Users' Perception of Influencers Credibility on Instagram and Their Purchase Intention Regarding Product Recommendations by Influencers

Abstract

Influencers on social media is a new phenomenon that has gained popularity in recent years. Despite the increasing popularity of influencer marketing on Instagram, research has been limited. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the credibility of Instagram influencers from the perspective of followers, and see whether the dimensions of source credibility outlined by Ohanian (1990) has a positive impact on users to follow influencers on this platform. The research first presents and compares the research and theories to date regarding the use of celebrities in advertisement and influencer marketing. Then it attempts to investigate the credibility of Instagram influencers in the eyes of male and female users, and evaluates the differences in both genders on the criteria that they decide to follow influencers. This study also evaluates purchase intention of Instagram users based on the product advertisements by influencers to see whether dimensions of source credibility positively impact users’ intent to purchase. For the purpose of this study, a survey of 250 participants was conducted using Amazon MTurk. The results show that about 77 percent of the participants spend more than at least half an hour a day on Instagram and more than half of the participants indicated that their purchase intention is impacted by influencers on this platform. The key findings of this study provide further understanding of the influencers phenomenon on Instagram and give marketers valuable insight in the process of decision-making when running influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram. It provides marketers with more information on how to match up influencers and potential consumers.