Social Computing and Social Media. Communication and Social Communities

Abstract

Influencer marketing is considered one of the most promising mar- keting strategies in the age of digital transformation of media. The social plat- form Instagram offers a huge opportunity for companies to market their products and services through influencers, without it being directly recognized as an advertisement. The purpose of this examination is to investigate, which and how many products are promoted via influencer marketing and which hashtag, tag and mention categories are used. Throughout six months, product placements of German micro and macro influencers were evaluated. 234 contributions on Instagram containing product placements were analyzed, with a total of 1122 hashtags, 506 tags and 289 mentions. The results indicate that the fashion (30,51%), accessory (19,07%) and beauty (18,64%) industries are among the sectors most commonly marketed by influencer types. On average, macro influencers use 4 hashtags per product placement and micro influencers use 6 hashtags per product placement. Hashtags of the content categories Slogan, Product, Fitness and Brand are the most commonly used. In addition, hashtags of the categories Lifestyle, Description, Company, Sentiment, Technology and Environment are among the 10 most common hashtag categories for advertising products. Tags of the categories Company, Distributor, Company location, Company’s product feed and Company specification are utilized. Mentions of the categories Company and Company location are in use most frequently. The research reveals that despite the product placement labelling policy, a high level of influencer marketing is still executed on Instagram and the use of hashtags, tags and mentions is still popular. Keywords: