INFLUENCER AND

INFLUENCER
MARKETING
How can they have a maximum impact on their followers?

VINITA MOILY (VVM25@BATH.AC.UK) (189171601)

E- Marketing (MN50361)
 • Introduction
The number of social media users has grown in an astronomical rate with currently
three billion social media users (Statista, 2019). As online networking platforms
expand and evolve, the marketing approach has had to change and revamp to
continue to reach consumers (Woods, 2016).
Online networking Influencer is a type of marketing where the emphasis is set on key
people instead of the objective market (Woods, 2016). Influencer advertising is
basically virtual word of mouth, and customers are substantially more prone to
emphatically see and respond to a message that originates from a confided in
companion or individual over a sponsored post that originates from an organization
(Woods, 2016). According to Nielsen, 92% of shoppers trust suggestions from loved
ones over all types of promoting (Whitler 2014; Woods, 2016). Influencer
Marketing is like a mix of old and new marketing tools, collaborating the idea of the
celebrity endorsement with modern-day content-driven marketing campaign
(Backaler, 2018). Advertisers are presently endeavouring to benefit from this by
conveying their message through online networking influencers, who are trusted
almost as much as a companion (Woods, 2016). This essay explores how an
influencer can have an impact on their followers.

 Literature Review

Components of Influencer Marketing

At a basic dimension, advertising is all about getting your thoughts to expand.

Conventional methods like mass-media (or advertising) was the favoured
strategy to achieve this. Overtime, consumers have become resilient to
advertisements, thus forcing marketers to build new platforms to promote their
brands. The Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DOI) (Rogers, 1962; Dearing and
Cox,2018) states that proliferation of a new idea, product or concept takes place
at different rates for different segments of people. The innovators and early
adopters account for only 16% of the population and are often considered as
influencers. The remaining 84% are categorized into mass public. Rogers (2003)
emphasizes that people who are similar to the target market are more effective in
spreading innovations. These individuals who are known as opinion leaders
(Baker, 2014) are people whose advice and information about innovation is
trusted within the community.
Influencers are outlined as individuals “who exhibit some combination
of fascinating attributes—whether personal attributes like credibleness,
expertise, or enthusiasm, or network attributes such as connectivity or centrality
—that allows them to influence a disproportionately sizable number of others”
(Bakshy et al., 2011).
Brown and Hayes (2008) define an Influencer as “A third party who significantly
shapes the customer’s purchasing decision but may ever be accountable for it”
(Kerestholt,2018). Influencers can be celebrities, members of the media,
bloggers, government officials, subject matter experts, or any number of types of
individuals. Influencers are broadly divided in two categories i.e. micro celebrities
and macro celebrities. Micro Influencer is defined as “individuals within a
consumer’s social graph who has a direct impact on the behaviour of the
consumer, based on the personal nature of their relationship and
communications” (Brown & Fiorella, 2013; Kerestholt, 2018). In simple words,
micro celebrities are normal people.
They are typically real individuals, not pop stars or reality television sensations.
Most of the time they have less than 10,000 followers (Mediakix). Microcelebrity is
considered as “more authentic” and and more intelligent than a customary superstar
since it includes immediate and genuine conversations with fans utilizing web-based
life (Senft, 2008, Maverick 2010, Delure, 2018).
A micro-influencer, in contrast to a celebrity, often has a very uniform audience.
Macro Influencers on the other hand are characterized as having many followers
of not more than one million (Mediakix). They are people with an outsized
dynamic social follower with whom they have an obscure relationship (Brown &
Fiorella, 2013, Kerestholt, 2018). While celebrities previously commanded in
contacting such extensive groups of onlookers, social media has offered ascend
to new online identities with comparable reach and clout. Another category of
influencers known as mega influencer are personalities with a following over one
million (Ismail, 2018). The mega influencer level is held for the web's most well
known A-listers such as Paris Hilton, The Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez - just a
few celebs that enjoy the title of mega influencer. They enjoy a large but passive
following; however, it is important to understand that large following does not
necessarily mean high engagement. For example, people tend to follow accounts
with large followers simply because they want to be a part of the crowd. They
may be indifferent to the people who they follow and have no kind of association
with them. So, a personality may get a substantial amount of impression in their
feed however, the followers may be rather indifferent about the opinion that the
mega celebrity possesses. Moreover, likes on the feed don't relate to a line of
income, nor do they compare to a dimension of brand mindfulness, since a
significant number of those preferences might be from impassive subscribers.
The basic theory of the Pareto principle (Pareto, 1896; DeMers, 2014) states that
about 80 percent of your outcomes will originate from 20 percent of the causes.
For instance, roughly 80 percent of your income will originate from 20 percent of
your clients. The basic principle in context with social media is that some
followers are more valuable than others. Most social media users are stagnant,
expending data without contributing or connecting much. Hence, we see a shift
from targeting influencers with maximum reach only, brands are now looking at
influencer with cult following in the niches.
Theory behind Influencer Communication
Bandura, the social researcher responsible for the majority of our appreciation of
how people react in social conditions, "In the social learning system, new patterns of
behaviour can be acquired through direct experience or by observing the behaviours
of others” (Bandura, 1963; Glucksman, 2017). This comprehends why influencers
are so ‘persuasive’.” Bandura clarified, "based on useful input, they (shoppers)
create considerations or speculations about the behaviour that is most likely to
succeed. These theories at that point fill in as aides for future activities." To put this
into progressively direct terms, people gain from precedent, and influencers show
others how it is accomplished for the people who "seek after" them. By viewing
influencer through web-based social networking, people will undoubtedly get the
practices appeared by the influencer (Forbes, 2016). Oragnizations are using their
benefits by methods for social media influencers with the desire that the experience
that a customer has with an influencer grants the lead of the influencer to be
recreated by the purchaser (Forbes,2016).
Social learning hypothesis can convincingly clarify the effect of famous people on
consumption behaviours (Makgosa, 2010; Lim et al, 2017). Metzger et al. (2003) saw
that an endorser who is viewed as significantly solid would provoke customers'
absence of worry towards the promoted message, achieving higher affirmation of the
passed-on message. Decently, influencers who are held with high ability and
unwavering quality are viewed as being logically convincing on their supporters'
conduct. Congruency between an endorser and the item is major to achieve stunning
results (Lim et al, 2017). The match-up hypothesis investigates the fit between an
endorser and the brand (Kamins 1990; Lim et al, 2017). Setting up a reasonable fit
between an endorser and the brand may fill in as a productive promoting
methodology (Till and Busler 1998; Lim et al, 2017). As it is imperative for an
influencer as the representative for a brand to show a suitable match with the
product characteristics.
Key to a successful Influencer Marketing Campaign
According to an Annual Influencer Marketing Survey, 80% of marketers find
influencer marketing effective while, 89% say ROI from influencer marketing is
comparable to or better than other marketing channels. As of late, influencers have
set up themselves as potential endorsers by producing a scope of popular
expressions when contrasted with other advertising techniques (for example
celebrity endorsers), and are considered to be the most cost-productive and -
effective marketing trends (Patel 2016; Talaverna 2015; Lim et al, 2017 )

