Instagram Marketing: Choosing an Influencer for the Food Industry based on the Full Consistency Method (FUCOM)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Prof., Department of Business Management, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran.

2 Assistant Prof., Department of Industrial Management, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran.

3 MSc., Department of Business Management, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran.

4 PhD Candidate, Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Objective
In recent years, due to the increase in the use of influencers to introduce and promote products and services for companies, influencer marketing has been widely considered as an important and effective advertising tool. On the other hand, with the significant growth of social media among Internet users across the globe. For an instance, Instagram is used as one of the most popular social media in Iran as an advertising tool to increase access to consumers. But the most important issue is the selection of the most appropriate influencers by companies to send their advertising messages to their audience. As a result, companies need to consider some criteria to make the right choice in this regard. The purpose of this study is to identify and prioritize the characteristics of the right influencers active in the food industry to advertise products on Instagram as a social media platform.
 
Methodology
The present study is applied in terms of purpose and uses a mixed method approach consisting of two phases. In the first stage, through doing library research, reviewing the available literature and conducting semi-structured interviews with seven experts in the field of food industry, the factors that play a pivotal role in selecting the right influencers were identified. Then, in the second stage, the identified indicators were prioritized and weighted by experts through the Full Consistency Method (FUCOM) questionnaire. Finally, Lingo and Excel software were used to prioritize the solutions identified in the previous step.
 
Findings
The findings of the present study could identify the most appropriate indicators for selecting the right influencers on Instagram, which were classified into two main categories. The first category was related to the content of the influencers’ pages on the platform i.e. number of the followers, comments of the users, reaching followers, previous experiences on the rate of return on investment, topic distribution, and topic engagement rate. The second category included the personal characteristics of the influencers i.e. brand congruence with the influencer, congruence between the audience and the influencer, influencer reputation, honesty and credibility of the influencer and the influencer expertise. Prioritization of these indicators indicated that “the rate of user involvement with the subject” and “reputation of the influencer” are the most important indicators, and “brand congruence with the influencer” and “the number of followers” are the least important indicators identified for choosing an influencer for the food industry.
 
Conclusion
According to the results of the FUCOM analysis among the identified indicators, ‘’topic engagement rate’’ is the most important indicator in the influencer page features category and ‘’influencer reputation’’ is the most important indicator in the influencer personal characteristics category. In order to achieve maximum efficiency in the field of influencer marketing, companies need to consider these indicators for evaluating influencers to select the appropriate ones.

