Why are consumers following social media influencers on Instagram? Exploration of consumers’ motives for following influencers and the role of materialism

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of social media influencers (SMIs) and the clear value they hold for marketers, little is understood about the sociopsychological motives that drive consumers to follow them. The current research identified unique consumer motivations for following SMIs on Instagram and examined its association with important consumer behaviour outcomes (i.e. trust towards SMIs’ brand-related posts and frequency of purchasing SMI-recommended brands) as well as materialism. Based on survey data, findings revealed four motivations for following influencers on Instagram – authenticity, consumerism, creative inspiration, and envy – which had varying effects on trust and purchase frequency. Additionally, materialism was a significant individual difference variable that was strongly associated with the four motives, some of which served as key mediators underlying materialism’s impact on purchase behaviour. Managerial and theoretical implications for marketers and advertisers are discussed as well as suggestions for future research in this burgeoning area.

Keywords:

• Social media influencers
• Instagram
• Materialism
• Uses and gratifications
• Consumer behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jung Ah Lee

Jung Ah Lee is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Communication at Seoul National University. She is interested in consumers’ perceptions of and responses to various marketing practices on social media, including social media influencers. Her research spectrum ranges from exploring consumers’ motives for engaging in new media phenomenon to investigating key factors that impact buying behaviour. Her research has been published in Journal of Interactive Advertising, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Computers in Human Behavior, and Personality and Individual Differences.

Sabitha Sudarshan

Sabitha Sudarshan earned her Ph.D. at the Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include Human Computer Interaction, Digital Consumer Behavior and Computational Methods in Social Science. Her prior work has sought to expand scholarship in such varied contexts such as health communication, crisis communication in sports, mobile payment platforms and immersive video content. Her dissertational work examines what constitutes social capital wielded by online influencers, and the role of personality variables in follower-influencer interactions.

Kristen L. Sussman

Kristen L. Sussman is a doctoral student in the Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations at The University of Texas at Austin. Sussman is working to understand people and their behaviours in the area of computer-mediated communication, social media, and technology using computational social science methods. Her research contributes to scholarship examining media effects, privacy and political advertising, engagement and recall, and sequential advertising.

Laura F. Bright

Laura F. Bright is an Associate Professor of Advertising and Public Relations at The University of Texas at Austin. Bright’s research focuses on social media addiction and fatigue, big data and analytics, personalized advertising and digital privacy. Her work has been published in the Journal of Current Issues in Research and Advertising, the Journal of Marketing Communications, Computers in Human Behavior, Internet Research, the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Qualitative Market Research, and the Journal of Interactive Advertising, among others.

Matthew S. Eastin

Matthew S. Eastin is a Professor of Advertising and Public Relations at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Eastin’s research focuses on new media behaviour. From this perspective, he has investigated information processing as well as the social and psychological factors associated with involvement, new media adoption, and e-commerce. Dr. Eastin’s research can be found in the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Cyberpsychology & Behavior, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and Computers in Human Behavior, to name a few.