MARKETING THROUGH INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS: IMPACT OF NUMBER
OF FOLLOWERS AND PRODUCT DIVERGENCE ON BRAND ATTITUDE
Marijke De Veirman, Ghent University, Belgium
Veroline Cauberghe, Ghent University, Belgium
Liselot Hudders, Ghent University, Belgium
Marijke De Veirman, Ghent University
Ghent University, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences
Korte Meer 11, 9000 Ghent
Email: marijke.deveirman@ugent.be
Tel. nr. 32 9 264 97 22
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MARKETING THROUGH INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS: IMPACT OF NUMBER
OF FOLLOWERS AND PRODUCT DIVERGENCE ON BRAND ATTITUDE
ABSTRACT
Findings from two experiments show that Instagram influencers with high numbers of
followers are considered more likeable, mostly because they are considered more popular.
Important, only in limited cases, perceptions of popularity due to the influencer’s number of
followers, lead to perceptions of opinion leadership. Furthermore, one should also take into
account number of followees, as very low numbers of followees might negatively impact
popular influencers’ likeability. Also, cooperating with influencers with high numbers of
followers might not be the best marketing choice for promoting divergent products, as this
lowers the brand’s perceived uniqueness and consequently brand attitudes.
INTRODUCTION
Recently, brands discovered the far-reaching impact and viral growth potential of
approaching influencers - people who built a large network of followers, and are regarded as
trusted tastemakers in one or several niches - to promote their products. A major challenge for
brands that aim to apply this type of WOM-marketing, is to identify and select influencers
whom may have a strong impact on their target audience and convince them to incorporate
their products in their posts, this way diffusing them (Wong, 2014). Today, number of
followers, which reflects network size and serves as an indication for popularity, is frequently
used to identify these influential nodes. Accordingly, higher numbers of followers may result
in larger reach of the (commercial) message and may thus leverage the power of WOM at
scale (Talavera, 2015). However, to our knowledge, no research yet investigated how people
perceive and evaluate these numbers. Moreover, the reach of the message through an
influencer should not be the only criterion for successful persuasive communication. To
increase the message’s impact one should search for the most likeable, trustable influencer
which has a high value as opinion leader. Hence, in two studies, we aim to provide more
insights in the characteristics that make an influencer efficient above and beyond their
potential reach. Study I explores which Instagram influencer is the best marketing choice in
terms of number of followers and followees. First, it is investigated whether numbers of
followers merely affect perceptions of popularity, or whether it might also cause people to
ascribe opinion leadership to the influencer. Next, the relationship between number of
followers and likeability through perceived popularity and sequentially ascribed opinion
leadership is examined. In addition, the moderating impact of number of followees on the
proposed relationship between number of followers and likeability is considered. Study II
further examines the moderating role of number of followers on the advertising effectiveness
of influencers’ posts. In particular, effectiveness in terms of attitude towards the brand (Ab) of
posts containing products with common and divergent designs will be investigated.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT
The Impact of Number of Followers on Influencer Likeability
A high number of followers implies that many people are interested in a certain account, as
they subscribed to its updates. People rely on this cue to assess one’s popularity and popular
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users are perceived more attractive, extravert, trustworthy, approachable and possessing other
socially desirable characteristics (Jin and Phua, 2014; Utz, 2010; Graham, 2014). It thus
seems plausible that an influencer with a high number of followers will be perceived as
generally more likeable because he/she is perceived as more popular. However, likeability
should preferably result from the fact that consumers see the influencer as a valuable source
of information - an opinion leader - rather than merely from popularity. As number of
followers indicates audience size and influencers disseminate their ideas among them, having
more followers accelerates the diffusion of information (Yoganarasimhan, 2012). A high
number of followers could thus be advantageous to the exertion of opinion leadership as ideas
are spread more widely and rapidly and consequently, interpersonal influence is enhanced
(Cha, Haddadi, Benevenuto, and Gummadi 2010). In line with this reasoning, number Twitter
followers was found to contribute to one’s opinion leader status (Feng, 2016) and opinion
leaders have the intention to build large groups of followers (Hwang, 2015). This leads to the
proposition that an influencer who is perceived as popular, elicits perceptions of opinion
leadership. Contrary to these findings however, it was found that the number of Twitter
followers does not predict actual influence. As such, Cha et al. (2010) found that the number
of followers represents a user’s popularity, however, this does not imply that this user is also
retweeted or mentioned. Similar, Romero Galuba, Asur and Huberman (2010) found that
number of followers is an indication for popularity, however this does not mean that they will
also engage with the posted content by retweeting it, etc. It is thus unsure whether people who
perceives an influencer as popular, also consider him/her as an opinion leader. Most likely,
the indirect effect of number of followers on likeability will be partly explained by higher
perceptions of popularity, and partly by a sequential mediation of perceptions of popularity
and opinion leadership. Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:
H1. The indirect effect of number of followers on likeability will partly be explained by
perceived popularity and partly by perceived popularity and ascribed opinion leadership.
