Case Study: Flat Tummy

One of most successful forms of native advertising is the use of social media influencers to promote products on social media sites. An influencer is defined as an individual with a large social media following who uses that clout to persuade people to purchase products or services (Kirwan, 2018).

Influencers are generally considered to have an expertise in a field in which their followers share an interest such as fashion or food (Hall, 2016). This perceived expertise gives the influencer a greater effect in persuading their followers.

Instagram, the photo sharing social media application created in 2010, has grown its user base to include a recorded 37 percent of Americans in 2019 with 67 percent of those users being between the ages of 18-29 years, according to a Pew Research survey (2019).

Advertisers have successfully moved into this space by utilizing influencers. Ninety-four percent of marketers found influencer ads to be successful, providing 11 times the rate of investment when compared to traditional advertisements (Ahmed, 2018). In 2016, 40 percent of Twitter users reported that they had purchased something based off an influencer’s tweet (Karp, 2016).

One aspect making influencer marketing so successful is that influencer ads are considered to be more authentic than traditionally branded ads (Talavera, 2015). Furthermore, Swant (2016) found that people rate influencer opinion equal to that of their friends.

Credibility is an important factor for influencers as it directly impacts their ability to persuade their followers (Hall, 2016). Lou and Yuan (2019) found that influencers' trustworthiness or credibility resulted in more positive thoughts toward the brands the influencers were promoting. To enhance credibility, many brands pay celebrity endorsers to advertise their product.

According to Wong (2018), the Kardashians are reported to collect six-figure payments for their sponsored Instagram posts.