Influencers and followers - partners in crime?: A study of influencers’ usage of a marketing communication strategy to build a relationship with their followers

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Bachelor Thesis

HALMSTAD

International Marketing Programme, 180 credits

Influencers and followers - partners in crime?

A study of influencers’ usage of a marketing

communication strategy to build a relationship with their followers

Bachelor Thesis in Business Economics, 15 credits

Halmstad 2019-05-29

Amanda Sundquist, Anna Fredriksson

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Preface

This thesis in business economics with focus on international marketing is written during the third, and last year, of our bachelor education, both in Sweden and New Zealand. With hard work and a lot of engagement we have gained knowledge to make a contribution for the marketing and influencer business. We have created a bigger awareness about the subjects that have been processed; influencer marketing, relationship marketing and marketing communication strategies.

We want to thank the influencers involved who have helped us collect all the qualitative data needed to complete the study. We are grateful that you wanted to share your thoughts about the work you do regarding influencer marketing and relations with your followers. We also want to thank our supervisor Navid Ghannad for good feedback and advice during the process. Last but not least, we want to thank each other for a great collaboration and much dedication to achieve the best possible results. We have taken advantage of each other’s knowledge and strengths to share thoughts and push ourselves during ups and downs. We hope this study will be interesting and useful for everyone who takes part of its content.

Halmstad, 2019-05-29

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Title: Influencers and followers - partners in crime? A study of influencers’ usage of a marketing communication strategy to build a relationship with their followers.

Date: 2019-05-29 Level: Bachelor thesis

Authors: Amanda Sundquist and Anna Fredriksson Supervisor: Navid Ghannad

Examiner: Svante Andersson

Abstract

Influencer marketing is today a well-known marketing strategy used by many companies and the phenomenon is growing day by day. This is mostly a strategy with the spotlight on how the company can reach their consumers through famous people on social medias, not with focus on what relationship is created between all the parties. This study has the purpose to create a better understanding of how influencers use a marketing communication strategy to build a relationship with their target groups. To delimitate the research the focus will be on Instagram as a platform for influencers to work on. To get an answer on the purpose, a qualitative case study consisting of three interviews with influencers, together with three complementary content studies have been executed.

The theories used in the study are influencer marketing along with a marketing communication strategy and relationship marketing model. These are the foundation and the theoretical framework for the study and used to investigate the influencer - follower relationship from the perspective of the influencer.

The collected data presents a result that shows that influencers are concerned about their relationship to the followers and are dedicated to improve this. They all see a meaningful gain in creating a long-term relationship with respect and trust shown from both parties. The influencers are in some ways conscious about their usage of marketing communication strategies and in some ways not. We can see similarities and differences between all the influencers regarding all theories. The differences can depend on various nationalities among the respondents and inequality in the number of followers.

As a conclusion and theoretical contribution from this study we claim that several parts of the marketing communication strategy used can have a direct impact on specific parts of the relationship marketing model used in this research. Influencers and companies who are aware of these factors may have a bigger chance of success.

Keywords: marketing communication strategy, relationship marketing, social media, Instagram, influencer and followers.

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1. Introduction

This chapter consists of an introduction of the area that has been studied including background and problem discussion. Further on, the importance of the study is discussed along with the purpose of the research and definitions.

1.1 Background

Today, the purpose of social media has shifted. Before, it was platforms you would visit in order to stay updated with your friends’ and families’ life, but today it is not only that. People now follow brands, businesses and persons that are found interesting, on their social medias which opens up new opportunities for companies and people in their professional lives. (Sofi, 2018) Social media marketing is marketing being done online through different kinds of social media platforms. By doing this, companies will set up and reach new marketing objectives.

Social media marketing often consists out of pictures, videos and/or texts that are shared via social platforms with the purpose to market something. Advertising on social platforms also goes under the concept of social media marketing. (Husain, Ghufran, & Chaubey, 2016) According to Husain, Ghufran, and Chaubey (2016) it is not a given win for a company to start using social media marketing without a plan. For it to be beneficial to the company you must incorporate it to the marketing strategy. If you implement social media successfully to your marketing strategy it is a strong chance it could be to the company's advantage. For example, it is proven that social media is highly influential when it comes to customers making their buying decision when purchasing something. (Husain, Ghufran, & Chaubey, 2016) Sofi (2018) also agrees that by incorporating social media marketing in companies’ strategies there are a lot of benefits to collect. By using social media, relationships can be built with customers which increases loyalty, but it also results in higher quality in service from the company. (Sofi, 2018) Social media marketing is shown advantageous for today's companies but of course it has its downsides too. Social media is not just a platform for companies but also for its customers.

Anyone can comment their opinion regarding the business, positive as well as negative. Social media brings the opportunity for unsatisfied customers to raise their voice and share their less pleasant experience with their network, without the company having any say in the matter. It is important for companies to not ignore their unsatisfied customers on social media even though it can be time consuming dealing with them. By taking the time and responding they can stop the negative spiral and quick word-of-mouth effect. (Khanna & Mishra, 2018; Whiting

& Deshpande, 2016)

Examples of social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. These platforms have become very popular and the usage is high. For example, in Sweden 2018, there were as much as 83% out of all people that uses internet who said they visit social media platforms. (Svenskar och internet, 2018) Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform globally where users spend the most time compared to similar sites (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016).

Instagram started in October 2010 and on the launch day no more than 25 000 people wanted to be a part of the new platform and signed up. (Instagram info center, 2010) Instagram is a

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mobile app you can download for free and share photos and videos with your followers as well as like and comment on other people’s photos. (Instagram help center, 2019) Instagram grew and in April 2012 it was announced that Facebook bought Instagram for 1 billion dollars (Lidén, 2012). Since 2010, more people have joined the platform and in April 2017, Instagram celebrated 700 million users (Instagram info center, 2017).