Keywords


Abdolhosein, M., Arbatani, T. & Aghili, V. (2020). Designing Metrics to Measure the Effectiveness of Ads on the Instagram Social Network. Social-Cultural Strategy Quarterly, 8(31), 147-171. (in Persian)
Alalwan, A. A., Rana, N. P., Dwivedi, Y. K., & Algharabat, R. (2017). Social media in marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature. Telematics and Informatics, 34(7), 1177-1190. ‏
Al-Kandari, A. J., Al-Hunaiyyan, A. A., & Al-Hajri, R. (2016). The influence of culture on Instagram use. Journal of Advances in Information Technology, 7 (1), 54-57. ‏
Almeida, M. N. D. (2019). Influencer marketing on Instagram: how influencer type and perceived risk impact choices in the beauty industry (Doctoral dissertation). ‏
Argyris, Y. A., Wang, Z., Kim, Y., & Yin, Z. (2020). The effects of visual congruence on increasing consumers’ brand engagement: An empirical investigation of influencer marketing on Instagram using deep-learning algorithms for automatic image classification. Computers in Human Behavior, 112, 106443. ‏
Arora, A., Bansal, S., Kandpal, C., Aswani, R., & Dwivedi, Y. (2019). Measuring social media influencer index-insights from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 49, 86-101. ‏
Bakker, D. (2018). Conceptualising influencer marketing. Journal of emerging trends in marketing and management, 1(1), 79-87. ‏
Bank, S., Yazar, E. E., & Sivri, U. (2019). Can social media marketing lead to abnormal portfolio returns? European Research on Management and Business Economics, 25(2), 54-62.
Boerman, S. C. (2020). The effects of the standardized Instagram disclosure for micro-and meso-influencers. Computers in Human Behavior, 103, 199-207.‏
Bonus, A. K., Raghani, J., Visitacion, J. K., & Castaño, M. C. (2022). Influencer Marketing Factors Affecting Brand Awareness and Brand Image of Start-up Businesses. Journal of Business and Management Studies, 4(1), 189-202.‏
Breves, P. L., Liebers, N., Abt, M., & Kunze, A. (2019). The perceived fit between instagram influencers and the endorsed brand: How influencer–brand fit affects source credibility and persuasive effectiveness. Journal of Advertising Research, 59(4), 440-454.‏
Byrne, E., Kearney, J., & MacEvilly, C. (2017). The role of influencer marketing and social influencers in public health. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 76(OCE3), E103.
Casaló, L. V., Flavián, C., & Ibáñez-Sánchez, S. (2020). Influencers on Instagram: Antecedents and consequences of opinion leadership. Journal of Business Research, 117, 510-519.‏
Chegini, N. (2021). Predict marketing management based on personality traits in the influencer of Instagram social network marketing, Journal of New Research Approaches in Management and Accounting, 5(63), 31-42. (in Persian)
Childers, C. C., Lemon, L. L., & Hoy, M. G. (2019). # Sponsored# Ad: Agency perspective on influencer marketing campaigns. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 40(3), 258-274.‏
Cotter, K. (2019). Playing the visibility game: How digital influencers and algorithms negotiate influence on Instagram. New Media & Society, 21(4), 895-913.‏
De Veirman, M., Cauberghe, V., & Hudders, L. (2017). Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact of number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude. International journal of advertising, 36(5), 798-828.‏
Djafarova, E., & Bowes, T. (2021). ‘Instagram made Me buy it’: Generation Z impulse purchases in fashion industry. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 59, 102345.‏
Durmaz, Y., & Efendioglu, I. H. (2016). Travel from traditional marketing to digital marketing. Global journal of management and business research, 16(2).
Green, D. D., Martinez, R., Kadja, A., Evenson, L., MacManus, L., & Dirlbeck, S. (2018). In a World of Social Media: A Case Study Analysis of Instagram. American Research Journal of Business and Management, 4(1), 1-8.‏
Guruge, M. C. B. (2018). Comparison between attributes related to celebrity endorsement and social media influencer marketing: A conceptual review. Sri Lanka Journal of Marketing, 4(1), 17-37.‏
Haenlein, M., Anadol, E., Farnsworth, T., Hugo, H., Hunichen, J., & Welte, D. (2020). Navigating the New Era of Influencer Marketing: How to be Successful on Instagram, TikTok, & Co. California Management Review, 63(1), 5-25.‏
Jin, S. V., Muqaddam, A., & Ryu, E. (2019). Instafamous and social media influencer marketing. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 37(5), 567-579.
Karimi, P & Karimi, P (2018). Investigating the effect of Iranian Instagram influencers' advertising posts on brand trust among the audience of Tehran's 5th district, International Conference on Business Challenges and Social Sciences, Dubai. (in Persian)
Khalouzadeh Mobarakeh, S., Manian, A. & Hasangholipour Yasori, T. (2020). Designing a customer experience and response improvement model using social media marketing. Consumer Behavior Studies Journal, 6(1), 287-309. (in Persian)
Ki, C. W. C., Cuevas, L. M., Chong, S. M., & Lim, H. (2020). Influencer marketing: Social media influencers as human brands attaching to followers and yielding positive marketing results by fulfilling needs. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 55, 102133.‏
Kim, D. Y., & Kim, H. Y. (2021). Influencer advertising on social media: The multiple inference model on influencer-product congruence and sponsorship disclosure. Journal of Business Research, 130, 405-415.
Kirkpatrick, D. (2016). Influencer marketing spurs 11 times the ROI over traditional tactics: Study. Marketing Dive, 6.‏
Lee, S., & Kim, E. (2020). Influencer marketing on Instagram: How sponsorship disclosure, influencer credibility, and brand credibility impact the effectiveness of Instagram promotional post. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, 11(3), 232-249.‏
Lin, R. H., Jan, C., & Chuang, C. L. (2019). Influencer Marketing on Instagram. International Journal of Innovation in Management, 7(1), 33-41.‏