The Moderating Impact of Number of Followees on the Relation between Number of
Followers and Influencer Likeability
Besides number of followers, number of followees and the combination of both may affect
one’s perceptions about the influencer. In popular literature, some “rules” about who to follow
and the ideal “followers/followee ratio”, mostly concerning Twitter, exist. For example, a rule
of thumb is that you should especially follow people with a positive ratio, people who have
more followers than followees. It is likely that Instagram users with high numbers of
followers who follow few people themselves are perceived as true influencers as their
follower base doesn’t merely consists of people who followed him/her back after (s)he started
following them. Thus, highly positive ratios could be an indication of true opinion leadership.
On the other hand, it is said that users with a lot of followers in combination with only a few
followees, are no “true” Twitter users (Siegler, 2009) or it indicate that the followers are
artificially collected or “fake” (Cresci, Di Pietro, Petrocchi, Spognardi and Tesconi, 2015). In
contrast, a user with many followees has more opportunities to learn about different topics
and opinions, and thus more ability to look beyond their own social environment, which
might be beneficial in terms of opinion leadership (Williams 2006). Today, no study has
investigated whether number of followees is an important trait for consumers in the
assessment of an influencer. Therefore, we propose the following research question:
RQ1. Does the number of followees have an influence on the relationship between the
influencer’s number of followers and its likeability?
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The Moderating Impact of Product Divergence on the Relation between Number of
Followers and Influencer Effectiveness
As number of followers represents the audience with whom influencers share their ideas, a
higher number of followers might elicit greater brand effects. Jin et al. (2014) recently
illustrated this idea and found that positive tweets from celebrities with a high number of
followers result in higher product-involvement and buying intentions than tweets from less
popular celebrities. However, we expect that the impact of the number of followers might be
different according to the type of product. Previous research pointed to the influence of others
(i.e. social influence) on consumption behavior and identified two opposite social needs that
may explain consumers’ preferences for (non-)divergent products, the need for uniqueness
and the need for conformity, that might influence consumers’ choices. In practice, sometimes
consumers may be very attracted to unique products that are not obvious to obtain, but at
other times, they might want to buy what others bought (Steinhart, Kamins, Mazursky and
Noy, 2014). Consumers evaluate products to decide whether they respond to their needs.
However, they rarely have complete information, which makes evaluation hard. Therefore,
they often make inferences to fill in these gaps. These inferences have been referred to as
naïve theories and serve as common-sense explanations to evaluate and make inferences
regarding marketing communication, products and brands (Deval, Mantel, Kardes and
Posavac, 2013). Two naïve theories may be linked to the need for uniqueness and conformity:
the naive theory of exclusivity or the belief that exclusive products are desirable (Berger and
Heath, 2007), and the naive theory of popularity or the belief that popular products are
desirable, similar to “bandwagon” effects (Henshel and Johnston, 1987; Deval et al., 2013).
Following the naïve theory of exclusivity, we expect consumers to have a better attitude
towards brands with divergent product designs compared to brands with standard designs
because they are perceived as more unique. However, if the product is posted by an influencer
with a high number of followers, this might trigger the naïve theory of popularity and
thoughts that the product is rather common instead of unique. When such an influencer
promotes a divergent product, product uniqueness might diminish due to the idea that many
others might be interested in the product as well (Machleit, Eroglue and Mantel, 2000).