On social medias like Instagram you can find influencers. Influencers are people who work with sales and marketing to affect their network through posts on social medias. They are opinion leaders and motivators who work to make people think, like and act, often by buying products or services (United Influencers, n.d.; Framtid.se, n.d.). When companies use influencers as a part of their marketing it is called influencer marketing. (Influencer Marketinghub, n.d) Influencer marketing is a relatively new phenomenon which has grown tremendously over the last couple of years as social media platforms have become more popular and are now a part of many people's daily lives. The increasing popularity is shown in the diagram below (Google Trend, 2019). During 2017, the companies in Sweden spent around 650 million Swedish crowns on influencer marketing and the number was predicted to grow during 2018. According to a survey done by World Federation of Advertisers, 95 % of the companies in Sweden plan to spend as much as they have done earlier or more. (Frick, 2018) Instagram is one of the most frequently used social media platform for influencer marketing (Business of apps, 2019).

Diagram 1. Google Trend, subject: Influencer marketing. (Retrieved: 2019-03-06).

Something that connects companies, influencers and social medias is relationship marketing.

This is a well-known marketing strategy that has been used for decades and includes all the stakeholders around a company. (Rasul, 2018) Studies have shown that companies need to maintain the connection to the consumers and consider them as long-term partners instead of one-time buyers. This will increase their profit and create more value for the customers.

(Keskar & Pranay, 2018; Grönroos, 2017; Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017; Morgan & Hunt, 1994)

1.2 Problem discussion

Marketing and advertising is a part of our culture, today more than ever because of the digitalization and the social medias. People are affected by the vision of how you should be,

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look, think and act, often based on how public people are (Birknerová, Frankovský, Zbihlejová

& Parová, 2018). One place where people show themselves and expresses their opinions is on social medias. This has come to be a platform companies take advantage of and use influencers as a communication strategy, called influencer marketing. Influencer marketing becomes more and more common among companies. Studies show that more marketing managers will invest in that kind of marketing the upcoming years. Some people claim that it might be the most significant trend within digital communication. (Charest, Bouffard & Zajmovic, 2016) A reason for the expanding popular trend might be the connection between the parties within this marketing strategy. The companies have a closer bond to the influencers and the influencers with their networks. The marketing gets more personal and more focused on the right segments.

(Wolf & Archer, 2018) According to Musonera (2018), 78 % of the influencers prefer Instagram as the platform for brand collaboration which is a large majority and shows where they in the best way can do their businesses.

In today’s society, no one can deny the power of consumers and social medias. Because of this, a marketing strategy called relationship marketing has come to be even more important, even though it has been used for many decades. (Rasul, 2018) Saebnia, Feizi and Hasanzadeh (2017) claim that this subject increasingly has been studied in universities with marketing programs but basically all of the researches are about the relationship between company and consumer.

Few of the studies actually discuss the importance of other stakeholders, like influencers.

Relationship marketing is defined as all the actions taken by a company to assure better recognition and to deliver better service and value to the customers (Zebardast Gashti &

Chirani, 2017). Saebnia et al. (2017) also add the importance of retaining successful exchange of value in the relationship. The mission is to establish long term relationships with the consumers instead of creating new ones, considering it is five times more expensive to attract new customers. (Grönroos, 2017; Saebnia, Feizi & Hasanzadeh, 2017)

In order for companies to use social media for their marketing and relationship building successfully they must incorporate it in to their marketing strategy. (Husain, Ghufran, &

Chaubey, 2016) Marketing communication strategy is something companies develop to communicate their marketing in order to reach the marketing objective. Roughly a marketing communication strategy can be divided into four different parts: positioning, audience, platform and configuration. All parts circle around the audience by identifying a target group, how you position the company in their mind, strategies on how to make the customers take a buying decision, selecting a platform and how you send out your marketing. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016) By identifying who your audience is, the company can easier target their marketing and through that be more efficient and profitable (Martin, 2011). However, it is also important to remember that the communication between a customer and a company does not necessarily need to be a one-way communication. The customers have gained a bigger power in the communication exchange and should not be seen as passive in this kind of communication.

(Finne & Strandvik, 2012)

We experience a gap in previous researches that must be filled since influencer- and relationship marketing are anticipated to be two of the main marketing strategies in the near

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future. Influencer marketing is predicted to grow during the following years (Frick, 2018) as well as relationship marketing (Payne & Frow, 2017). Most of the studies that are completed, are with an aim to examine consumers buying behaviour and perception of marketing and advertising (Jackson & Ahuja, 2016). Regarding the relationship marketing, the accomplished studies are very limited and often concerning companies and consumers, and not the influencers. Scientists find that there are several reasons why this is a relevant subject that is in need of more elaborate theoretical studies (Hütten, Salge, Niemand & Siems, 2018; Agariya and Singh, 2011; Verma, Sharma & Sheth, 2015). There are few researchers that look at the actual connection between the relationships and influencers which Wolf and Archer (2018) consider important. Neither, we cannot find anyone examining the marketing strategy from an influencer’s perspective. How do they work and what strategies do they use?

Since many companies today use social medias, influencers and relationship marketing, often combined, it is important for them to understand how these marketing strategies are connected (SnapAgency, 2019). This knowledge is believed to go hand in hand with success in marketing communication and the importance of understanding this will be significant to know for the companies applying these methods (Husain, Ghufran, & Chaubey, 2016). This study will also be of great importance for the growing trend of influencer marketing (Google Trend, 2019;

Wolf & Archer, 2018) and for the companies using influencers as communicators along with relationship marketing (Wolf & Archer, 2018).

This research is significant for consumers to take part of since a large part of the population use social medias (Svenskar och internet, 2018; Google Trend, 2019) and is involved in some kind of relationship with either companies (Sofi, 2018) or influencers. For the society, influencer marketing is important considering it creates a new kind of enterprise. Today there are even high schools in Sweden that offer educations to become an influencer. (Thurfjell, 2018) Whoever wants to start an own company as an influencer can do it (Sandell, 2018). There is no need for a large capital, you just need a social media account, find your niche, create a recognition factor and a network that can help you get in contact with brands (Veckans affärer, 2016). The larger encourage of entrepreneurship is important for the development of a country and results in higher socio-economic benefits (Entreprenörskapsforum, 2018) and decreased unemployment (European Commission, 2019).

