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Sustainable fashion social media influencers and content creation calibration
Abstract
Given the rise of social media, social media influencers have become an essential part of marketing agencies’ strategies. Advertisers seek to leverage influencers’ large community of followers who place trust in influencers’ recommendations. This trust makes the use of influencer marketing a powerful tool for advertisers. With increasing consumer interest, the sustainable fashion industry has grown and social media influencers are being leveraged to shift consumer perspective and purchasing behavior. Using semi-structured interviews, this research addresses the use of influencers as an advertising tactic in the sustainable fashion industry to analyze the social media practices and monetization strategies of sustainable fashion social media influencers.
The term ‘sustainable fashion social media influencers’ is introduced to describe influential content creators who discuss sustainable fashion on social media. Importantly, the research identifies ‘content creation calibration’, which refers to the practice of social media influencers calibrating their content to account for their ethics and desire for compensation. The research highlights the future challenges for advertisers and influencers when linking sustainability to entrepreneurship in influencer marketing.
... Difficulties may arise when part of their content is sponsored and their credibility may be harmed. Jacobson and Harrison (2022) explored this issue by conducting qualitative research -in-depth interviews -with 20 women sustainable fashion social media influencers to examine their content creation and monetization strategies. The term 'sustainable fashion social media influencers' herein refers to those influencers who discuss sustainable fashion and lifestyle adoption on social media. ...
... For instance, five of them conducted experiments when investigating the impact of disclosure types, influencer size, self-disclosure, message sidedness, influencer-product fit, gender match with influencers, influencer-product fit, influencers' response strategies, and followers' negative comments on the effectiveness of influencer-sponsored posts (Boerman and Müller 2022;Hudders and De Jans 2022;Janssen et al. 2022;Lee and Johnson 2022). Two qualitative investigations offer some nuanced understanding of teenagers' advertising literacy toward influencer marketing (Sweeney, Lawlor, and Brady 2022) and sustainable fashion influencers' content and monetization strategies (Jacobson and Harrison 2022). We have also featured a study that employed survey instruments to shed light on followers' fundamental motives for following influencers on Instagram and the role of a related individual factor (materialism) (Lee and Johnson 2022). ...
... They reliably generate high engagement in viewership and user comments (Fruend, 2019). As retailers were quick to recognize the growing success and the marketing potential of fashion haul videos, there has been an increasing level of sponsored collaboration between influencers and fast -fashion brands, and it is common for retailers to send fashion influencers free merchandise for influencers to review (Jacobson and Harrison, 2022;Nandagiri and Philip, 2018). ...
Purpose
This study aims to examine YouTube comments relevant to sustainable fashion posted on fashion haul videos over the past decade (2011–2021). It is guided by two research questions: (1) How have sustainable fashion-related comments posted on YouTube fashion haul videos changed over time? and (2) What themes are relevant to sustainable fashion in the comments posted on fashion haul videos?
Design/methodology/approach
A data set of comments from 110 fashion haul videos posted on YouTube was refined to only include comments with keywords related to sustainable fashion. Leximancer, a machine learning technique, was employed to identify concepts within the data and co-occurrences between concepts. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software was employed to assess the prevalence of concepts and identify sentiment over time.
Findings
Over the decade, the authors identified increased comments and conversations relevant to sustainable fashion. For instance, conversations surrounding sustainable fashion were linked to “waste” and “addicted” between 2011 and 2013, which evolved to include “environment” and “clothes” between 2014 and 2016, to “buy” and “workers” between 2017 and 2019 and “sustainable” between 2020 and 2021, demonstrating the changes in conversation topics over time.
Practical implications
With increasing engagement from YouTube viewers on sustainable fashion, retail-affiliated content that promotes sustainable fashion is proposed as one approach to engage viewers and promote sustainable practices in the fashion industry, whereby content creators can partner with retailers to feature products and educate viewers on the benefits of sustainable fashion.
Originality/value
The findings suggest that consumers are becoming more aware of and responsive to sustainable fashion. The originality of this research stems from identifying the source of this interest.
... Firms are increasingly collaborating with influencers on social media platforms to inform consumers about the availability of sustainable products and services, and to expound on how these products and services meet the sustainability criteria, to encourage sustainable consumption (Kapoor et al., 2022;Jacobson and Harrison, 2022). Previous studies showed that sustainability communication through social media could be more effective when implemented with the right theory and practice (Tölkes, 2018;Sarkar et al., 2022). ...
Purpose
This study aims to examine the role of message appeals (concrete vs abstract) posted by greenfluencers in determining their behavioral intention toward the sponsored sustainable product. This study examined the underlying mechanism of message authenticity and product sustainability image in this relationship. This study also investigated the boundary condition of product type (utilitarian vs hedonic) in the effect of sustainability message appeal on purchase intention.
Design/methodology/approach
Four studies were carried out. One field experiment on Facebook and three scenario-based online experiments were conducted to test the proposed relationships.
Findings
This study found that a concrete message appeal results in a higher purchase intention of the promoted product than an abstract message appeal. This effect is a result of message authenticity and product sustainability image. Furthermore, product type moderates the impact of message appeal on behavioral intention via message authenticity and product sustainability image.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the literature on influencer marketing, sustainability communication and the persuasion process.
