Followers' engagement with instagram influencers: The role of influencers’ content and engagement strategy

Influencer marketing has emerged as an effective approach for brands to connect with customers through social media influencers. Although influencer marketing has attracted increased interest from marketing researchers in recent years, relatively little is known about influencers' content and engagement strategy and its links to followers' engagement behavior. The present study addresses this gap by examining how measures of influencers' content and engagement strategy (i.e., follower count, followee count, content volume, and domains of interest) are associated with followers' engagement behavior on Instagram both independently and interactively. The study leverages a unique dataset of Instagram influencers compiled by scraping an online influencer database to test its hypotheses. The findings indicate that follower count and content volume are negatively associated with follower engagement, while followee count is positively associated with follower engagement. However, these main effects are modified by influencers' domains of interest. The findings contribute to the literature by illuminating how elements of influencers' content and engagement strategy contribute to followers’ engagement behavior on Instagram.     

Emoji rhetoric: a social media influencer perspective

ABSTRACT

Social media require a marketing rhetoric that embraces emerging language use and shifting communication norms. Emojis have become quintessential elements of social media communication; yet, their role in supporting persuasion attempts has not been systematically analysed. Drawing on general rhetoric literature, this paper dissects, portrays and labels social media influencers’ persuasive attempts to initiate engagement through emojis. The focus on influencers is justified because of their dual roles as marketers and active social media users. 600 Weibo posts by the top 200 Weibo influencers were collected to develop a taxonomy of emoji-based verbal moves aimed at encouraging responses in followers. The resulting taxonomy demonstrates that emoji use by social media influencers is complex and strategic and serves multiple persuasive and communicative purposes.     

Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude

ABSTRACT

Findings of two experimental studies show that Instagram influencers with high numbers of followers are found more likeable, partly because they are considered more popular. Important, only in limited cases, perceptions of popularity induced by the influencer's number of followers increase the influencer's perceived opinion leadership. However, if the influencer follows very few accounts him-/herself, this can negatively impact popular influencers’ likeability. Also, cooperating with influencers with high numbers of followers might not be the best marketing choice for promoting divergent products, as this decreases the brand's perceived uniqueness and consequently brand attitudes.     

How,why, and when disclosure type matters for influencer marketing

Consumers’ changing media consumption behaviors and skepticism toward traditional forms of advertising have prompted the growth of influencer marketing. Even as regulatory authorities call on brands and influencers to disclose the posts as advertising, no consistent guidelines exist. The distinct effects of self-generated versus platform-initiated disclosures also remain unclear, nor has research addressed the interplay of key influencer characteristics and marketing disclosures. This article reports on findings from the first academic field study of influencer marketing disclosures, as well as three experimental studies, which indicate that disclosure is a double-edged sword. When provided through a platform-initiated branded content tool, disclosure consistently exerts the strongest effect on perceptions of advertising, negatively relating to influencer trustworthiness and consumer engagement. The effects of disclosure type also depend on the number of followers and number of previously endorsed products (i.e., influencer characteristics). Yet, consumers also express appreciation for transparency when influencers disclose posts as advertising, which increases perceived trustworthiness of the influencer and engagement with the post. The implications of these findings should inform choices by public policy makers, brand managers, and influencers.     

When less is more: the impact of macro and micro social media influencers’ disclosure

ABSTRACT

There are growing discussions of social media influencers and their effectiveness in endorsing products. Further, recent policy regulations are requiring social media influencers to disclose sponsored content when using a form of native advertising. This research examined the effect of macro-influencers (high likes) and micro-influencers (low likes) and their disclosure of native advertising sponsorship on consumer evaluations of products. Results from a 2 × 2 experiment first show that consumers exposed to the micro-influencer condition report higher levels of product knowledge, and consumers exposed to the disclosure condition reported the products endorsed by social media influencers to be more attractive. The results also show that when exposed to micro-influencers who disclose, consumers have higher levels of purchase intentions than when exposed to macro-influencers who do not disclose, as well as higher purchase intentions than for posts where sponsorship is not disclosed by influencers. The important findings of this research for theory, practice and policy are discussed.     