Influencer marketing, communication and relationship marketing are all commonly used strategies within marketing and well-known by a lot of companies. Though, there is missing some research about the strategies united and therefore, this is the theoretical foundation for this thesis. The focus will be on the Instagram influencers perspective since that is the most recent developed phenomenon and a huge trend in today’s society.

1.3 Purpose

The purpose of the study is to gain a better understanding of how influencers use a marketing communication strategy on Instagram to build a relationship with their target groups.

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2. Theoretical framework

In this chapter, the literature review with previous researches are presented along with the theoretical references used in this study. Subjects as influencer marketing, marketing communication strategy and relationship marketing will be discussed.

2.1 Influencer marketing

Every day we experience commercials and advertising from all around and it has an influence in all contexts. Marketing has a strong impact on both our consciousness and subconsciousness since it has become a part of our culture and affects the norms and values that our culture stands for. (Birknerová, Frankovský, Zbihlejová & Parová, 2018) Influencer marketing is about responding to a need for information and communication in an interested community and affecting the decision-making process of a network. What is crucial if influencers succeed influencing people is if they bring added value and have knowledge about the industry, brand or product that they want to share. The content that the influencers publish must be trustworthy and relevant to the network. For the companies it is important to identify the right influencers before working on a content strategy. (Charest, Bouffard & Zajmovic, 2016) Charest et al.

(2016) claim that influencer marketing is “the most significant trend in the evolution of digital communication” (p. 536) and Wolf and Archer (2018) agree with the prediction of increased use of this marketing strategy. Based on a research by the authors, they show that most marketing managers are willing to integrate influencers in their social media strategies to better interact with their customers and adapt the content to their needs and demand. Influencer marketing enable a two-way communication between the organizations and the customers that often is valuable for the companies. (Charest, Bouffard & Zajmovic, 2016)

Something that differs influencer marketing from standard advertising is the connection between companies and their influencers and in turn, the influencers with their subscribers.

Fast growing influencer marketing changes business models and challenges even the most experienced marketing managers since the best practise use of influencers is a not yet developed. It is slowly evolving process. (Wolf & Archer, 2018) Bell (2012) claim that the best practise of Influencer marketing is to have a brand or a product that can create a buzz around the business. Individual influencers have a big impact on companies and consumers (Wolf &

Archer, 2018). To gain a profit and create a meaningful cooperation with the influencers, companies need to be creative to connect with people in a meaningful way (Bell, 2012).

Companies need to be alert and react quick as soon as influencers posts something about the company or the product. It can either be positive marketing and a collaboration between the organization and the influencer. Then it is interesting for the company to know the response from the audience. On the other hand, it can also be negative publishment if the post is critique and the receipt is bad. Then the company need to answer right away to avoid the negativity to go viral. (Agostino & Sidorova, 2017)

Influencer marketing is today a very unregulated marketing strategy. A more regulatory approach would be focused on paid-for-content, where the influencer gets paid for the posts.

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This approach ignores the possibility of contra deals where the exchange instead could be gifts, travels or experiences. The regulatory approach loses some focus from the collaboration and the long-term relationship building. The current regulations also make it hard for the percipient to distinguish whether it is the influencer’s own opinion or the company’s. Does the influencer have the freedom to express its own preferences or is it written by a strict, non-negotiable script by the company behind? (Wolf & Archer, 2018)

2.1.1 Influencers

There are many different definitions of what an influencer is, and the concept has changed over time. Back in time celebrity endorsement was what we today call influencer marketing. Famous people like artists, movie stars and sport icons, inspired and affected others to purchase specific products or brands. This is also what influencers do today, but they do not have to be famous for anything else than their social media profiles. (Influencer Marketinghub, n.d) Influencers are people who work with sales and marketing to affect their network through posts on social medias. They are opinion leaders and motivators who work to make people think, like and act, often by buying products or services (United Influencers, n.d.; Framtid.se, n.d.). Influencers can also add value in something that he or she claim to have knowledge in since they often are seen as opinion leaders (Charest Ph.Da, Bouffard & Zajmovic, 2016). “Influencer” is a concept including profiles on all social medias like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and blogs.

(Framtid.se, n.d.) Nowadays it is important to know the audience and the recipient of the marketing to reach the right target group and in the right way (Birknerová, Frankovský, Zbihlejová & Parová, 2018).

2.1.2 Influencer marketing on Instagram

Instagram, the social media platform where most of the influencer marketing occur, is an app where photos are posted with a lot of opportunities for filters to make the photos more appealing. The photos are the main means of communication and has become one of the most favoured communication for modern young individuals. (Yi-Ting & Sheng-Fang, 2018) Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform globally where users spend the most time compared to similar sites (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). A study done by Sheldon and Bryant (2016) shows that surveillance/knowledge about others, documentation, coolness, and creativity are the main reasons to use Instagram. The most followed profiles on Instagram are celebrities, who often publish posts containing marketing communication messages from companies to their subscribers. People can consider profiles with a large number of followers as trustworthy and attractive. They see celebrity endorsement and influencers as credible sources and rely on the information they share since the followers see it as significant. Further back in time the celebrities were mostly movie stars, artists and sport icons but today there are also a new type of celebrity, called digital celebrities. Those can be ‘bloggers’, ‘vloggers’ and

‘Instafamous’ personalities. (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017)

Since Instagram is a platform available with mobile units almost all over the world and easy to reach, marketers’ interest in using it for advertising increases (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017).

With a reach of 60 % of the Swedish internet users, companies can reach a large amount of

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audience and potential consumers (Svenskar och internet, 2018). Earlier studies have shown that people perceive Instagram and other social medias as essential information channels and that validate its effectiveness. The followers must have respect and a genuine interest in an influencer or celebrity to get influenced by it. All the impressions users experience online, especially of positive pictures, make their online self- esteem increase and that often lead to lower self-control. A consequence of this is spontaneous spending and impulse purchasing (Thoumrungroje, 2014; Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017). The purpose of influencer marketing is to add value to a brand, product or a service or to build brand equity. Since the company behind will be associated with the influencer it will gain attractiveness and credibility. If the online influencer is in line with the brand, it will have more credibility than ‘original’

celebrities. (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017)

2.2 Marketing communication strategy

Chris Fill, author, lecturer and consultant in marketing communication and Dr Sarah Turnbull (2016) suggest that the concept of a marketing communication strategy can be interpreted in many different ways. Generally speaking though, a communication strategy exists to help a company achieve its marketing and communication objective that is related to the company’s customers in some way. This can be done in four different ways according to them; positioning, audience, platform and configuration. The strategy can involve them separately or in a mixture of two or more. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016) This will be used as a template for this research regarding marketing communication strategy.

