The influence of friends and Instafamous people on purchase intention

Abstract

Word-of-mouth is a long existing marketing technique that was extended into an electronic version used in the world wide web. Instagram is one of many social networking platforms where this technique is used. Words are thereby spread by posting pictures and written content under the graphics. In this study, it shall be tested what influence such a post has on somebodies intention to purchase a seen good in an Instagram post. The impact of two specific groups of post-creators are examined and compared, namely friends and Instafamous people. The perceived closeness to the information source, their expertise and trustworthiness (credibility), receiving answers from them and the product type of a fashion good were used as possible influencing factors. The findings indicate that friends with a strong tie have more influence on somebodies intention to purchase a good seen in an Instagram post in comparison to the weak tie of Instafamous people. The mediator of trustworthiness has an indirect effect on friends, but contrary to expectation is no indirect effect given for the expertise of Instafamous people. Receiving or not receiving an answer to a question from the person who posted the picture has no moderating effect on both groups. The difference in product type has a moderating effect on trustworthiness of a friend with a hedonic pair of shoes, while for an Instafamous person neither the hedonic nor the utilitarian shoes have a moderating effect on either expertise or trustworthiness. Overall it can be concluded that in case of a fashion item post, a best friend has more influence on purchase intention, while the expertise of an Instafamous person is not seen as crucial to make intentions to purchase.