Analysis of Research on the Role Which Influencers Play to Influence Consumer Behaviour

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Technological advancements have shifted the marketing designs adopted by firms. Since the advent of social media sites in 1997, consumers buying behaviours and purchasing parity have changed to incorporated social attitudes (Sudha and Sheena, 2017). Traditional marketing entailed relations between brand firms and consumers to initiate purchases and build consumer loyalty. The venture is somehow expensive and time-consuming; thus, many brands have shifted to influencers marketing using social media platforms to reach out to buyers.

Recently, influential marketing has taken a toll on Instagram and YouTube as popular social media sites. The sites allow people to follow others and subscribe to their content. Therefore, most celebrities, such as Christiano Ronaldo, have accumulated vast followership, which makes them stand out as an influential person towards particular brands. As such, companies approach the influencers to utilize their accounts; the brand creates content or product reviews and tags the influencer. Ideally, the followers for a specific influencer will receive images, videos or content depicting the influencer endorsing a particular brand. The brand company will pay some commission to the influencer for the content created or product reviews and endorsements. The venture enables the influencer to earn revenue since their accounts act as a marketing channel for the products or services offered by the brand. For instance, YouTube has a clear video forum where the influencers can deeply integrate product features and describe the usage of products; the influencer uses the product as well as their experiences and reasons why followers should use it too (Nandagiri, Vaibhavi, and Leena, 2018).

This research paper will focus on the role influencers play to influence consumer behaviour and how they consequently make their wealth. Digital marketing and social media marketing have keenly shaped the marketing initiatives which benefit both brands and influencers by creating revenue-generating opportunities. Furthermore, followers are willing to build lasting business relations with the brand endorsed by the influencers from the information shared and the confirmed expressions from product usage. The quality of information shared and content created or reviewed appeals differently to different followers; thereby, it shapes the buying patterns, lifestyle and overall preference for a diverse range of endorsed brands.

Theoretical Framework

Framing theory is adopted to achieve the stated objectives for the research successfully. According to the theory, the media plays a significant role in framing information clearly and concisely understandable to the audience (Vaibhavi and Leena, 2020). The created frameworks act as attractive models for the followers to identify with the brand and make purchase decisions due to their appealing nature and lasting impressions for their satisfaction. Framing theory is favourable for firms to create awareness about product existence, features and pricing mechanisms. The framework acts as a communication or marketing vehicle to entice buyers and create lasting impressions through the influencers’ social media accounts. As such, this paper will address the roles of the influencers on the consumers buying behaviour and how they make wealth from the frameworks.

Research Objectives and Questions

Research aim: The aim of this research is to identify how influencers get money from Instagram and how they can be very rich from advertising products and other goods.

Research objectives:

To explore what are the advantages and disadvantages of the information offered to people.
To know the relationship between influencers and people and the effectiveness of culture and lifestyle.
To check the relationship between cultural move in people’s mentality and behaviour, and how to transfer to other countries.
To recognize and understand how the same subject or content get different consumers over the world, even with cultural diversity.

Research questions:

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the information offered to people by influencers?
Identify the relationship between influencers’ and consumers, and the effectiveness of culture and lifestyle.
What is the relationship between cultural move in people’s mentality and behaviour, and how to transfer to other countries?
How do different consumers receive the subject or content across the world, even with cultural diversity?

Problem Statement

Instagram is the most famous influential marketing site whereby consumers are persuaded to initiate purchases for various brands. Examples of biggest influencers on Instagram are daily dose which has a followership of over 1.4 million persons (Influencermarketing, 2019). Others are Huda Kattan, Cameron Dallas, Kayla Itsines, Selena Gomez, and Kylie Jenner. There is little knowledge on how these influencers make wealth from their framing tactics for the various brand endorsements, product reviews, or content creation. However, their wealth and financial capacity are incomparable and attributed mainly to their careers in social media marketing, especially Instagram (Grafström, 2018). Although it is difficult to measure the ROI (Return on Investment) for social media marketing, influencers still make large sums of wealth; thus, the study is dedicated to unveil their influence. Furthermore, the research will shed light on how the influencers appeal on consumers from diverse walks of life with varying cultural diversity.

Literature Review

Celebrity or influencer marketing is a known trend in the modern business community. The influencers play a critical role in enticing brands and creating high purchase patterns for the endorsed brands. Different celebrities, such as Amos, Holmes, and Strutton have influenced mass purchases for different brands by effectively communicating appealing messages about products and their favourable attributes. According to the McGuire’s communication-persuasion matrix, the effectiveness of a given message is determined by the input components for the persuasion message (Lou and Shupei, 2019). The various inputs include information sources, communication channels, the idea or message, and respondents of the message; therefore, different celebrities or influencers utilize multiple tools to appeal to the audience on social platforms.

The success of the product endorsements and reviews by influencers depends on the social relations between influencers and followers. The existing relationship between an influencer and an audience dictates the level of trust, credibility, and impact on buying behaviour patterns after an advert on Instagram (Casaló et al., 2019). High followership reflects a liking for a given person; thus, an advert posted using the influencer’s account attracts many potential buyers. Over 70% of internet users often trust the messages conveyed by influential persons, thus shift their buying patterns or preferences to align with their favourite influencers (Business Insider, 2019). However, people from diverse cultural affiliations display divergent brand attitudes; therefore, most brand endorsers with poor alignment of the persuasion message fail to attract consumers’ loyalty.