2.2.1 Market segmentation and positioning

Market segmentation and positioning can help a company by identifying which markets that are the most profitable and also help the company be more efficient. Market segmentation means that you divide the market into a smaller group which you can target. This group or

"segment" consists of consumers similar to each other, which means that the company can easier focus their marketing because they know which persons are at the receiving end and their individual needs. (Martin, 2011) Market segmentation can be divided into four categories;

demographics, geographic, psychographic and behavioural. Factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, education and line of work falls under demographics. Geographic segmentation is about consumers’ location such as city and country. Another part that is important to take into account when choosing a market segmentation is consumers’ lifestyles, self-image, attitudes, etc which is the psychographic segmentation. Behavioural segmentation involves how often and how the consumer use the company’s product, does the consumer have high brand-loyalty?

What is it that the segment likes about the thing we are selling? (Solomon, Bamossy, Askegaard

& Hogg, 2013; Martin, 2011) Target marketing selection means that you decide which segment you want to focus on for you company and put the marketing resources to. For example, the segment you choose may consist of young girls in their teenage years who likes fashion. With this information you can figure out their needs and what brings them value in order to get the most out of your marketing. In other words, your marketing communication strategy should be built around what your target segment value, how they see themselves and who they strive to

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be. When you have selected your target market the next step is positioning. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016)

Positioning is about how the customers in your target segment perceive the brand and manage what position the brand have in their mind (Claudiu-Cătălin, 2014). With your marketing communication strategy, you want to create a good picture of the brand in the consumers mind in order for them to apply high value. This is important, especially if the brand operates in a competitive market, to gain competitive advantages against the other parties. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016) If you are able to successfully position your brand in the consumers’ minds it can be beneficial to the company in many different ways. Not only will the consumers choose your product over another, but also, it will increase the brand equity. Positioning can be divided into three different parts. First, we have the intended positioning, which is how the company intends to position itself in the consumers’ minds. Next is the actual positioning. This is the company’s actual positioning which is how the company mediate their intended positioning to the customers. This can, for example, be done through advertising. The last one is the perceived positioning. This is how the consumers’ position the company’s brand in their minds after they have perceived their positioning. The perceived positioning can be different since all humans are different and have different values and backgrounds. This affects how they will perceive a company’s advertising and then position the brand differentially in their minds. (Fuchs &

Diamantopoulos, 2010)

2.2.2 Audience

Pull- and push strategies are different strategies on how, when and where you use your marketing communication in order to get the consumers to make a buying decision. Normally a company rarely just use one of these strategies but more so a mix of them. The consumer can be business-to-business consumer or a private consumer. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016)

A pull strategy means that the company reach out to the consumer to raise awareness about the product and to stimulate a buying decision. The consumer then goes to a store, or the company’s own site with no intermediary, and buys the product that the company is offering. (Fill &

Turnbull, 2016) This kind of strategy works for example well when consumers have a high loyalty towards the company and its products. (Efanny, Haryanto, Kashif & Widyanto, 2018) Pull strategy has been reported growing lately in line with social media marketing growing.

Since consumers now tend to be the ones who look up companies, actively liking their pictures and wanting to build relationships on social media platforms, a pull strategy on social media is becoming more popular. (Talpau, 2014) By using social media the company are creating a demand from the customers without having to go an extra way through a reseller. (Efanny, Haryanto, Kashif & Widyanto, 2018)

A push strategy on the other hand is about the company “pushing” the product they want to promote through a chain from wholesaler to retailer and then last to the final customer. As the product moves down through the chain each stop adds a value in re-selling the product. The push strategy is more focused on how you can encourage the next person in the chain to

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contribute and in that way reach the end-consumer, rather than directly reaching out to them.

(Fill & Turnbull, 2016) This type of strategy works well for companies that sell products which are for example bought on impulse or have low involvement since the customers do not actively seek them up. (Efanny, Haryanto, Kashif & Widyanto, 2018)

However, this traditional way of seeing the audience as the receiver and the company as the sender of communication is now being questioned. To assume that the communication between a company out to its audience is a one-way communication is considered too constricted and narrow. With time, the audience have gained a bigger power in the communication exchange and should not be seen as passive in this kind of communication. Customers are not just an object that perfectly receives the sender’s message, they have all different backgrounds and values that will shape into different interpretations. It is important for companies to understand this about their customers to successfully communicate with their audience. (Finne &

Strandvik, 2012)

2.2.3 Platform

It is important when you develop your communication strategy to have a theme in mind. This theme or “platform” is something that should represent what the brand stands for and the theme consumers connect the brand to in their minds. An example of this is Coca-Cola’s theme happiness or Volvo’s theme safety. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016) According to Fill and Turnbull (2016) there are three main categories of platforms. These are creative platforms, brand concept platforms and participation platforms. Creative platforms mean that the company uses something that makes the consumer visually recognise the company instantly in their ad. This can be a symbol or character(s) or something that makes you instantly know which company stands behind the ad. Brand concept platforms are more of something that works over time.

The platform can be based on an emotion that the company wants to mediate or connect the brand to a special occasion. Participation platforms is about making the brand a part of the consumers everyday-life. New technologies such as social media is one of the most common type of applied platform by companies. In social media features like comments, discussion and likes makes the consumer interact with the company and lets the consumer participate in creating content and attending events in their everyday-life. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016)

2.2.4 Configuration

In 1990, Mohr and Nevin wrote about how you can divide communication into four different parts. These four parts were Frequency, direction, modality and content (Mohr & Nevin, 1990).

