A New Study Finds That Social Media Influencers’ Sponsorship Disclosures Decrease Engagement.
With the popularity of social media, businesses selling goods and services have utilized it as an effective branding and communication tool. The value of influencers has risen in recent years, owing to the growing power of social media. In fact, by 2022, influencer marketing expenditures by businesses are expected to reach $16 billion.
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Brands use influencer marketing to communicate with target markets through a voice consumers trust covertly. This type of marketing allows brands to mask advertising and persuasion attempts.
Recent research published in the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice by Parker Woodroof, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Collat School of Business, examined the relationship between pet influencers’ marketing and social media interaction behaviors influenced by particular textual and visual signals within sponsored postings.
Woodroof’s study discovered that references to sponsorships, brand logos, and overall sponsorship saturation hamper social media interaction in pet influencer marketing. The reason for this research, according to Woodroof, is a desire for additional information on various influencer marketing methods that have yet to be studied in a central marketplace. They picked the pet business because there was no existing data on this topic when they began their work.
“There are many different contexts that need to be explored, including pet and virtual influencers, to see if there are differences between these and human influencers,” he said. “Considering the fact that pet influencers like Grumpy Cat can build a $100 million empire from advertising and merchandise via sponsored posts, we figured it was a good idea to look into this type of influencer.”
Woodroof explains that many brands have gone through tough times in recent years and are using influencers to rebuild trust.
“It’s been shown that consumers trust influencers just as much as friends and family, and not only are pet influencers perceived as trustworthy, but they are also more cost-effective for brands relative to humans,” Woodroof said. “More research should go into pet influencer marketing because it appears to be a sustainable way for brands to communicate their messages through extremely trustworthy voices.”
According to Woodroof, pet influencers are a hopeful sign for the future of influencer marketing since they are less expensive than human influencers. His report examines how they may create pet influencer advertising posts to drive social media interaction.
“These findings should be well received by brands that partner with these social media influencers,” he said. “They offer insights for brands seeking to create content that generates higher levels of engagement.”
The study’s implications are far-reaching because the data collected indicates that people respond better to persuasion when unaware. This will continue to be a limiting factor for brands trying to sell their products, so they’ll have to get more creative in how they market themselves.
“There is a fine line between covert advertising and manipulation, and those are some of the tactics that have contributed to the distrust of brands,” Woodroof said. “Therefore, brands must be very careful with how they are designing these influencer campaigns because, although consumers trust influencers right now, they may not always.”
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