Micro-influencers on Instagram: Credibility, trust and engagement regarding sustainability

• Autor(a) principal: Simão, Ana Carolina Pão Mole Asper
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/30316
• topic: Media sociais -- Social media; Instagram; Influenciadores digitais -- Digital influencers; Micro-influencers; Confiança -- Trust; Credibility; Engagement; Sustentabilidade -- Sustainability; Credibilidade

Social media networks emerged years ago, although brands only started to use them as part of their marketing strategy more recently due to their exponential growth of users. As the number of eyeballs skyrocketed, brands also noticed a growth in users with a large following, capable of influencing their public and generating greater confidence in their shared content — so-called influencers-, especially on Instagram. Understanding the commercial potential of these influencers, brands use them in order to advertise their products or services, which has been proven to be very successful. Influencers are categorized in several ways, depending on their number of followers. The focus of this study will be on micro-influencers, who have a smaller number of followers – 10.000 to 100.000 followers - but demonstrate being more trustworthy and credible, which typically translates to higher engagement rates. It has also been observed that sustainability is increasingly in the social media spotlight. This dissertation aims to study how Instagram users trust, give credibility to and engage with micro-influencers regarding a sustainable lifestyle inspired by them, exploring the keywords and contributions given by other authors. Based on interviews with a sample of 25 women aged between 18 and 30 years old, it was possible to conclude that the trust and credibility that consumers give to micro-influencers is the same as that they give to macro-influencers, it depends solely on the content and the influencers themselves. Interestingly, it was also concluded that consumers interact more with micro-influencers This study contributes to existing knowledge on the role of micro-influencers in the broader social media paradigm.