Practical implications
This study’s findings provide insights for greenfluencers and firms that leverage greenfluencers to promote their sustainable products on social media. Specifically, it lays out how the sustainability message should be framed to be persuasive.
Originality/value
This study findings offer novel insights for greenfluencers and firms in developing effective message strategies to promote sustainable products on social media.
... Although consumers demonstrated increasing interest in making sustainable choices when purchasing clothes, few customers reflect an actual interest in its practice [8]. The gap between consumers' concerns and intentions on sustainability and their purchasing behaviour has highlighted studies on sustainable fashion that outline an attitude-behaviour gap due to several barriers constraining the adoption of sustainable fashion [7]. ...
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted the pursuit of sustainable development in various ways. Current consumer trends suggest an increased awareness of sustainable consumption or fashion consumption. Past studies have focused more on general concepts of sustainable fashion consumption (SFC), including environmental, ethical, secondhand , and recycling while neglecting upcycling fashion. Therefore, the study investigated the Malaysian iGeneration purchase intention of upcycled fashion products post-COVID-19. The study extended the moderating role of parasocial relationship based on the Theory Planned Behaviour (TPB). A quantitative online survey was conducted among 230 respondents from IGeneration between 10 to 25 years old in Malaysia. The hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The study outcomes exhibited empirical support for the proposed research model. Two out of six hypothesized relationships were accepted. Specifically, subjective norm was positively linked to the purchase intention of upcycled fashion products. Meanwhile, parasocial relationship moderated subjective norm and purchase intention. The study provided insights into the application of TPB-based framework and enhanced knowledge of fashion industry players, educators and communities.
... As a result, apparel brands are promoting their sustainable practices to affect consumers buying intentions and behavior. To accelerate the promotion and communication about sustainability issues, marketers are utilizing social media as an effective advertising tactic [10]. ...
With increased concern for environmental and social issues, consumers and the apparel industry have become more interested in the topic of sustainability. Numerous brands strive to reposition in sustainability by employing credible sources and maintaining information transparency to get consumers’ recognition. By employing the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, this study experimented with how sustainability positioning with credible sources (EPA vs. Celebrity vs. Social Media Influencer) and high (vs. low) transparency influence brand attachment, trust, and identification, leading to eWOM and brand loyalty. The findings indicate that sustainable positioning with credible sources (i.e., EPA and Social Media influencers) could achieve consumers’ positive brand attachment, trust, and identification in social media marketing. However, we did not find evidence of the impact of high (vs. low) transparency on these dependable variables. Furthermore, brand loyalty and eWOM are significantly influenced by consumers’ brand attachment and trust, whereas brand identification positively affects brand loyalty only, not eWOM. Additionally, this study found that women and higher-income groups had a high preference for sustainable brands.
... The literature looked at several aspects of SMA, including as customer reactions to the product (Alalwan, 2018;Kim & Kim, 2021;Zhu et al., 2022) involvement with SMA and the significance of the kind of platform (Weismueller et al., 2020) the effect of a consumer's perception of customization on how they react to advertising on SNS (Maria et al., 2019) impact of personality type-targeted advertising on SM (Scholz, 2021) as well as how customers' focus shifts in response to interactive media (Hudders et al., 2021). In addition, the literature has investigated the elements that hinder the effectiveness of SM advertisements, such as the impact of annoying ads on consumers' decisions to avoid SMA (Jacobson & Harrison, 2022), avoidance of commercial content on SNS (Yuan & Lou, 2020) and ignorance reasons for SMA . ...
Purpose-The use of social media as a platform for performing marketing and advertising operations is growing in popularity. Advertisements on social media take up a significant amount of time, financial resources, and other organizational resources. However, there is always room for improvement in how businesses may develop advertising for social media platforms to attract people effectively and to encourage them to buy their goods. Therefore, this research investigated the primary elements connected to social media advertising that can predict a consumer's desire to make a purchase. Methods/Design-The conceptual model was developed using criteria derived from an expanded version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2). The data was collected through a survey of 663 individuals. Structural equation mdoeling was used for the data analysis. Results/Findings-The major findings from structural equation modelling provided a significant amount of support for the validity of the existing model. Orignality-This research contributes to several theoretical and practical principles that can help marketers plan and put their advertisements on social media platforms in the best way possible.
Shopping increasingly becomes a leisure activity for everyone since consumers can easily get their favorite items at a lower price. It is easy to see that people can generally have overconsumption behavior and a throwaway culture, which are the main issues that lead to environmental problems. According to Leal Filho et al. (2019), the textile industry is one of the world’s most unsustainable and polluting industries, with high impact on the environment. Since fashion is a complex industry, companies have to be involved in a multi- layered process of producing clothes. This can contribute to the problem of fashion waste, as excess clothing and other textiles often end up in landfills or are incinerated rather than being recycled or reused.
