Zhi Yubo_URL of Master thesis_2025
Description
Current researches focus on understanding influencer marketing, the theories behind it and factors that contributes to the success of such campaigns. Even though many articles and research papers do acknowledge that relationship of the 2 parties is important and essential for influencer marketing, however, very few or no researches directly conduct empirical analysis on whether relationship between KOLs and their followers indeed influence and to what magnitude influence the success of influencer marketing campaigns and eventually impacting brand’s choice of marketing tactic or KOLs to choose. This study in the form of case study with KOLs on Instagram and Red platform will help to fill this void by addressing this issue which is underexplored currently and provide a deep-dive into the relationship between influencers and its followers and the impact on their followers. Together with the deep-dive, the paper will also include researches on other factors that will affect the effectiveness of influencer marketing. Empirical evidence from this research confirms that KOLs’ ability to influence their followers will impact the outcome of influencer marketing, but only effective through certain methods. Specifically, focusing on two largest social platform, Instagram and Red, the paper found that post content alignment with KOL’s persona and write-up or message interactivity are two influencing factors in determining the success of influencer marketing. While other factors such as relationship built between the KOL and followers does not seem to influence the outcome of future campaigns, potentially suggesting that past relationship built between the KOL and her followers has a short-horizon of influences, as the benefits of strong relationship with the followers seem not carry forward. The findings in this paper offer marketers and KOLs theoretical guidance for conducting influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram and Red as well as in the global and China market. Keywords: Brand marketing strategy, Influencer Marketing, key opinion leader, Social Media Platforms, Consumer BehaviorM