What You Feel,Is What You Like Influence of Message Appeals on Customer Engagement on Instagram

Visual-based social media are growing exponentially and have become an integrated part of the customer engagement strategy of many brands. Prior work points to the textual message content as a driver of customer engagement behavior. So far, little is known about the impact of visual message content, specifically visual emotional and informative appeals. We extract emotional and informative appeals from Instagram posts using machine learning models and use a Negative Binomial model to explain customer engagement. We test our model on 46.9 K Instagram posts from 59 brands in six sectors. Our results show that visual emotional and informative appeals encoded in brand-generated content influence customer engagement in terms of likes and comments. Specifically, we demonstrate that positive high and negative low arousal images drive customer engagement. Informative appeals do not drive customer engagement with the exception of informative brand-related appeals. These findings help brand managers in developing an effective customer engagement strategy on visual social media.     

Opinion leadership vs. para-social relationship: Key factors in influencer marketing

The literature on influencer marketing has identified opinion leadership of influencers and parasocial relationship with influencers as two focal constructs affecting followers' purchase intention; yet they are only studied in isolation. This research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effects of the two key constructs by combining and comparing them in a model with the moderators of post characteristics, namely post type and correspondent inference. Empirical results from 409 online followers of two Instagram accounts confirm the complementary effects of opinion leadership and parasocial relationship in influencer marketing and reveal the more prominent role of parasocial relationship over opinion leadership in affecting followers’ purchase intention. These effects are moderated by post characteristics. Storytelling posts intensify both effects. Correspondent inference enhances the effect of parasocial relationship, but not that of opinion leadership. These findings point to the importance of the social aspect of influencer marketing and inform the influencer marketing research and practice on “who says what” for improving communication effectiveness.     

“I'll buy what she's #wearing”: The roles of envy toward and parasocial interaction with influencers in Instagram celebrity-based brand endorsement and social commerce

Companies increasingly leverage Instagram as a channel for brand management, consumer services, and social commerce. This study addresses the dynamics of interaction among brand-related user-generated contents (UGC) posted on Instagram, social media-based brand communication with Instagram celebrities (parasocial interaction [PSI] and envy), and consumers' characteristics (social comparison tendency, compulsive buying tendency, and materialistic envy). Three between-subjects experiments (Experiment 1: N = 121; Experiment 2: N = 106; Experiment 3: N = 377) were conducted to test the effects of Instagram influencers and their branded-UGC on consumer behavior outcomes. Experiment 1 employed a 3 (branded content type [Instagram influencer's photo type]: selfies vs. photos taken by others vs. group photos) x 2 (gender: female vs. male) factorial design. Experiment 2 employed a 2 (content generator type: Instagram celebrity vs. mainstream celebrity) x 2 (gender: female vs. male) factorial design. Experiment 3 deployed a 2 (branded content type: photos listing products vs. photos showing models) x 2 (content generator type: commercial brand [corporate] vs. Instagram celebrity [human]) factorial design. Experiment 1 indicates Instagram influencers' photo types and gender moderate the effects of envy toward and PSI with them on consumers' intention to buy the products Instagram influencers are wearing. Experiment 2 shows content generator types and gender moderate the effects of envy and PSI on source trustworthiness perception. Experiment 3 demonstrates branded content types and content generator types moderate the effects of consumers' physical appearance social comparison tendency, compulsive buying tendency, and materialistic envy on brand trust. This study makes theoretical contributions to the literature on retailing and consumer services as well as provides managerial implications for Instafamous-based influencer marketing and social commerce in Web 2.0 environments.     

Environmental factors to maximize social media engagement: A comprehensive framework

Social media is a crucial tool for companies to reach their customers as additional touch point and build brand awareness, but effectively using these platforms to engage with customers remains an area of research. Branded social media posts are aimed to deepen the customer-brand-relationship in form of social media engagement. In this study, we aim to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence social media engagement by examining the role of environmental factors, including the type of media and content of brand posts, brand involvement of the company, social media channel used, and cross-channel management strategies. We utilize social cognitive theory as our framework and identify three social media environments that must be considered to create social media engagement: (1) the imposed, (2) the selected, and (3) the created environment. We gather more than 7000 brand posts of twenty global brands using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram giving insights on the driver of social media engagement. By examining these factors, we aim to provide a framework for understanding the drivers of social media engagement and how companies can effectively use social media to engage with their customers.     

Effective influencer marketing: A social identity perspective

Social networking in the form of online communities and social groups is a characteristic of social media communication that has profound implications on the identity dynamics and behavior of social media users. Drawing from social identity theory, this research brings the social identity construct (i.e., followers' perception of the self in relation to the influencer community) to the literature on influencer marketing and examines the effect of followers' social identity, along with their interest fit and the influencer's opinion leadership, on their purchase intention. This research also examines the moderating role of storytelling, a pervasive approach of social media influencers, in enhancing the social identity–purchase intention link. Empirical results from 467 Instagram users show that all three factors positively impact followers' intention, but social identity has a more salient effect than the others. Storytelling posts can enhance these effects. Studying influencer marketing through the social identity angle contributes to better understanding of influencer marketing effectiveness.     