This is something that others then have used to adapt and is still seemed to be relevant. For example, Gustafsson, Kristensson and Witell (2012) uses the framework for their research as well as Fill and Turnbull (2016) in their book about marketing communication strategy as a part of the configuration. Configuration is about the different parts of the communication.

There are various aspects to consider and it is important to have in mind how you deliver the message in your communication strategy. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016)

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Frequency is about the company identifying the perfect amount of information for the customers to receive and how often. If the company send out too little information they can lose out on opportunities, but too much can make the customer feel overwhelmed and discouraged. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016)

Direction is about the communications direction. It can be both horizontal and vertical and is often not an even flow between the sender and the recipient. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016) Horizontal communication is communication between people that are on the same hierarchical level, while vertical communication is between different hierarchical levels (Bartels, Peters, de Jong, Pruyn

& Marjolijn van, 2010). An example on a uneven flow in the communication is that the communication can be unidirectional, which means that the recipient do not feel the need to answer to the sender. This is can be when a bigger company is the sender and the recipient is a smaller company in the same trade. Then the smaller company can feel undermined compared to the bigger company which feels more powerful to them and then refrain from answering.

(Fill & Turnbull, 2016)

Modality is about how a communication is done from one part to another. It can be formal or informal depending the occasion. For example, if it is a planned communication from the company it is more formal than if it is a word-of-mouth situation which can be more informal.

(Fill & Turnbull, 2016)

Content means what is actually said in the communication. There is two ways to influence a percipient with a strategy, direct and indirect. With the direct strategy the intent is to, with the help of recommendations or another specific request, alter a consumer’s behaviour. With the indirect strategy the intent is more the change of consumers’ attitudes and beliefs. Social networks and online communities use indirect strategies. (Fill & Turnbull, 2016)

2.3 Relationship marketing

Relationship marketing is a big phenomenon and might be one of the most important contributions that can lead to success in any corporation. Relationship marketing is about interactions between the different parties around a company, its customers, stakeholders and now also influencers. (Rasul, 2018) Relationship marketing is a part of the marketing approach and can be seen as a focused marketing effort (Keskar & Pranay, 2018). The main objective with this kind of marketing is to target profitable customers and create a long-term relationship instead of always finding new customers, in other words- attract and maintain customer relationships. This will increase the profit but the maintaining of the relationship can also be one of the main challenges. (Keskar & Pranay, 2018; Grönroos, 2017; Zebardast Gashti &

Chirani, 2017; Morgan & Hunt, 1994) The companies must realize that losing a customer is not only a loose of one single purchase but a loss of the customer’s purchases during its lifetime (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017; Saebnia, Feizi & Hasanzadeh, 2017).

At present, a lot of business relationships are quite anonymous and happen through a screen.

Because of this, trust and commitment are two necessary factors to create a successful

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relationship. (Gummesson, 2017) This shift in the meaning of a relationship has happened through technological development and has led to improved possibilities to track and identify customers as well as establish linkages between profitability and customer loyalty (Gummerus, von Koskull & Kowalkowski, 2017). The customers were previously seen as “passive audience” where they received value from the companies by not participating with any actions.

Today they are appreciated “active players” that are engaged in a mutual exchange of value and co-creation. (Payne & Frow, 2017) At the moment, companies value the relationship between different business parties of the network more than ever (Gummerus, von Koskull &

Kowalkowski, 2017).

The access to technology and customers’ activity on internet makes it important for companies to create a positive impact and deliver value to its clients (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017;

Rasul, 2018). It is easy for anyone to write a review on social media that spread over internet.

Because of that, it is important for companies to protect their brand and to create a good relationship with its customers. If not, this can cause loss of existing customers and hesitation from new ones. (Rasul, 2018) Though, there can also be positive outcomes when consumers interact with brand or person related content online since there is an increased chance that they engage (Jackson & Ahuja, 2016). Barry and Gironda (2018) argue about the importance of social media influence and that the relationship building will elucidate trust.

2.3.1 Relationship marketing model

The relationship marketing model consists of six different pieces including trust, bonding, communications, shared values and empathy. (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017) These are important factors to build a successful relationship and create customer loyalty (Ndubisi, 2007).

Trust is an important part of relationship marketing both between companies and consumers (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017; Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Saebnia, Feizi & Hasanzadeh, 2017; Hütten, Salge, Niemand & Siems, 2018), but also between influencers and their followers. The consignor of the message delivers a promise that the consumers or the followers receive. Here, a question about trust arises which will come to have a significant part of a long- term relationship. (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017)

Bonding refers to the part of the relationship marketing when the two parties integrate to achieve each party’s desired goal. This component exists to develop the relationship and customer loyalty (Jackson & Ahuja; Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017). The bonding creates a feeling of belonging for the consumer, either to the organisation or to the closer network of an influencer. The increased link and belonging creates a stronger bond and more commitment.

(Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017)

Communications refers to the formal and informal messages that are exchanged between the parties with important information (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017; Morgan & Hunt, 1994).

This component is claimed to have a significant role in the creation of trust (Jackson & Ahuja, 2016) and should not be overlooked, as it in many times is. The communication helps the

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consignor to increase the trust and to fulfill the promises delivered. (Zebardast Gashti &

Chirani, 2017) Ndubisi (2007) claim that it is the communication that makes a customer loyal.

Shared values are another part of the model where preferences as behavior, goals and policies are included (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017; Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Hütten, Salge, Niemand & Siems, 2018). It doesn’t matter of how high importance the preferences have, it is about what is right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate. The shared values make the commitment to the relationship increase. (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017)

Empathy symbolizes the part where both parties see the relationship from the other party’s perspective. It is about the understanding of objectives and demands that are necessary for a strong relationship. (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017; Hütten, Salge, Niemand & Siems, 2018) The relationship will strengthen and will hence be shaped by emotions from each party like care and empathy (Hütten, Salge, Niemand & Siems, 2018).

Interaction is the last piece of the model and refers to the reciprocal relationship where each party receives attention from the other party, and give attention back in return, now or at another time. (Zebardast Gashti & Chirani, 2017) The interaction might earlier mostly have been face to face but is nowadays also happening online (Hütten, Salge, Niemand & Siems, 2018).

