Influencer werden in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung seit einigen Jahren zunehmend präsenter. Sie sind besonders einflussreiche Social-Media-Nutzer mit hohen Reichweiten und deshalb attraktive Kooperationspartner für Werbung. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht Formen der Zusammenarbeit zwischen Influencern und Bibliotheken mit dem Ziel, künftig Hilfestellung zur Einführung erfolgreicher Kooperationen zu bieten. Die Formenvielfalt der Zusammenarbeit wird an konkreten Beispielen aus der bibliothekarischen Praxis dargestellt. Dazu wurden Experteninterviews mit Bibliotheksmitarbeitern und Influencern geführt, die bereits zusammengearbeitet haben. Die Bandbreite reicht von monatlichen Buchempfehlungen einer Influencerin in der Stadtbibliothek Greifswald bis zum etablierten #blogsofa der Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf. Auch Beispiele aus Buchhandlungen werden einbezogen. Es wird deutlich, dass jede Bibliothek mit Influencern kooperieren kann und je nach individuellen Ressourcen verschiedene Formen möglich sind. In einem Leitfaden für die Praxis werden sechs Schritte erläutert, welche die Einführung erfolgreicher Kooperationen künftig unterstützen können. Angesprochen sind vor allem Social-Media-Beauftragte in Bibliotheken, aber auch das interessierte Fachpublikum. Die Ergebnisse sind für alle Bibliothekstypen relevant, Beispiele mit Öffentlichen Bibliotheken überwiegen jedoch. Ebenso ist die Arbeit für Influencer von Interesse, die eine entsprechende Zusammenarbeit anstreben.

As an emerging group that wields its increasing influence through social media, social media influencers (SMIs) have continued to grow as a key component of firms’ digital marketing strategies. However, several aspects of SMIs merit attention: their personal characteristics, content features, and how they influence consumers’ decision-making as well as online engagement. By using the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) model together with theories of social connection and social influence, this dissertation reveals the influence of SMIs on consumer behaviors in tourism and hospitality contexts by investigating travel SMIs’ influencing stimuli, mechanisms, and audience responses. Study 1 extracts topics from comments on posts created by two travel SMIs from different cultures; identifies these SMIs’ personal characteristics and content features; and uncovers how travel SMIs wield social connection, value-expressive influence, and informational influence from a cross-cultural perspective. Study 2 includes a pair of sub-studies that quantitatively examine travel SMIs’ marketing effectiveness and unveil associated mechanisms by focusing on social influence theory (i.e., value-expressive and informational influences). Topic modeling, netnographic analysis with social media data, and experimental designs are adopted to achieve all research objectives. Findings extend the understanding of travel SMIs’ influencing processes in consumers’ decision making/online engagement and provide practical implications for applying SMI marketing in tourism and hospitality. / Tourism and Sport

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An over-commercialized society has made consumers prefer the opinions of influential people in online settings. Companies have a harder time reaching consumers and therefore turn to social media influencers (SMIs) for exposure. With the growth of influencer marketing, regulations and guidelines in Sweden have been put in place to ensure consumers integrity. SMIs and companies are required to disclose paid partnerships. However, many companies have the perception that truthful marketing can affect consumers brand perception negatively. Research based on consumer brand perception and disclosed paid partnerships between SMIs and companies have not previously been explored. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore how consumers perceive brands when SMIs disclose paid partnerships. In order to gather consumers ́ brand perception when SMIs and companies collaborate, a qualitative study using focus groups was conducted, where the participants thoughts and opinions have been studied. The findings of this thesis indicate that the communication and characteristics of SMIs influences consumers brand perception. The factors analyzed were: influence of SMIs, content, trust and truthfulness. The factors were important for how consumers perceive the SMI and brand of companies. The most important implication of this thesis is that the study can be of use for companies that seek to collaborate with SMIs when the aim is to reach target groups and enhance brand perception.

This Bachelors essay aims to investigate the interaction and relationships between young, Swedish YouTube viewers and the YouTubers they watch from a parasocial point of view, and further discuss the role of these relationships in influencer marketing on YouTube. Moreover, we examine the general effectiveness of influencer marketing through an audience perspective. What follows below is a mainly quantitative survey study, with a strain of qualitative data. The investigation and the discussion that follows, is largely based on Horton and Wohl’s concept of Parasocial Interaction, alongside Word of Mouth theories including Influencer Marketing. Reflecting over the results, our general conclusion is that Parasocial Interaction seems to occur on YouTube and that YouTubers’ recommendations affect, rather than determine consumer behaviour. Furthermore, PSI does play a role in both our sample group’s general YouTube consumption, and the effectiveness of influencer marketing according to the findings in this study.

