Influencer Marketing on Instagram: Purchase Intention and Credibility

Abstract

The influencer marketing on the Instagram industry's resemblance to customers' purchase intention and engagement has attributed to the industry's predicted growth of $15 billion by 2022. This prediction would signify an $8 billion rise from 2019. The most common rationale for this industry is an emergence in customer purchase intention and engagement with a company due to its association with influencers. Previous research has primarily relied on metrics, such as followers, likes, and comments, and thus has been unable to disentangle changes in which indicators transform the end consumer's purchase intention and engagement – a potentially crucial indicator of the strategy companies should use to increase their purchases and engagement on social media. The research relies on data from prestige scholars to decompose the indicators in the correlation between purchase intention and engagement and its contribution to the influencer industry on Instagram into parts due to (a) growth of the influencer marketing on Instagram in the U.S., and (b) changes in the usage of influencer marketing on companies marketing strategy. Expertise, Trustworthiness, Likability, Source Credibility, Information, and Entertainment were the indicators applied to measure the process of Purchase Intention and Engagement. The findings of the study exhibit that influencer marketing has a considerable impact on the purchase intention and engagement of Instagram users in the United States. However, it was discovered that consumers are more likely to purchase based on knowledge rather than entertainment, and engagement demonstrates the same tendency.