Lou, C., Tan, S.-S., & Chen, X. (2019). Investigating Consumer Engagement with Influencer- vs. Brand-Promoted Ads: The Roles of Source and Disclosure. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 19(3), 169-186.
Mallipeddi, R. R., Kumar, S., Sriskandarajah, C., & Zhu, Y. (2018). A framework for analyzing influencer marketing in social networks: selection and scheduling of influencers. Management Science.
Martínez-López, F. J., Anaya-Sánchez, R., Fernández Giordano, M., & Lopez-Lopez, D. (2020). Behind influencer marketing: key marketing decisions and their effects on followers’ responses. Journal of Marketing Management, 36(7-8), 579-607.
Mehri, B. & Sheikh, A. (2021). Factors Affecting Trans-Social Interactions Between Influencer and His Followers on Instagram and Its Role in Forming Purchasing Intention in Generation Z (Born after 1995). 6th National Conference on Applied Research in Management, Accounting and Healthy Economy in Bank, Stock Exchange and Insurance, Tehran. (in Persian)
Mohammadpour, A., Sadeghi, R. & Rezaie, M. (2011). Combined Research Methods as the Third Methodological Movement: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Principles. Applied Sociology, 21(2), 77-100. (in Persian)
Pamučar, D., Stević, Ž., & Sremac, S. (2018). A new model for determining weight coefficients of criteria in mcdm models: Full consistency method (FUCOM). Symmetry, 10(9), 393.‏
Pick, M. (2020). Psychological ownership in social media influencer marketing. European Business Review, 33(1).
Primasiwi, C., Irawan, M. I., & Ambarwati, R. (2021). Key Performance Indicators for Influencer Marketing on Instagram. In 2nd International Conference on Business and Management of Technology. 175, 154-163.
Rakhshanizadeh, M., Fatahi Amin, A. M., Dolatzadeh, H. & Khalilinasr, A. (2021). Investigating the characteristics of social media influencers on users' intention to buy (Case study: Garment industry on Instagram). 3rd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Studies in Management and Engineering, Tehran. (in Persian)
Roncha, A., & Radclyffe-Thomas, N. (2016). How TOMS’ “one day without shoes” campaign brings stakeholders together and co-creates value for the brand using Instagram as a platform. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 20(3).
Ryu, E. A., & Han, E. (2021). Social Media Influencer’s Reputation: Developing and Validating a Multidimensional Scale. Sustainability, 13(2), 631.‏
Salminen, K. (2018). Creating Influencer Marketing Campaign In Social Media.‏
Santiago, J. K., & Castelo, I. M. (2020). Digital influencers: An exploratory study of influencer marketing campaign process on instagram. Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management (OJAKM), 8(2), 31-52.‏
Schaefer, M., & Hlavac, R. (2012) The social media revolution as theorized by “The Cluetrain Manifesto”. Making the shift: Transforming marketing through the eyes of change agents in the trenches, 8(40).
Shalile, K. (2022). Investigating the criteria for selecting an influencer in marketing and branding (case study: Food products), 2nd International Conference in Management & Industry, Georgia. (in Persian)
Shawky, S., Kubacki, K., Dietrich, T., & Weaven, S. (2020). A dynamic framework for managing customer engagement on social media. Journal of Business Research, 121, 567-577.
Singh, S., & Diamond, S. (2012). Social media marketing for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
Statcounter (2022). Social Media Stats in Islamic Republic Of Iran - February 2022. https://gs.statcounter.com/social-media-stats/all/iran
Statista (2021). Most popular social networks worldwide as of July 2021, ranked by number of active users (in millions). https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
Statista (2021). Number of brand sponsored influencer posts on Instagram from 2016 to 2020 (in millions). https://www.statista.com/statistics/693775/instagram-sponsored-influencer-content/
Statista (2021). Social media - Statistics & Facts. https://www.statista.com/topics/1164/social-networks/
Sudha, M., & Sheena, K. (2017). Impact of influencers in consumer decision process: the fashion industry. SCMS Journal of Indian Management, 14(3), 14-30.‏
Tafesse, W., & Wood, B. P. (2021). Followers' engagement with instagram influencers: The role of influencers’ content and engagement strategy. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 58, 102303.‏
Tarani, S. & Tarani S. (2021). Measuring the impact of food bloggers on social networks on the attitude and intention of users to buy food from restaurants; Case study: Iranian food bloggers on Instagram, 1st National Conference on Organization & Management Research, Tehran. (in Persian)
Tillmann, K. (2018). Influencer Marketing for Long-Term Decisions: Does it Work?‏
Virtanen, H., Björk, P., & Sjöström, E. (2017). Follow for follow: marketing of a start-up company on Instagram. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 24(3), 468-484.
Vodák, J., Novysedlák, M., Čakanová, L., & Pekár, M. (2019). Who is Influencer and How to Choose the Right One to Improve Brand Reputation? Managing Global Transitions: International Research Journal, 17(2).‏
Weiss, R. (2014). Influencer marketing. How word-of-mouth marketing can strengthen your organization's brand. Marketing health services, 34(1), 16-17.‏
Woods, S. (2016). # Sponsored: The emergence of influencer marketing.‏ School of Advertising & Public Relations University of Tennessee.
Yazdani, N. & Farahmand, M. H. (2021). The Impact of Influencer Marketing (Marketing with Influential People) on Consumer Behavior, 4th Internatioanl Conference on Modern Developments in Management, Economics And Accounting, Tehran. (in Persian)
Yuan, S., & Lou, C. (2020). How Social Media Influencers Foster Relationships with Followers: The Roles of Source Credibility and Fairness in Parasocial Relationship and Product Interest. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 20(2), 133-147.