Background: Brand loyalty is an essential asset for brands as it helps brands to build a strong brand. Therefore, brands invest a significant amount of money in their marketing efforts and strategies to create and maintain brand loyalty in an ever-competitive market. One of these strategies is social media marketing, or more precisely, influencer marketing. Before influencer marketing arose, as it is known today, brands used celebrity endorsements to market the brand. However, as influencer marketing increased in popularity for brand endorsements, celebrity endorsement became less sought after and can be considered equal in their characteristics due to their fame and well-known personality. Prior research has not investigated how influencer endorsement impacts brand loyalty, therefore, this thesis applied the concept of celebrity endorsement in the context of influencer marketing and thereby treated influencers as celebrities due to their similar characteristics. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explain the impact of influencers endorsement on brand loyalty. Methodology: This study used a deductive and quantitative approach and had an explanatory purpose and a cross-sectional research design. This study also presented a new model including three hypotheses that assumed a positive impact of the characteristics of an influencer’s endorsement on brand loyalty. The data collection was done through a self-completion questionnaire distributed online, which resulted in 104 valid responses. Findings: The findings of this study is that all the hypotheses (H1, H2, H3) are found insignificant in the all model (Model 5). This is because the hypotheses were rejected since the significance level of the ANOVA-test showed that the model was not significant as the significance level was above the accepted level (p<0.05). Hence,  no significant evidence can come from this study.  Conclusion: The conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that no significant relationship was found between the concepts of authenticity, credibility, and trustworthiness on brand loyalty, and based on these variables, influencer endorsements do not have an impact on brand loyalty.

This thesis is aiming at investigating how macro social media influencers are affecting the consumer’s behavior of an individual within the cosmetic industry, with the outlined question: How do macro social media influencers affect consumers' behavior in the cosmetics industry? This thesis considers notions within community, social media influencers and consumers’ behavior field. An abductive qualitative research approach has been selected for this research, where data was gathered through individual semi-structured interviews, semi-structured focus groups, and semi-structured observations. Moreover, collected data from the individual and focus groups was analyzed based on the thematic coding approach, as well as in accordance with the presented analytical framework. The thesis concludes that macro social media influencers affect consumers’ behavior through their content and formed communities, to consume more and repeatedly, desire to reach a certain experience through consumption or behave in a certain manner individually or collectively.

Syftet med den här studien är att skapa en förståelse kring hur kvinnor inom generation Z:s attityder till mode och kläder påverkas av influencer marketing som marknadsföringsstrategi. Det grundar sig i att det har identifierats ett antal kunskapsgap som att det saknas forskning på generation Z som konsumenter och även inom fenomenet influencer marketing. Dessutom på förändrade digitala konsumentbeteenden i och med pandemin Covid-19. Vidare har en framtidsanalys presenterats för att försöka täcka upp för de kunskapsgap som identifierats. Resultaten från studien visar att kvinnorna inom generation Z:s attityder till mode och kläder i högsta grad påverkas av influencer marketing. Då de dagligen använder sig av sociala medier och det faktum att det har kommit att bli en normalitet inom generationen att söka efter inspiration till mode och kläder via influencers på sociala medier. Attityder gentemot företag och influencers inom klädbranschen och således mot mode samt kläder påverkas också av faktorer som en influencers tillit och expertis. Det vill säga, generationen följer influencers de anser som pålitliga och de med tillräckligt hög genomslagskraft ses då även som pålitliga även i andra områden. Vilket innebär att företag som samarbetar med “rätt” influencers hamnar inom konsumenternas radar och i och med det kan påverka attityderna åt sin fördel.

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Influencer marketing and celebrity endorsement has grown in the past years and has become a vital part of marketing in the fashion industry. This field has been well researched, however a gap in the research is the focus on men and the role brand love has. The purpose of this study has been to enhance the understanding of how brand love influences men’s perception when exposed to influencer marketing and celebrity endorsement on Instagram. Additionally, the aim was to examine if influencer marketing or celebrity endorsement was most appropriate when marketing brands.    The method for this thesis was a qualitative approach by interviewing men in focus groups. The empirical findings were analyzed together with the literature in order to find thematics. The conclusions from the analysis was men do not experience brand love in the same capacity as the literature describes. However their emotional preferences and connections can still influence how they view brands being marketed on Instagram by an influencer or celebrity endorser. Men tend to trust celebrity endorsement more compared to influencer marketing regardless of gender, as they are viewed as more professional aligned with source credibility. However, the empirical findings showed men do not feel a need for male influencers. A reason why brands need to rethink marketing through endorsers.