Influencers shape consumers’ buying patterns positively and negatively using their endorsements or content updates. Several advantages accrue to the influencers’ adverts, such as clear content and details of unfamiliar brands. The influencers act as links between the consumers and brands to give feedback about the suitability of products, features, and levels of satisfaction achieved from product usage. According to Leonard, there exists a consistent conflict of interest between two parties; thus, the consumers have a certain level of expectation that is often unmet by the brand company (Leonard, 2012). On the other hand, influencers convince the product users about the favourable attributes of brands, which may not appeal to the consumers, thereby resulting to lower sales. Furthermore, influencers aid in increasing product visibility and customer participation during product development, thus enhancing the final product output.

Several demerits attribute to influencer marketing on Instagram. According to a report by Bazaarvoice, the study indicates that 47% of the consumers dislike the lack of authenticity displayed by the influencers, and 62% believe that the endorsers only take advantage of their vast followership (Sudha and Sheena, 2017). Most influencers act as just marketing media, whereas they do not use the products they review or endorse, thereby lack authenticity in the message or content created. Other challenges are inter-judge reliability and anxiety generated from high profile depicted by the influencers, thus decreasing the self-esteem of low-level buyers (Freberg, Karen et al., 2011). Some consumers suffer from unrealistic lifestyles by adjusting to accommodate the levels presented by the influencers, thereby affecting purchasing confidence and credibility levels in purchases. The influencers at time suffer from body shaming, bullying, or depression from the pressures put up by the online consumers. The influencers may provoke negative behaviours on teens or young people, thereby decreasing their appeal and popularity among the buyers.

Influencers have a significant role in increasing the purchases for endorsed brands. After creating content or a product review, the influencers’ followers spike an interest in initiating purchases and consequently placing orders for the products. The challenge arises when the firms want to establish the ROI derived from the social media marketing strategy. Particularly on Instagram, it is significantly challenging to unveil the accurate picture of the appeals made and consequent purchases as a result of the endorsement. Thus, firms have devised different metrics to analyse how the influencers should be compensated based on their ROI. One of the common metrics is the use of intelligence tests and ROI calculators based on a given social site (Kaske, Kugler and Smolnik, 2017). Ideally, customers are requested to provide feedback about their source of knowledge and interest for the brand, which leads to either product referral, first-time trial, or influence via the social influencer.

According to a study by eMarketer, an average 54% of consumers rely on recommendations to make their purchase decisions (Aayush Narang. 2020). Thus, influencers play a significant role in building the trust of the consumers through sharing content and feedback on their personal insights, attitudes and experiences with a particular brand. Ad blocking results to significant losses, which answers the question on the influencers’ role in consumers’ buying behaviour. Furthermore, influencers aid in strong customer relations with the brand which promotes repeat business and continue loyalty which extends to product referrals to one’s friends or relatives.

Methodology

Research Strategy

To find the related quality of information over all the influencers and from where inspired by like magazine and celebrity.
To get information of over ten years ago from website since Instagram was introduced and explain if there is any improvement or changing policy since that time.

Research Design

The research is designed to integrate different facets which entail various industry players. For instance, the fashion and beauty industries overly depend on brand endorsements by influencers to create lasting brand awareness and strong consumers’ trust for their success. On the other hand, the food and hospitality industry are also increasingly gaining market shares from the reviews and rating shared by the influencers. In turn, the consumers identify with the influencer to make their purchase decisions or recommend a friend.

To understand the topic clearly, it is suitable to approach content analysts. The content analysts have an enduring online marketing specialization, which makes them ideal for achieving the study (Veirman et al., 2017). They have a wide range of ideas and experiences that are needed to forecast the influencer of influencers and the consumer’s buying behaviour based on the role of the influencer in the marketing of the brand. Since it is apparent to achieve the stated objectives with limited resources, the research will incorporate an inductive approach using qualitative method. The research will embrace an interview-focused technique where all content analysts who respond to the research study invite are issued with semi-structured questionnaires based on the research questions and objectives of the study. The study will be unique, just like its focus on digital marketing, whereby all data will be gathered online. Emails direct messaging using LinkedIn will enable the successful data collection by sending the questionnaires to the recipient content analysts.

Cultural diversity and the perspective on lifestyle are mentioned in this research study, thus the data collected will vary from content analysts in different industries and different cultural backgrounds. According to Hofstede’s model, there are five cultural dimensions that should be discussed to resolve the issue that arises from cultural incongruences (Mario and Kira, 2011). The questionnaires will be concisely structured to address the issues on culture and lifestyle.

Research Approach

All the collected data will be analysed using an inductive approach to generate meaningful conceptual framework. The sampling approach will be random and voluntary, all participants will be offered equal opportunities to discuss their ideas and give feedback on the related topic of research. The target sample size is 80 content analysts from various industries; this will help put the research question into perspective from the responses generated. Respondents will be assured of their confidentiality and anonymity, both during and after the study is complete. The data will be presented in charts, tables and meaningful diagrams from comparisons and to establish meaningful responses according to the research objectives. Percentages and general feedback will be used to make comparisons across various industries.

Ethical Considerations

Since the research is diverse and includes online specialists, the questionnaires will be administered online. The respondents will be sent correspondence using emails, LinkedIn or direct messaging to appeal to their support in the study’s success. Confidentiality will be the core agenda to avoid risks of informational appeal. Anonymity will be adhered to all respondents and a consent form will be issued to confirm the ethical considerations to participate in the research.

Research Limitations

Poor turnout by the respondents will adversely affect the overall biasness of the research study. Lack of access to a large pool of influencers and content analysts will be a major setback; however, I intend to use prior means to appeal to the respondents by creating rapport with various organizations. This will be helpful in avoiding major challenges of poor responses or untimely data submission past the research deadline.

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