Social media has become an inexpensive way to interact and engage with large
number of potential customers. However, with an increasing use of social media
platforms by brands, it is vital for companies to break the clutter and stand out
from the herd.The key to have an impact and everlasting collaboration is how
much clarity the brand has with respect to its end goals, whether the values of
the firm is aligned with the influencer the brand wishes to collaborate.
For a successful collaboration, first it is important to pick the correct type of
influencer. This depends on the brand and the product it wants to sell. For low
involvement products like household items, furniture, dining, clothing, consumers
often look at their friends, family and peers for opinions. Whereas for high
involvement goods, which involve a relatively high amount of investment,
consumer prefer expert, industry opinions apart from recommendation from their
family and peers. It is also vital to know if the influencer’s values align with the
brand’s value, attitude and goal. For an influence to be organic, it is important that
the influencer believes in the brand, has used the brand in the past, only then can
they influence their followers. Giving creative liberty to the influencer forms an
important part of the collaboration. Only then the campaign will have a natural flow to
it. The influencer rightly knows what kind of content followers like and dislike. It is a
waste of effort to blindly pitch a brand that they are simply not connected to. Firms
should always seek for long term tie ups and not look at it as a short-term contract as
advocacy is built over time. To strengthen ties with the influencer, it may be a good
idea to include them in research, product development and testing. Availing
exclusive access to brand information gives the influencer social capital which can
be used to promote the brand.

 An In-Depth Analysis on Lucie Frink – Lifestyle Influencer

Background
Lucie Fink is an online networking influencer and a lifestyle host at Refinery29, a
driving digital media organization concentrated on female audience. Refinery29
gives its gathering of people the motivation and instruments to find and also to seek
after an increasingly free, beautiful, and educated life. Fink has a following of over
150,000 individuals on Instagram and two YouTube shows, "Try living with Lucie"
and "Lucie for Hire" under Refinery29. She also has her own Youtube channel
which has more than 100,000 subscribers. According to academic definition, Lucie is
a macro influencer. Her "Try living with Lucie" show is presently in its 4 th season and
has more than one million views. Her channel has a total of more than 2.5 million
views (Socialblade, n.d). In an individual meeting with Fink, she portrayed her own
image in two different ways. To begin with, she depicted herself as a way of life
identity, taking note of " I’m not trying to be a beauty blogger or a fashion blogger or
a fitness blogger. I am kind of every piece of the puzzle. I can try out almost anything
and it would feel natural to my feed. I feel like the audience is really there for me and
my personal life, which includes fitness, food, fashion, beauty. Almost everything"
(Personal meeting; Glucksman, 2017). Fink at that point shared that interest was a
piece of her individual brand: "I like my own image to be tied in with being
exploratory and attempting new things and it truly is firmly lined up with both my
Refinery29 video content and furthermore simply my own persona of who I truly am"
(Personal meeting; Glucksman, 2017).
Fink's own image has made numerous organizations reach out to her for advancing
their items through posts on both Instagram and YouTube, endeavouring to interface
the brand and the purchaser on a progressively personal level. While Fink's
influencer showcasing strategy seems progressively customary on Instagram, she
uses an increasingly remarkable narrating influencer advertising approach on
YouTube. This may be the mystery to her prosperity.

Discussion
The above study of Lucie Fink finds that social media influencers’ achievement does
not depend entirely on their follower count, yet their capacity to impact them through
genuineness, certainty, and intelligence to make an association between the
adherent and the brand.
Fink on Instagram
In Figure 1, Fink is promoting for a company (agency), Talenti, which is a gourmet
gelato brand. Fink has an association with Talenti, and it is her job to reach out to,
more youthful market for this item that has been prevalently sold to youthful
populace. Fink posts Instagram content for Talenti just as meshes its items into her
YouTube recordings to endeavour to open it to her followers, which incorporate
Talenti's ideal statistic. Figure 1 demonstrates one of Fink's Instagram posts for the
brand. What numerous individuals may see is that Fink utilizes brand explicit labels,
for example, #ad, #talentipartner, and @Talenti. The utilization of the organization
name gives the followers numerous chances to associate with the brand immediately
through Fink with a basic snap. With regards to her identity, Fink leaves an
idiosyncratic, practical, and relatable impact on her supporters. In her photographs,
she attempts to advertise the item through her identity. This was an opportunity for
Talenti to engage with their customer to look for fan favourite flavours as they looked
to bring in a fresh menu of gelato. Fink arranged the products in a funky way to grab
attention and portray the amount of Talenti she has been consuming. While it may
appear as though the arrangement of the item all over is not a major ordeal, it
manages to grab the attention of buyers without them understanding that they are
seeing a commercial. This technique relates to Bandura's social learning theory in
the literature review. The idea of influencers has the ability to convince their
adherents through the activities of the influencer. The supporter, as Bandura clears
up, would then repeat the activities of the influencer (Glucksman, 2017).
 Figure 1 Source: Instagram, Lucie Fink, @luciebfink
Instagram additionally offers followers the chance to converse with these influencers
and the ability for the influencer to collaborate and react to their subscribers. The
two-way exchange between the influencer and the supporter gives this advancement
another estimation that did not exist before the usage of social media influencers.
This two-way talk furthermore allows the influencer to advance the brand through an
individual proposal, which can change a follower into a brand customer. Publicizing
and increasing new brand shoppers through Fink's social media commercials is the
fundamental objective of Talenti's association with Fink.

 Conclusion
Numerous advertisers feel that influencer showcasing can be viable at driving ROI
notwithstanding, measurement remains an essential worry for 78% of the
organizations. Finding the correct influencers likewise positioned as a key issue,
where 62% of advertisers said that recognizing the best influencers was a challenge
(Mediakix). With 1 billion in June of 2018, Instagram has just kept on improving and
develop. Compared to other social media channels, Instagram accounts have
relatively high interaction levels. For instance, the average Facebook or Twitter user
has an engagement rate of only 0.5 – 1%. The average Instagram account though
has an engagement rate of 3% (Influencer Marketing Survey, 2019).
For an effective influencer campaign, it is important that the influencer is perceived
as authentic. Hence, when an influencer works freely, making their own substance
and incorporating an organization's promoting determinations into it. The influencer
is in charge of the brand's message, picking how they should need to portray it. This
advances authenticity and can help accomplish an objective gathering of crowd.
Before the rising of social influencers, publicizing to the brand purchaser was
uneven. Before the times of social network, a purchaser could simply watch a thing
through print advancements, loads up, radio promotions, and TV advertisements.
Today, a customer directly can cooperate with the item through social networking.
Watching a trusted source, for example, Fink, utilize a product enables shoppers to
feel as though they are making on a more educated choice when making the
purchase.

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