Under The Influence: How Social Media Influencers Impact Purchasing Behavior

Few days ago, I was wandering in the infinite strenuous lands of social media, wasting my time looking at the last black Friday promotion by a famous influencer: a makeup palette with 25% off! I saw that small glittering piece of happiness and I didn't even have the time to realize what I was really up to, that my finger was typing the palette name on sephora.com. Suddenly, another post caught my attention; it said something like ‘Black Friday: if you don't buy anything, you save 100% on everything’. Ouch! I've been hooked by the consumer-craze pointless swirl fostered by the influencers (again, should I say…).

Do I really need another makeup product in my beauty bag? Although it is very hard to admit, the answer is no. So, I started to think about the subtle art of persuasiveness put in place by influencers.

What is the psychology behind the purchasing behaviour?

If we look at the question from a broader perspective, we can find some answers in the cause-effect correlation between Influencer Marketing and a new digital marketing era, which Kotler has defined Web 4.0.

As a matter of fact, as the world has endured a digital shift over the last years due to data technologies innovation, so did marketing. Digital technologies, integrated with marketing activities, have achieved Marketing 4.0, a “new generation of marketing that combines online and offline relations between companies and customers” (Kotler, 2017). Since marketing should adapt to the consumers’ changing behaviours in digital world, the introduction of social media in marketing activities has been inevitable and predictable. Charlesworth (2018) argues that marketing on social media should be all about sharing, relationships and engaging in communities. Other studies have simply defined this trend as the use of social media channels to effectively promote businesses to a market segmentation.

Whatever your line of thought is, these definitions highlight how social networks have created a new dimension more focused on customer experience and relationship with brands. In fact, this new customer-centric era of marketing 4.0 is focused on customers' needs, wants and desires, other than provide a medium to validate that, through user-generated contents and customer-driven actions. In this context, it is understandable how influencer marketing has arisen and growth in the last years on social media. Thus, influencer marketing has emerged as a social media marketing practice to connect brands with consumers on an emotional level and drive their purchase intention and attitudes.

Now, going back to my question, as Influencer marketing is the digital equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing, companies use key personalities to drive brand's messages to targeted market. It is clear that an influencer is perceived as reliable personality or a “trusted advisor”. Thus, while the audience is still shelled by advertisements, influencer marketing provides a higher level of consumers engagement. In fact, influencer marketing, is built on personal brands, which emphasize real people, so influencers can trigger both rational and emotional purchase intentions from their audience. Basically, these influencers, in particular in beauty industry, are perceived as humble, with that next-door-girl vibe, which is capable to trigger your desire of emulation.

So yes, I’m definitely easily influenced but don’t blame me, it’s just the power of influencer marketing.