The emergence and role of the Influencer in online marketing campaigns: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis
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Date
2023
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University of the Western Cape
Abstract
Since the advancement of social media came the birth of influencer marketing. Within this digital setting, this paper explores the emergence and evolution of the influencer within social media marketing, i.e1, the rise of individual users with the power to influence consumer buying behaviour, create vast brand awareness, and increase distribution rates for businesses due to their online presence. This type of marketing is known worldwide today as influencer marketing, an individual or group of individuals who leverage their online presence to influence consumer markets. Investigating the impact of influencers on commercial companies and potential buyer behaviour is increasingly required to better understand the correlation between influencer(s) (whether authentic or not) and consumers and the direct impact on consumer markets and buying behaviour. This research paper investigates two distinct case studies that use influencer marketing to appeal to the greater public to gain sales and grow their businesses. The first case study focuses on the international e-commerce retail giant Revolve Clothing and a particularly controversial incident regarding its chosen influencers for marketing campaigns in 2018. The second case study centres on the failed luxury music event known as the Fyre Festival. These two case studies are used as a backdrop to solicit responses from online users concerning their perception of the events and the influencers. This solicitation was conducted through an online questionnaire from approximately 30-50 individuals around the world through the means of snowball sampling. The questionnaire covers consumer behaviour on Twitter and Instagram, investigating its impact on commercial companies. The study employs a multisemiotic discourse analysis as the chief analytical framework for this study to explore participants’ responses to the influencer culture of these two case studies.
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Keywords
Influencer, influencer marketing digital media online consumerism social media marketing discourse analysis