2.4 Conclusion of the theoretical framework

The three main theories used in this study are influencer marketing, marketing communication strategy and relationship marketing explained above. All the theories are well applied within marketing by companies but the main perspective in this study is the influencers and their connection to the consumers. Below we show the whole context with all the parties involved, including companies, to illustrate how the business structure is constructed. Companies use influencers in a marketing strategy called influencer marketing in exchange for money or products. The influencer, in turn, uses a communication strategy to communicate with the consumers encouraged by likes and followers. The consumers give value to the companies by purchases and at the same time they receive a product or service valuable for them. What connects all the actors in the context is the relationship marketing considering different relationships are built between the parties and they depend on each other in different ways. The whole model can be seen as cycle between the parties and around relationship marketing. This study focuses on how influencers work with marketing communication strategy to build a strong and long-term relationship with their followers, who are consumers of collaborating companies.

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Diagram 2. Compilation of the theoretical frameworks. Made by the authors.

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3. Methodology

In this chapter, the chosen method is presented along with the research process of the study.

Decisions about chosen strategies are argued for as well as its advantage and disadvantages.

The selection of the respondents is discussed in addition to delimitations and data collection.

3.1 Purpose of research

A research study can have different purposes such as exploratory, descriptive or explanatory depending on what the authors want to investigate or examine. In this study we have chosen to have a descriptive approach since it is suitable when a phenomenon should be described in its real-world context. (Yin, 2014)

3.2 Choice of method

From the two possible methods to use during a study; qualitative and quantitative (Jacobsen, 2002), the research is done as a qualitative case study since the data is chiefly consisting of primary data (Bryman & Bell, 2015). The data is collected by doing three interviews with influencers about their work on Instagram. A qualitative method is symbolized as a collection of data with non-numerical values, e.g. in words and pictures (Hanson & Grimmer, 2007). It is a method used with expression of words to explain an experience (Jacobsen, 2002) and to find connection between different phenomenon by increased understanding (Bryman & Bell, 2015).

This allowed us to focus more on details which gives a more nuanced perspective of the information (Njie & Asimiran, 2014). The interviews were done to gain a better understanding of the influencers point of view on how they use communication strategy in order to communicate with their audience and build relationships. A qualitative method with open questions can result in more expositive outcome since supplementary questions can be asked (Risjord, Moloney & Dunbar, 2001). A qualitative study is not about getting statistics, but to get insight in the respondents’ experiences which add up with the completed research. This method results in more flexibility and gives a possibility for deeper analysis than in quantitative researches (Bell, 2014).

In a research process there are two different kinds of approaches; inductive and deductive (Hyde, 2000). The thesis goes from theory to empirical study which indicates on a deductive approach. (Söderbom & Ulvenblad, 2016) The answers in the interviews has been interpreted to create understanding. (Söderbom & Ulvenblad, 2016; Grünbaum, 2007) The study is based on interviews where the respondents say what they think and do which makes the work take a subjective orientation (Söderbom & Ulvenblad, 2016).

3.3 Research strategy

The research strategy for this study was to develop a case study with three different cases. Each influencer that we interviewed is one case and every case was evaluated against the theoretical framework. After the interviews we also examined the influencers’ feed to see if what they said

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in the interviews were actually shown in their feed. After that, each case was examined against the other cases to look for differences and similarities. According to Yin (2014), developing a case study is a good strategy when you want to understand a real-world case. Another reason that a case study is a suitable choice is when you rely on multiple source of data in your research. (Yin, 2014) These are two important reasons why we have chosen to do a multiple case study in this research.

3.4 Collection of data

The study is based on secondary data such as previous research within the area of subjects and chosen theories. The collected data is regarding influencer marketing, relationship marketing and marketing communication strategy. All theoretical frameworks were chosen to fulfil the purpose of the study and therefore it was important to get a deep knowledge around these subjects. The marketing communication strategy was considered interesting to study since it illustrates many parts of communication. Factors as segmenting, positioning and configuration are relevant since they are frequently discussed in different previous researches. The relationship marketing model was chosen because it was possible to applicate it on the relationship between influencer and their followers. Most of the other models within this area are focusing only on the companies as the important party in a relationship which is not relevant in this study. The main information about previous researches and literature review have been collected from scientific journals on databases like ABI/Inform and Emerald through the website of Halmstad University. Other sources that have been used are course literature, books, websites and online newspapers.

To base the study on a theoretical model we chose to work with the relationship marketing model. This is an understanding model that can help in the interpretation and understanding of the influencers’ working process (Söderbom & Ulvenblad, 2016). Since the study is qualitative, this kind of model was chosen since it could be connected to human and social sciences where you study people and their experiences (Söderbom & Ulvenblad, 2016). We have also chosen to work from the marketing communication strategy framework written by Fill & Turnbull. To get a deeper understanding of the framework we extended the research for every subtitle and collected information about them separately as well. We used this as a template when researching marketing communication strategy and later applied this to the empirical research.

The primary data was collected by interviews with influencers regarding their communication strategy and relationship building with their followers. By doing this we could get a deep insight in how influencers work and what methods they use to succeed with their work. The interviews were done on Skype to reach influencers not only where we were located. The interview guide can be found in appendix 1 and 2. To confirm what it is said in the interviews and to triangulate the data, secondary data was collected by studying the influencers’ profiles and Instagram pages in a content study. This was done after the interviews to first see the influencers’ point of view since that is the purpose of the study.

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3.5 Selection of respondents

Bryman and Bell (2015) recommends a selection of respondents that is goal oriented and in the best way can answer the purpose of the research. The selection of our respondents for the interviews were chosen to be only females since they represent a larger part of the influencers according to Kumpumäki (2019). The size of the selection and the choice of influencers to the interviews were based on the limited time that the study had. Guest and Dewe (1991) claim that you can never know how many respondents to interview to get the perfect outcome and balance between too narrow selection and theoretical saturation. Therefore, we considered it to be enough with three interviews to answer the purpose of the study. The collected data is not only useful in this context but could also be used for other studies and coherencies (Jacobsen, 2002). The influencers chosen, have different amount of followers and mixed nationalities which hopefully can give us a broader look of how influencers work and communicate to different amount of people that are spread all over the world.

