Abstract
Influencer marketing is the fastest-growing marketing strategy in the digital era. This marketing strategy is premised on the organic and longstanding tradition of sharing product and service information among acquaintances through word of mouth. As the value and persuasiveness of influencer marketing is gaining popularity, the relationship between brands, influencers and their followers/influencees has become a point of interest for researchers. Through qualitative enquiry and using Ohanian’s (1990) source credibility model, this study investigates the credibility factors influencing online users’ choice to engage influencers and the subsequent effect of these perceptions on engagement dynamics. Ten South African women who self-identify as followers of beauty and make-up influencers on Instagram were interviewed and their responses thematically analysed. This study found that influencers’ personality traits, influencees’ feelings of closeness to influencer(s) and the quality of influencer(s)’s creative output are the three main motivations for engagement. In search of the effect of perceived credibility on influencees’ engagement with influencers, parasocial engagements were found to be the major engagement behavior, manifesting in influencees’; sense of entitlement towards influencers’, feelings of intimacy and conditional attachments. These findings more or less reflect trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness as proposed by the source credibility model and reveal similarity as proposed by contemporary research, to be a well-supported credibility requirement for the assessment of influencer credibility. To extend the understanding of similarity in the study of influencer credibility, a case is developed for the use of ‘kinship’ to extend and contextualize similarity for the South African context.
M.A. (Communication Studies)