Hence, we expect the positive relationship between product diversity and attitude towards the
brand through perceived uniqueness to be weakened when the product is posted by an
influencer with a very high number of followers. We hypothesize:
H2. The positive effect of product divergence on brand attitude through perceived divergence
will be weaker if the brand is promoted by an influencer with a high number of followers
compared to when it is promoted by an influencer with a moderate number of followers.
STUDY 1: ASSESSING THE LIKEABILITY OF INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS
Method
The experiment used a 2 (number of followers: moderate vs. high) by 2 (number of followees:
low vs. high) between-subjects experimental design. An Instagram account for a fictitious
influencer was created (a male and female version was created and linked to respondents’
gender). The number of followers and followees were manipulated based on actual
influencers’ Instagram pages. In the moderate number of followers condition, the influencer
was given 2100 followers, in the high amount of followers condition, this number was
increased to 21.200 (21.2k). In the low number of followees condition, the influencer
followed 32 people, in the high number of followers condition the influencer followed 32.200
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(32.2k) people. To check manipulations, participants were asked if they found the influencer
had a very small (=1) versus very large (=7) number of followers/followees and if they
thought the influencer’s number of followers/followees was smaller (=1) versus larger (=7)
than the average influencer’s numbers. Credibility was measured using Ohanian’s (1990, α =
.90) 14-item scale. Popularity was measured with one item, asking participants to rate the
popularity of the influencer. Opinion leadership was measured by an adapted version of the
four-item scale of Flynn, Goldsmith and Eastman (1996, α = .92). Influencer likeability was
measured using 3 items from Dimofte, Forehand and Deshpandé (2004, α = .85). All scales
were measured using 5-point Likert scales. 117 Instagram users that were recruited via MTurk
(74 females, M
Age
= 29.54 years, SD
Age
= 6.55) took part in the study.
Results
First, manipulation checks revealed that participants perceived number of followers to be
lower (M = 4.93, SD = 1.10) in the moderate followers condition than in the high followers
condition (M = 5.86, SD = 1.08, t(115) = -4.59, p < .001). Also, participants perceived the
influencer’s number of followees to be lower (M = 2.26, SD = 1.75) in the low followees than
in the high followees condition (M = 6.11, SD = 1.32, t(97.52) = -13.25, p < .001). Next, a
sequential mediation analysis (Process Macro, Model 6, see figure 1) showed a positive effect
of number of followers on perceived popularity. It was found that perceived popularity has a
marginally significant positive effect on perceived opinion leadership, which consequently
has a positive effect on likeability. Bootstrapping showed an indirect effect for popularity (ab
= .15, SE = .07; 95% CI = [.032; .32]), as predicted in H1, but not for opinion leadership (ab =
-.01, SE = .03; 95% CI = [.04; .08]). Important, the serial indirect effect was significant,
however small (ab = .01, SE = .01; 95% CI = [.00; .05]). Furthermore, a moderated mediation
analysis (Process Macro, model 8) with number of followers as independent variable, number
of followees as moderator, opinion leadership as mediator, likeability as dependent variable
and perceived popularity as covariate, showed no significant moderated mediation, ab = .05,
SE = .06, 95% CI = [-.02; .23]. However, a direct conditional effect of number of followers
on likeability was found. This effect suggests a negative direct effect of number of followees
on likeability when the number of followers is low (c’ = -.38, SE = .17, 95%CI: = [-.72; -
.04]), while this effect is no longer significant when the number of followers is high (c’ = .08,
SE = .16, 95%CI: = [-.24; .39]).
STUDY 2: ASSESSING THE BRAND EFFECTS OF INSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS
Method
The study used a 2 (number of followers: moderate vs. high) by 2 (product divergence: low
vs. high) between-subjects experimental design. An Instagram account with a high and low
number of followers was created. The number of followees (N = 320) and number of posts (N
= 366), was kept constant. After viewing the profile, participants read that the influencer
recently posted a picture on Instagram and participants were instructed to view the post
carefully. Divergence was manipulated by manipulating product design (Warren and
Campbell, 2014). To check manipulations, participants were asked if they found the
influencer had a very small (=1) versus very large (=7) amount of followers Product
divergence was measured by Warren et al.’s (2014) three-items scale (α = .88). Participants
had to evaluate whether the design “is different from the norm”, “is unique” and “shows
