The traditional boundaries of a ‘celebrity’ are rapidly crumbling nowadays. An ordinary individual who posts a funny 10-second clip could become a star who is followed by millions just by the brink of a night. Such a widening pool of celebrities created a distinct group of individuals who are often identified as ‘influencers.’ Recently, those influencers have played another vital role in the development of the social media market. By becoming a live advertisement board, influencers attract a tremendous amount of financial input into the industry.
The technological development of the 21st century redirected consumers’ attention from traditional offline marketplaces to online shops. In fact, most people now tend to spend more money via internet purchases rather than by physical purchases at the store. Naturally, digital marketing followed the consumers’ footsteps into the digital realm. Such a practice involves the process where an online personality shapes consumers’ attitudes through tweets, posts, blogs or any other social media format communication. (Xiao et al, 2018) Despite the plethora of influencer marketing, the practicality and outcome of the use of viral influencers from the business perspective were relatively unambiguous.
Preliminarily, research shows a strong correlation between consumer exposure and influencer marketing. The Harvard Business Review highlights the fact that influencer marketing yields a positive Return on Investment ratio. (Harvard Business Review, 2022) Nevertheless, it might be yet hasty to reach a conclusion that viral marketing through influencers is fully performing the role of conventional marketing. Although it might differ by the individual influencers, influencers do not seem to be effectively converting consumer interest into a purchasing decision. In particular, influencer marketing fails to yield positive purchasing decisions when it relates to high-value products (de Oliveira, 2021) This could be attributed to the fact that many young generations, the principal target range of viral marketing, do not deduce trustworthiness from the involvement of influencers. (L Gajanova, 2020) From the perspective of marketing a specific product for sales, influencer marketing may have to be approached with subtleness.
As Sudha and Sheena point out, three factors – reach, relevance and resonance – are crucial factors which influencer marketing derives its value from. (Sudha and Sheena) In such terms, influencer marketing may not be relevant to a wide range of consumers due to their fixed character, which often appeals to a specific class of viewers. It could also be suggested that the downfalls of influencer marketing is an inherent matter which is not limited to influencers. Considering traditional celebrity marketing, it is also difficult to deduce a clear correlation between consumer confidence in a particular product and a celebrity’s presence. As de Oliveira suggests, it is external factors such as price and consumer purchase power which also wield a significant influence on consumer decisions.
Influencer marketing is a vibrantly developing practice. The use of influencers as a medium of advertisement poses an attractive choice to a wide range of businesses due to its relatively lower costs and ease of marketing. However, to perfect the outcome of using influencer marketing, it is essential to be much keen on strategically targeting the consumers and choosing the appropriate influencer which conforms to the specific business aims. In general, the rise of influencer marketing will continue; as time progresses, marketing techniques will develop, and influencers themselves will become stronger marketers.