Brand engagement in self-concept and consumer engagement in social media: The role of the source

This three-group between-subjects experimental research investigates the extent to which consumer engagement with a social media branded post is directly affected by individuals’ tendency to incorporate brands as part of their self-concept (BESC) and whether this relationship is moderated by individuals’ exposure to three different post source types. Participants were exposed to one of three Instagram social media posts of a luxury brand, where the only manipulated factor was the type of source. Findings show that there is a positive relationship between BESC and post engagement. The study also shows that content source plays a moderating role in the relationship between BESC and post engagement, such that individuals with high BESC will engage significantly more with content posted by other users, compared with branded sources (brand, influencer).     

Key Image Attributes to Elicit Likes and Comments on Instagram

Abstract

This article spotlights the relationship between likes and comments and the content of tourism photographs on Instagram with the aim of understanding users’ behavior and, thus, helping destination management organizations. Based on the stimulus-organism-response model, a content analysis was conducted of 1,094 pictures that received 131,116,800 likes and 2,859,448 comments. By combining content analysis and regression analysis, the results show that Instagrammers’ responses are influenced differently by different picture attributes, resulting in dissimilar behavior with regard to likes and comments. Specifically, likes, as immediate reactions, tend to be driven by content featuring people, views, or common habits. In contrast, comments, which require greater effort on the part of the Instagrammer, are elicited by the topic of festivals or hotels, colors such as cream, green, orange, or yellow, images of water or animals, and images featuring tourist activities, mostly at night. Multi-image or fake pictures negatively impact likes. By analyzing the content of the information provided by the uploaded photographs, a typology of photographic attributes is developed to offer clues for destination management organizations to enhance engagement with potential customers and Instagram users.     

Instagram and YouTube bloggers promote it,why should I buy? How credibility and parasocial interaction influence purchase intentions

Nowadays social network influencers play an important role in marketing by introducing products to their audience. In this article, we investigate the persuasion cues related to beauty and fashion influencers present on YouTube and Instagram. More precisely, we investigate how the para-social interaction (PSI) the audience creates with the online influencer, along with their perceived credibility, are related to the purchase intention and how they are, in turn, related to the social and physical attractiveness and attitude homophily. We base our research on four beauty influencers popular in France and control our results by the age of the participants and by the influencer. We find that attitude homophily is positively related to PSI but, surprisingly, the physical attractiveness shows negative relationship or no evidence of relationship. Both credibility of the influencers and PSI exhibit significant and positive relationships to purchase intention.     

Social media influencers and consumer engagement: A review and future research agenda

The rise of social media influencers (SMIs) in the recent decade garnered wide interest from academicians and marketers. Academicians try to understand the effect of influencers on consumer behaviour, while marketers use influencers as part of their strategy to achieve marketing objectives. Although, plenty of practical and conceptual research is available in this area, literature reviews in the domain of SMIs and consumer engagement are scarce as it is still developing, and most of the studies have focused on these two concepts separately. In this study, the authors attempted to combine and understand how social media influencers affect consumers engagement. This systematic review of the literature offers a comprehensive view of previous research on social media influencers and consumer engagement. The study reviewed articles published in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Scopus, and Web of Science indexed journals till 5 June 2021. To understand consumers' engagement with SMIs, authors identified and theorized the antecedents, decision and outcome of such engagement. It also discusses the influencer-follower parasocial relationship on different social media platforms. The study proposes an integrated conceptual framework that can be further used to test and validate the impact of social media influencer's marketing efforts on consumer engagement. This framework also may serve as a foundation for marketers to develop effective influencer strategies for brand promotions. The review concludes the discussion by highlighting theories, methodology, and context of studies conducted by past researchers.     

