This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Influencer marketing (also known as influence marketing) is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. [1] Influencers are someone (or something) with the power to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok or other online channels. [2] Influencer marketing is when a brand enrolls influencers who have an established credibility and audience on social media platforms to discuss or mention the brand in a social media post. [3] Influencer content may be framed as testimonial advertising, according to the Federal Trade Commission in the United States. [4]
Most discussions of social influence focus on social persuasion and compliance. [5] In the context of influencer marketing, influence is less about arguing for a point of view or product than about loose interactions between parties in a community (often with the aim of encouraging purchasing or behavior). Although influence is often equated with advocacy, it may also be negative. [6] The two-step flow of communication model was introduced in The People's Choice (Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet's 1940 study of voters' decision-making processes), and developed in Personal Influence (Lazarsfeld, Elihu Katz 1955) [7] and The Effects of Mass Communication (Joseph Klapper, 1960). [8]
Influencer marketing is also important through social comparison theory. As psychologist Chae reports, influencers serve as a comparison tool. Consumers may compare influencer lifestyles with their imperfections. Meanwhile, followers may view influencers as people with perfect lifestyles, interests, and dressing style. [9] As such, the promoted products may serve as a shortcut towards a complete lifestyle. Chae's study finds women with low self-esteem compare themselves to the influencers. As such, they elevate the status of influencers above themselves. When using an influencer, a brand may use consumer insecurities to its benefits. For this reason, influencer marketing may lead to faulty advertising. [10]
A majority of Gen Z Americans consider being an influencer as a "reputable career choice". [11]
An influencer, also referred to as an online influencer, social media influencer, or social media personality, is a term traditionally associated with someone who is considered influential. The term has more recently been associated specifically with people who influence and guide the interest of others using social media. [17] The modern referent of the term is commonly a paid role in which a business entity pays for the social media influence-for-hire activity to promote its products and services, known as influencer marketing. [18]
Types of influencers include fashion influencer and virtual influencer. Some influencers are associated with specific social media apps such as TikTok influencers, [19] Instagram influencer, [20] [21] or Pinterest influencer, and many are also considered internet celebrities. As of 2023 [update] , Instagram is the social media platform on which businesses spend the most advertising dollars towards marketing with influencers. [22] However, influencer can exert their influence on any type of social media network. Thus, Instagram's leadership in the influencer marketing space has been under assault by platforms such as LinkedIn, TikTok and Roblox. [23] [24] [25]Online activity can play a central role in offline decision-making, allowing consumers to research products. [26] Social media has created new opportunities for marketers to expand their strategy beyond traditional mass-media channels. [27] Many use influencers to increase the reach of their marketing messages. [28] [29] Online influencers who curate personal brands have become marketing assets because of their relationship with their followers. [27] [30] Social media influencers establish themselves as opinion leaders with their followers and may have persuasive strengths such as attractiveness, likeability, niche expertise, and perceived good taste. [30] [27] [31] The interactive and personal nature of social media allows parasocial relationships to form between influencers and their followers, which impacts purchase behavior. [27] [31] [32] Influencer marketing on social media reaches consumers who use ad-blockers. [30]
Critics of an online-intensive approach say that by researching exclusively online, consumers can overlook input from other influential individuals. [33] Early-2000s research suggested that 80 to 92 percent of influential consumer exchanges occurred face-to-face with word-of-mouth (WOM), compared to seven to 10 percent in an online environment. [34] [35] [28] [36] Scholars and marketers distinguish WOM from electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). [37]
Given their impact, especially among younger people, influencers have also been enlisted by governments. Countries like Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have been using these influencers to spread a positive image of them and distract from human rights criticisms. [38] In Dubai, many such influencers have been working to promote the city's tourism by acquiring an expensive license or through agencies. Emirati authorities tightly manage influencers to ensure that the country is depicted in a positive light. Dubai authorities also restrict these influencers from speaking about religion, politics or against the regime. [39] A report in October 2022 revealed that some influencers promoting Dubai engaged in prostitution, using their high-profile to find clients and charge higher rates. Although prostitution is illegal in Dubai, increasing numbers engage in the practice due to the rise in the number of ultra-rich expatriates in Dubai, including Russian oligarchs moving to the emirate to escape the US sanctions. [40]
Marketers use influencer marketing to establish credibility in a market, to create social conversations about brands, and to focus on driving online or in-store sales. Marketers leverage credibility gained over time to promote a variety of products or services. Success in influencer marketing is measured through earned media value, impressions, [41] and cost per action. [33] Globally, 86% of brands planned to use influencer marketing in 2024. [11]
A social media influencer's personal brand and product relation with marketers are important concepts. As social learning theory suggests, influencers serve as informed consumers and authenticity matters. When credible influencers match up with the product, consumers will consider the promoted recommendations. [42] [43] A study found that respondents see influencers as a neutral authority pitch for a product. Compared to CEO spokespeople, influencers are more approachable and trustworthy. Consumers are more likely to respond to influencers if both parties share certain characteristics and beliefs. [44] [43]