All of the influencers were contacted through email and private messages on Instagram since that is a platform we are sure they are active on. Below follows a compilation of the influencers we interviewed. The table consists out of usernames, number of followers, for how long they have considered themselves influencers and general information about the Instagram accounts.

Influencer Username Followers Influencer since

General information

Case 1:

Victoria Sylwander

victoriasylwander 20.6k 4 years Swedish. Beauty, clothes, hair and makeup, lifestyle Case 2:

Rebecca Bradley

bexxbradley 3106 2 years New Zealander.

Lifestyle, adventure, health and wellbeing.

Case 3:

Ida Eriksson

idaerikssoon 3759 2 years Swedish. Fashion,

focus on be yourself.

Chart 1. Summary of presentation of the interviewee.

3.6 Operationalization process

Before the interview an interview guide was created (see appendix 1). The questions are arranged after the different areas that have been discussed previous in the theoretical framework. The interviews started with questions about background information and then moved on to marketing communication strategy to finish with questions about the chosen relationship marketing model. The background questions were to collect basic information and to create trust and a more relaxed energy between the interviewers and the respondents (David

& Sutton, 2016). The questions about the core issues are about the central themes of the study

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and followed by some prompts to clarify collected information (David & Sutton, 2016). This layout was to get natural flow and nice transitions in the interviews. To enhance the reliability, the questions for the interviews were structured to make all the interviews with the same foundation and possible to use in future studies concerning the same subject (David & Sutton, 2016). The questions in the interviews were a mix of half standardized and unstandardized to get open and detailed answers. According to David and Sutton (2016), this leads to deeper validity and is suitable for a qualitative interview. The unstandardized and open questions in the interview guide creates more personal answers and space for individual reflections (Patel

& Davidson 2014; David, & Sutton, 2016).

During the interview both authors were present to make sure the interviews were being executed in the same way. The interviews were audio recorded in order for the authors to listen back to and make sure that nothing was missed. (Söderbom & Ulvenblad, 2016) The questions were written down to ensure that they were presented to the respondents the same way. To avoid the two problems that can occur at a qualitative research, interviewer context and content context, we made sure not to deviate from the interview guide to not affect the respondents with our thoughts or impressions (Jacobsen, 2002). Though, we followed up some of the questions with prompts as mentioned, to develop the answers. After the interviews were done both authors sat down and listed to the recordings and transcribed it down to written texts as Heritage (1984) suggests should be done. The transcription facilitates the processing of the results and allows the interviewers to control their reflections and interpretations (Bryman &

Bell, 2015).

3.7 Credibility

If a study has high reliability it means that it is possible to do a similar study to it and get similar results. (Söderbom & Ulvenblad, 2016) We consider this study to have relatively high reliability since the questions we used for the interviews were based on our theoretical framework which is attached in the appendix. This makes it possible for anyone interested to see the questions we used for our interviews if they would like to replicate our study.

The study also has a relatively high external validity since the respondents are relevant to take part in this research and a good fit to answer the questions formed to fulfil this thesis purpose.

If a research has a high internal validity it means that your research reflects the actual reality well and what you have written is an accurate representation of what has been found. (David,

& Sutton, 2016) To ensure high internal validity in our theoretical framework we have used many different sources that support each other to strengthen our research. To ensure the internal validity in our empirical research the interviews were recorded which made it possible for us to go back and listen through the interviews after to make sure we didn’t miss anything. We also wanted to confirm the results we got out of our interviews by cross-checking with the influencers’ feed. By doing this we had multiple source of data that confirmed what we had discovered in our empirical research.

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All the interviews were done in the respondents’ native languages to make sure they could express themselves and simplify the communication. This was to make sure no information was lost in translation nor overlooked. Both of the interviewers speak Swedish fluently and are skilled in English which made this possible. In the English interview it was a clear communication from both parties that if something was unclear it should be reformulated. To make sure that the information from the empirical findings were correct and not deceptive or misconceived the compiled information was sent to each influencer to be confirmed. When the empirical findings were compiled, the Swedish quotes were translated to English. This might have caused some minor losses of information which slightly decreases the validity.

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4. Empirical findings

In the empiricism, the most important parts of the collected primary data is presented. The primary data is divided in interviews and content studies to confirm that the information gathered during the interviews is correct.

4.1 Case 1 - Victoria Sylwander

4.1.1 Interview

Victoria Sylwander is a full-time international marketing student at the University of Halmstad but work as an influencer on the side of the studies. Her content at Instagram is mostly inspired by lifestyle and beauty and she does sponsored posts about clothes, makeup, hair and skin products to her 20 600 followers. Victoria has considered herself an influencer for almost four years since that is the time she has done collaborations with companies and earned money on her posts. As a platform to work on, she thinks that Instagram is easy to use and she can reach out to a large audience, not only her followers.

“Something else that is positive with Instagram is that it is easy to find inspiration, both for influencers and for customers”, Victoria says.

Though, she is worried that too many girls compare themselves with others and that they only see the glamorous life that is posted, not the actual reality. Depending on what season it is and how busy she is with other projects, Victoria can make from one post a week to four posts and five Instagram stories a week. For the sponsored posts there are much more work behind than for the private posts, Victoria continues. For a collaboration she gets a manuscript of what the post should contain and then she can add or delete if she wants to change something. The final post should be confirmed before she publishes it. She is allowed to have her own opinions but to get companies for collaborations, it is best to stay positive. Mostly, it is an intermediary between the influencers and the companies that do the work with finding influencers and give them instructions. Victoria does sponsored posts about two to three times a month and with every post there are mostly one or two Instagram stories included, but this is also up to her to decide. She declines a lot of requests she gets for collaboration since she thinks it is important to have an even distribution between sponsored and private posts.

Victoria explains that on a business page for an Instagram account you can find a lot of statistic about the followers. Her followers are a majority of men even though that is not her main target group. Although, she can see that there are more females than men that visit her profile, people you could call “ghost followers”. Victoria explains that she would like to target women in her own age, 20-25, with her communication on Instagram.

