An expert with whom i can identify: the role of narratives in influencer marketing

Abstract

Based upon narrative persuasion literature, we argue that each influencer post (consisted of both textual and visual information) is an exemplar of narratives in which there are the main character(s) and a storyline. To reveal the content strategies used by social media influencers, we adopted a combined use of machine learning-based topic analysis and deep learning-based image analysis in order to examine the content of captions and photos contained in Instagram influencer posts. These 7,745 posts were uploaded by the top ten young adult beauty and fashion social media influencers. Moreover, we explored how the influencer narratives impair the effectiveness of sponsorship disclosure by analyzing the disclosure language in each post as well as the engagement performances (i.e., number of likes, number of comments) of the post. Results provided empirical information regarding influencers’ usage of persuasive narratives. Implications and future research directions were provided.