A 2015 article depicts that attributions drive endorsers and that globally 77% of shoppers would or may take action following what family, friends, and online reviews endorse. It shows that word of mouth marketing and digital media have changed the impact and reach of endorsements. [45]
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) treats influencer marketing as a form of paid endorsement. It is governed by the rules for native advertising, which include compliance with established truth-in-advertising standards and disclosure by endorsers (influencers) and is known as the Endorsement Guides. [46] [4] The FTC compiled an easy-to-read guide on disclosure for influencers, specifying rules and tips on how to make good disclosures on social media. The guidelines include reminders of disclosing sponsored products in easily visible places so it is hard to miss, using easy-to-understand language, and giving honest reviews about sponsored products. [47] [4] [48]
In 2017, the FTC sent more than 90 educational letters to celebrity and athlete influencers with the reminder of the obligation to clearly disclose business relationships while sponsoring and promoting products. [49] The same year, in response to YouTubers Trevor Martin and Thomas Cassell deceptively endorsing an online gambling site they owned, the FTC took three separate actions to catch the attention of influencers. By using law enforcement, warning letters, and updating the Endorsement Guidelines, the FTC provided influencers with endorsement questions or involved in misleading endorsements and disclosures with clear procedures of how to follow the laws. [50]
Media-regulating bodies in other countries – such as Australia – followed the FTC in creating influencer-marketing guidelines. [51]
The United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority and Advertising Standards Authority adopted similar laws and tips for influencers to follow. [48] The UK's Financial Conduct Authority have also warned "finfluencers" (influencers in the financial realm) of legal consequences for failing to include the kind of risk warnings required for financial and investment products. [52]
Facebook and Instagram have a set of brand content policies for influencer marketing and endorsements. Branded content may only be posted through Instagram and Facebook, and require the business relationships between influencers and endorsers to be tagged when promoting branded content. The branded tool provided in the business layout of Facebook and Instagram is to be used whenever promoting products and endorsers. [53] [54]
As of August 2020, YouTube has updated the branded content policies. YouTube and Google's ad policies require influencers to check a box titled paid promotion when publishing sponsored videos and provides instructions on how to set it up. The policies require disclosure messages for the viewers to indicate that the content is promoted. [55]
All criteria used to determine the veracity of an influencer account can be fabricated. Third-party sites and apps sell services to individual accounts which include falsely increasing followers, likes, and comments. [56] [57] Instagram has failed to shut down all such websites. [57] One marketing agency, Mediakix tested whether fake accounts could be profitable. The company created two fictitious accounts, built their online presence through paid followers and engagement (likes and comments), and applied for work in marketing campaigns on popular influencer marketing platforms. They published their results, an explanation of how the false accounts were created, and which brands had sponsored them. [58]
An analysis of over 7,000 influencers in the UK indicated that about half of their followers have up to 20,000 "low-quality" followers themselves, consisting of internet bots and other suspicious accounts. Over four in 10 engagements with this group of influencers are considered "non-authentic". [59] A study of UK influencers which looked at almost 700,000 posts from the first half of 2018 found that 12 percent of UK influencers had bought fake followers. [59] Twenty-four percent of influencers were found to have abnormal growth patterns in another study, indicating that they had manipulated their likes or followers. [60]
Influencer fraud (including fake followers) was estimated to cost businesses up to $1.3 billion, about 15 percent of global influencer–marketing spending. Research in 2019 accounted only for the calculable cost of fake followers. [61]
Virtual influencers are virtual characters, intentionally designed by 3D artists to look like real people in real situations. [62] Although most of the characters can be easily identified as computer graphics, some are very realistic and can fool users. [63] The characters are usually identified as models, singers, or other celebrities. Their creators write their biographies, conduct interviews on their behalf, and act like the characters themselves. [62] Lil Miquela was a realistic virtual influencer which prompted curiosity and speculation until it was learned that she was created by advertisers. [64]
A study published in 2022 indicate that over half of Chileans have never purchased products recommended by influencers. [65]
In promotion and advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a person's written or spoken statement extolling the virtue of a product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary citizens, whereas the word "endorsement" usually applies to pitches by celebrities. Testimonials can be part of communal marketing.
Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way that a virus spreads from one person to another. It can be delivered by word of mouth, or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks.
Marketing communications refers to the use of different marketing channels and tools in combination. Marketing communication channels focus on how businesses communicate a message to their desired market, or the market in general. It is also in charge of the internal communications of the organization. Marketing communication tools include advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, sponsorship, communication, public relations, social media, customer journey and promotion.
Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation management companies, with search results as a core part of a client's reputation. Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search engine results.