“I want to reach girls my own age, they are the ones that I get inspired by myself.”

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Location is not something Victoria think matters that much on Instagram regarding segmentation. This is because the platform is online and companies often have webshops that can send to all over Sweden and often outside the country. She feels that it is more efficient to focus on groups to target in the psychographic group, like people’s self-image, attitudes etc. In her experience, people are much more interested to follow someone who is an ideal image of themselves and something that you strive to achieve. Since Victoria is studying marketing, she is familiar with the concept of positioning. She positions herself as a lifestyle influencer since she likes to upload pictures of miscellaneous things in her life. Victoria feels like she successfully mediates to her followers her position but also emphasize that people probably think that you live a bit more luxurious than what you actually do. The response on her posts differ quite a lot if it is a sponsored post or if it is a non-sponsored post. On sponsored posts a lot of feedback is from girls asking about potential sizes, fit of the garment and relating products. On the non-sponsored post, the feedback comes from both females and men, but mainly men liking and commenting encouragingly. The likes are also less on sponsored posts compared to the non-sponsored posts. Victoria feels that for her, it can be a bit difficult to act on her followers’ requests sometimes. Many girls write to her asking for recommendations that can be hard to fulfil on Instagram.

“Since I’m not a blogger it can be a little hard to, for example, upload ten recommendations on graduation dresses to my story if someone asks for that. A blog would be a better platform for that I think.”

The language Victoria uses can also change if it is a sponsored post or not. On selfies her captions are often relaxed or even just an emoji or not a caption at all unlike her sponsored posts where the captions are often more formal. If Victoria had to put a word on her feed as a platform her answer is “blue”.

Regarding the relationship between Victoria and her followers she considers it to be good. The reason why she declines a lot of requests about collaborations is to have a good balance in her Instagram feed and not lose followers because of too many sponsored posts. She feels that it is important to make posts that she can stand for and believes that as long as she shows herself, she has the followers’ trust. Victoria is spending time on answering private messages and comments from followers and is happy for the feedback she gets. To gain more loyalty she can visit other’s profiles and like and comment their posts to show that she sees their activity.

Victoria does not consider herself as a person with strong opinions and therefore she does not think that her shared values with the followers is of a bigger importance. Though she realizes that she does posts in bikini and with alcohol and that can be seen as provocative to some people, but she does not think that is a big deal in her target group. She tries to show all her sides, when she is at parties, when she relaxes and work out, which she thinks show her values.

“I have never gotten any hate or negative response on my posts which shows on empathy and care from my followers”, Victoria continues.

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She thinks this is an important factor for a relationship between an influencer and its followers for both parts to be involved. The attention Victoria gives to her audiences she thinks it is enough since she answers everyone who interact with her by comments or messages.

4.1.2 Content study

Victoria Sylwander’s Instagram Profile. (Retrieved: 2019-05-02)

When studying Victoria’s profile and Instagram feed we can confirm that the frequency of the posts differs between season and other factors in her life. In the summertime and when travelling she makes more posts, like she said in the interview, and this is because she has more content to post. The language is varying depending if it is a sponsored or non-sponsored post or story because more information is shared with a sponsored post. There is a clear difference between response on private and sponsored posts. Victoria gets a lot more likes and comments on her private posts of herself than on the sponsored ones. She is keen on answering questions she gets on comments about what she is using or wearing but does not respond to every general encouraging comment she gets. In the interview Victoria called her Instagram theme blue which is clear in the feed. According to the content study we would also like to point out that a theme on Victoria’s profile could be happiness and a little bit of beauty. She is positioning herself as a lifestyle influencer which shows different parts of her life. We acknowledge this and see different sides of her. The posts and the feed on her profile mostly contains retouched pictures and pictures showing her best self. When digging deeper you will find that she shows another side of herself with more personal information shared especially on her Instagram- stories.

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4.2 Case 2 - Rebecca Bradley

4.2.1 Interview

Rebecca Bradley works as an Account Manager at a PR-agency called Anthem in New Zealand. Being an influencer is something that she does on the side and sees more as a hobby and a way to get an extra income. Rebecca consider herself to be a lifestyle influencer with content about travel, adventure and health and has around 3100 followers. According to Rebecca she has been an influencer for approximately two years and publishes about three to four posts a week. Stories is a good way to show your real life “behind the scenes” Rebecca says and that is why she uploads stories daily. Instagram is a cool platform to work on and an easy way to create content on. When Rebecca posts pictures she thinks it is important that the images are consistent to her feed and that the captions have some sort of meaning with added value to the followers.

When it comes to sponsored posts, she does them every couple of months and gifted posts every month. This is something that differs for her since she doesn’t consider gifts as sponsoring. Rebecca uses Instagram stories more frequent when showing gifted items sent from companies, to say thank you.

“I think it is important to say thank you and show gratitude to the companies that have taken the time to send me products.”

Rebecca’s followers consist of 60-70% females and are mainly from New Zealand and Australia. Rebecca explains that in New Zealand, companies are keen to know that the influencer’s followers are from New Zealand since they are a quite isolated country and preferably works local. Her target group are females in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties since they are similar to her and are in the same life stage as she is. As an influencer she thinks the best segmentation is psychographic, regarding attitudes and self-image, since she thinks that people follow you because they can relate to what you post. Rebecca positions herself as a lifestyle and adventure influencer but says that she has been approached by followers claiming her to be more of a health and wellbeing influencer. According to Rebecca, the engagement from her followers differs from when she does sponsored and personal posts. She experiences less likes and comments on sponsored and gifted post than on her personal posts. She also tells that she gets more response on the pictures of herself and travels. Rebecca tries to meet the followers’ requests when she uploads images to her feed. She looks at previous engagement on her feed and publishes the kind of pictures that she knows people like to see. Her followers like to see pictures they can relate too according to Rebecca.

“Pictures of just products gets fewer likes since they are less relatable than, for example, a picture of me traveling.”

If Rebecca had to put a word on her feed, as a theme, she thinks “adventure” captures what she wants to mediate. When it comes to her language in the captions she tries to write like if she