Attracting Comments: Digital Engagement Metrics on Facebook and Financial Performance

Many companies are now using social media such as Facebook for advertising and marketing purposes. To understand how using social media affects a company's business performance from a digital engagement perspective, this study examines how user comments on company Facebook posts influence company revenue. S&P 500 companies' revenue information in a five-year time span (from 2010 to 2015) is collected, and this information is matched to more than 24 million user comments directed at these companies' Facebook posts. The hypotheses are tested using static (fixed effects [FE] and random effects [RE]) as well as dynamic (generalized method of moments [GMM]) panel data analyses in econometric methods. The estimation results indicate that digital engagement volume, defined as the total number of Facebook comments a company received, has a significant and positive effect on revenue. In addition, digital engagement valence, defined as the average tone of Facebook comments directed toward a company, also has a significant and positive effect on revenue. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Engagement with Social Media and Social Media Advertising: The Differentiating Role of Platform Type

This study examines how consumers’ engagement with social media platforms drives engagement with advertising embedded in these platforms and, subsequently, evaluations of this advertising. Our survey (N = 1,346, aged 13 and older) maps social media users’ engagement experiences with Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat and their experiences with and evaluations of advertising on these platforms. Our findings show that engagement is highly context specific; it comprises various types of experiences on each social media platform such that each is experienced in a unique way. Moreover, on each platform, a different set of experiences is related to advertising evaluations. It is further shown that engagement with social media advertising itself is key in explaining how social media engagement is related to advertising evaluations. The general conclusion is that there is no such thing as “social media.”     

The mechanism by which social media influencers persuade consumers: The role of consumers’ desire to mimic

We explore the mechanism through which social media influencers (SMIs) persuade consumers to adopt brands. Guided by the influence framework, we propose and test empirically SMIs’ influence mechanism, which occurs in four principal stages: (a) a SMI's influence attempts (showcasing H1: attractive; H2: prestigious; H3 and H4: expert; H5: informative; and H6: interactive Instagram contents); (b) target consumers’ attitudinal response to the influence exercised (evaluating the SMI as a H7: taste and H8: opinion leader); which, in turn, affects (c) the targets’ desire to comply (the desire to mimic); and ultimately (d) their favorable behavioral outcomes (H9: social media word‐of‐mouth and H10: purchase intentions). On the basis of the survey data from 395 respondents, we used structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses and proposed model. We verified the robustness of our results using an ordered probit regression model and analyzed the mediating role of consumers’ desire to mimic SMIs in the influence mechanism. Our results confirm that the five aspects of influencing posts affect consumers’ attitudes positively and significantly, which in turn leads to positive behavioral outcomes through their desire to mimic SMIs. We discuss the results’ important implications for both scholars and practitioners.     

The more the better? Exploring the effects of reviewer social networks on online reviews

ABSTRACT

Conventional wisdom suggests that firms leverage key influencers (e.g. individuals with high centrality) in online communities to stimulate buzz. Using a large panel dataset including 1,569,264 online Yelp reviews and the ego-network of 366,715 individual reviewers over a nine-year period, this study examines the effects of number of ties and network density on the volume and valence of online reviews. In contrast with the general belief that key influencers always generate positive buzz, the findings show that they can adversely affect future review valence. Specifically, reviewers with many connections on Yelp can reduce the positivity of reviews of the same business in the next period. This finding has implications for marketing practice in online community management and social media intervention.     

Instagram and body image: Motivation to conform to the “Instabod” and consequences on young male wellbeing

The current paper explores how male Instagram users' (MIU) perceptions of body image and behavior are affected by the exposure to fitness hashtags, and the consequences on their wellbeing. For this purpose, in-depth interviews were conducted with #fitfam MIU with different levels of engagement. Low-engagement MIU with low body-esteem long for the “instabod” and engage in body transformation efforts to follow the fitness trend popularized by Instagram, to emulate peers and Instagram celebrities, to gain popularity and to appear successful. Instagram community members use positive and negative reinforcements to strengthen body internalization. The body transformation effort motivates low-engagement MIU to engage more, which has various effects on wellbeing: on one side, they feel anxious and in competition with other peers which often leads to muscle dysmorphia symptoms; on the other side, they feel more masculine with higher self-confidence, they have higher motivation to stay fit and to eat healthily.     

Antecedents and outcomes of digital influencer endorsement: An exploratory study

The advertising and marketing literature have established that celebrity endorsements constitute an effective way to enhance attitudes toward brands and increase purchase intents. However, there are no relevant studies on digital influencers. This study addresses the research gap by examining the effect of digital influencers' attractiveness and the effect of the congruence between a digital influencer and a brand on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. By applying structural equation modeling to a sample of 307 followers of digital influencers, a model was tested and group analysis was performed for two categories (“entertainment & video games” and “fashion & beauty”). The results show that both brand attitudes and purchase intentions are influenced by the digital influencer's attractiveness (which includes both likeability and familiarity) and by the congruence between the digital influencer and the brand. This study makes several contributions to both theory and practice, which are highlighted in this paper.