Post Millennials and Their Motivation to Engage with Influencers Brand-related Content on Instagram

With the rise of social media, the phenomenon of word-of-mouth (WOM) appeared; society was able to share opinions and reviews mapping down WOM as a key marketing tactic, and influencer marketing revolutionized (Brown and Hayes 2008). The aim of influencer marketing is to transform influencers into brand advocates who then share their brand or product-related views to build loyal customers through relationships (Messiaen 2017; Sudha and Sheena 2017). For brands and marketers, the shift has steered from celebrity endorsements, as influencers are seen to be more credible and trustworthy than celebrities, particularly as consumers are able to relate to these influencers through their personality (Talaverna 2015; De Veirman et al. 2017; Leban and Voyer 2020). The exposure of the staged advertisements has moved consumers to want an authentic and personal way to engage (Gilmore and Pine 2007), thus causing a power shift away from organizations and to consumers (O’Brien 2011). Yesiloglu (2020) emphasizes the difference between paid and unpaid marketing activities of influencers further and divides influencer marketing into earned influencer marketing – influencers producing user-generated content – and paid influencer marketing, where influencers produce firm- generated content. Whilst firm-generated content refers to being sent products or receiving a commission of sales, or the brand may host an event that is documented, user- generated content relates to when the influencer purchases or is sent free samples or products and does not receive any remuneration (Messiaen 2017). The distinction between the two has become a legal area of contention. As a result, the Advertising Standards Association (ASA) has recently regulated influencer marketing content which needs to be identifiable by consumers for being paid or not (Bosher 2020). The use of “#ad” or “#sponsored” is used to highlight paid content to consumers, allowing them to have the choice of whether to engage with the post (Advertising Practice 2017).