In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue, persuasively. It helps marketers to create a distinctive place in customers' mind, it can be either a cognitive or emotional route. The aim of promotion is to increase brand awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty. It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four Ps, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion.
Celebrity branding or celebrity endorsement is a form of advertising campaign or marketing strategy which uses a celebrity's fame or social status to promote a product, brand or service, or to raise awareness about an issue. Marketers use celebrity endorsers in hopes that the positive image of the celebrity endorser will be passed on to the product's or brand's image. Non-profit organizations also use celebrities since a celebrity's frequent mass media coverage reaches a wider audience, thus making celebrities an effective ingredient in fundraising.
Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. It has significantly transformed the way brands and businesses utilize technology for marketing since the 1990s and 2000s. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callbacks, and on-hold mobile ringtones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.
In the marketing and advertising industry, youth marketing consists of activities to communicate with young people, typically in the age range of 11 to 35. More specifically, there is teen marketing, targeting people age 11 to 17; college marketing, targeting college-age consumers, typically ages 18 to 24; and young adult marketing, targeting ages 25 to 34.
Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer and an organization through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen, customer engagement is "a customer’s motivationally driven, volitional investment of operant resources, and operand resources into brand interactions," which applies to online and offline engagement.
Social network advertising, also known as social media targeting, is a group of terms used to describe forms of online advertising and digital marketing that focus on social networking services. A significant aspect of this type of advertising is that advertisers can take advantage of users' demographic information, psychographics, and other data points to target their ads.
An internet celebrity, also referred to as an internet personality, is an individual who has acquired or developed their fame and notability on the Internet. The growing popularity of social media provides a means for people to reach a large, global audience, and internet celebrities are commonly present on large online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, which primarily rely on user-generated content. Some internet celebrities are also social media influencers, known simply as influencers, due to their social influence online.
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.
Internet branding is a brand management technique that uses the World Wide Web & Social Media Channels as a medium for positioning a brand in the marketplace. Branding is increasingly important with the advancements of the internet. Most businesses are exploring various online channels, which include search engine, social media, online press releases, online marketplace, to establish strong relationships with consumers and to build their brands awareness.
Social media in the fashion industry refers to the use of social media platforms by fashion designers and users to promote and participate in trends. Over the past several decades, the development of social media has increased along with its usage by consumers. The COVID-19 pandemic was a sharp turn of reliance on the virtual sphere for the industry and consumers alike. Social media has created new channels of advertising for fashion houses to reach their target markets. Since its surge in 2009, luxury fashion brands have used social media to build interactions between the brand and its customers to increase awareness and engagement. The emergence of influencers on social media has created a new way of advertising and maintaining customer relationships in the fashion industry. Numerous social media platforms are used to promote fashion trends, with Instagram and TikTok being the most popular among Generation Y and Z. The overall impact of social media in the fashion industry included the creation of online communities, direct communication between industry leaders and consumers, and criticized ideals that are promoted by the industry through social media.
Word-of-mouth marketing is the communication between consumers about a product, service, or company in which the sources are considered independent of direct commercial influence that has been actively influenced or encouraged as a marketing effort. While it is difficult to truly control word of mouth communication, there are three generic avenues to 'manage' word of mouth communication for the purpose of word-of-mouth marketing, including:
Native advertising, also called sponsored content, partner content, and branded journalism, is a type of paid advertising that appears in the style and format of the content near the advertisement's placement. It manifests as a post, image, video, article or editorial piece of content. In some cases, it functions like an advertorial. The word native refers to the coherence of the content with the other media that appear on the platform.
A user review is a review conducted by any person who has access to the internet and publishes their experience to a review site or social media platform following product testing or the evaluation of a service. User reviews are commonly provided by consumers who volunteer to write the review, rather than professionals who are paid to evaluate the product or service. User reviews might be compared to professional nonprofit reviews from a consumer organization, or to promotional reviews from an advertiser or company marketing a product. Growth of social media platforms has enabled the facilitation of interaction between consumers after a review has been placed on online communities such as blogs, internet forums or other popular platforms.
A fashion influencer is a personality that has a large number of followers on social media, creates mainly fashion content and has the power to influence the opinion and purchase behavior of others with their recommendations. Brands endorse them to attend fashion shows, parties, designer dinners and exclusive trips and to wear their clothes on social media. If a salary has been involved, the influencer may be required to label such posts as paid or sponsored content. Before social media "they would have been called 'It girls'".
Livestream shopping is used by brands to promote and sell products through livestreams on digital platforms, often in collaboration with influencers.
An influencer, also referred to as an online influencer, social media influencer, or social media personality, is a term traditionally associated with someone who is considered influential. The term has more recently been associated specifically with people who influence and guide the interest of others using social media. The modern referent of the term is commonly a paid role in which a business entity pays for the social media influence-for-hire activity to promote its products and services, known as influencer marketing.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help)