the internet has changed the traditional ways of conducting business and establishing customer relationships. One of the ways companies are using in social media marketing is to pay for influencers to promote their products or services on their social media platform, in our research, the Instagram app. The pressure of being able to measure the success accurately comes to attention as companies invest more money in in-fluencer marketing. In the context of brand messaging and brand awareness, researchers investigate the influencers' credibility and authenticity. At the same time, the connection between popularity and influential power of the influencers has also been an interest for researchers. This research studied the impact of the ratio number of followers to the number of followers (F/f-ratio), or the popularity threshold of an Instagram influencer, on the perceived influencer credibility and the attitude toward user-generated content (UGC), attitude toward the brand, viral intentions and purchase intention of the consumer. Moreover, the researcher tested if different product categories with varying levels of purchase decision involvement had a moderating effect on the relationship between the F/f-ratio and influencer credibility. This approach would provide a better insight into the impact of the popularity threshold of Insta-gram influencers on consumer behavior. These insights will add knowledge to the literature of influencer marketing, and more specifically to Instagram influencer campaigns.