Waste has always been associated with disgust and horror, which prevents people from addressing it (Hawkins 2006). When discussing about waste, we will relate it to either controversial issues or the philosophical aspects of waste. Some countries have, arguably, increased their waste awareness over the years. People are becoming more aware of their consumption and lifestyle decisions. The concept of sustainability and its objectives have been introduced and integrated into the lifestyle. Throughout the evolution of technology and digital networks, a number of campaigns to raise awareness about sustainability in fashion have been developed and published on social media by influencers, social projects and also non-profit organizations. However, some fashion companies have been utilizing those marketing campaign to blind and nudge consumer behaviors. Interestingly, those fraud behaviors have been mostly exposed by influencers or key opinion leaders (KOL) on social media platforms especially through TikTok and Instagram.
Emerging literature on social media influencers (SMIs) identifies their potential to help brands gain attention and build credibility with consumers, in particular as brands respond to the growing consumer expectation of a commitment to social causes. We propose a social networks approach to the study of paid SMIs and implement it in veganism cause-related communities on Instagram. Findings identify clusters, echo chambers of influencers promoting similar products, associated with different facets of the cause community. Findings illustrate the value of a different type of SMI who bridges across influencers’ clusters and their following consumers. The study reveals the power of nano-influencers, who exhibited higher betweenness centrality levels, that is, their bridging position in the network. Conceptually, this study connects network scholarship to the study of paid influencers. We discuss methodological and practical implications of the potential role of influencers in brand attempts to engage with online cause communities.
Given the urgent need to address plastic pollution, fashion companies are implementing diverse strategies to reduce plastic in their production processes. To communicate their commitment to plastic waste reduction, companies have started including symbols on their products (i.e., sustainability cues). However, the effect of these symbols on consumer behaviour remains unclear. Thus, through a mixed method involving three focus groups and two online experiments, we investigate the effect of sustainability cues on consumers' preferences. Our findings show that including sustainability cues on a product is not always an effective business strategy. Hence, we expand the ongoing debate on the effects of environmental strategies, offering new insights into consumers' perceptions of sustainability cues and demonstrating the importance of perceived proximity and environmental concern in enhancing or reducing buying intentions towards sustainable products. For fashion companies, we reveal if and how sustainability cues can represent a competitive leverage prompting environmentally friendly purchases.
Consumers are increasingly worried that their current consumption patterns have negative environmental impacts, which in turn shapes their green purchase intentions. Based on the signaling theory and stimulus–organism–response model, the purpose of this research is to construct a theoretical framework to understand consumer intentions to buy eco‐labeled products. Empirical results from 671 questionnaires show that as expected, green advertising receptivity positively affects intention, and the relationship between green advertising receptivity and intention is also moderated by promotion focus and mediated by system trust and personal trust. However, the relationship between green advertising receptivity and purchase intention is not moderated by prevention focus. Hence, this research suggests that stakeholders should conduct truthful green advertising campaigns to dispel consumer suspicion and target different consumers with different green advertising and marketing campaigns to increase sales.
Purpose
Social media management is an emerging profession that is growing as companies increasingly adopt social media. The purpose of this paper is to analyze social media managers’ personal branding.
Design/methodology/approach
In-depth qualitative data is drawn from 20 semi-structured interviews with social media managers and supported by three years of orienting fieldwork in Toronto, Canada.
Findings
Social media managers are responsible for managing and executing organizations’ brands and presence on social media and digital platforms. As lead users of social media, social media managers provide critical insight into the emerging practices of personal branding on social media. “The future audience” is introduced to describe how individuals project a curated brand for all future unknown and unanticipated audiences, which emphasizes a professional identity. Due to workplace uncertainty, social media managers embody the mentality of being “always-on-the-job-market”, which is a driver for personal branding in their attempt to gain or maintain employment.
Originality/value
While personal branding is largely discussed by industry professionals, there is a need for empirical research on personal branding that examines how various employee groups experience personal branding. This research fills this gap by analyzing how people working in social media brand their identity and how their personal branding is used to market themselves to gain and maintain employment. The development of “the future audience” and “always-on-the-job-market” can be used to understand other professions and experiences of personal branding.
The presence of social media is not only used by someone to communicate with other people but also to present oneself with certain goals. The appearance of celebgram and vloggers has shown that social media is a place to show oneself in front of others. This study aims to describe the impression management vlogger in the "Kumit Project" account on social media by using a dramaturgy approach. The observation units in this study were the Kumit Project’s accounts on Instagram and Youtube. This qualitative descriptive study used the Erving Goffman dramaturgical analysis approach. The results showed that when on the front stage, Kumit Project, through its actors Madkucil and Cimit, performed impression management to create an impression on their audience. While on the back stage, Kumit Project was a team with the actors Madkucil and Cimit, whom the relationship as lovers was portrayed as the front stage. The drama that they played on the front stage is a real picture like the one on the back with additional background settings to add to the dramatization.
This study examines the role of source trust in viral ad diffusion, specifically the impact of source trust on the reach and speed of ad diffusion. It tests the feasibility of using computer-algorithm-generated social media metrics, indicating the degree to which each person is trusted by others within a social network, for trust-based viral ad seeding strategy, and future research on viral advertising. Applying trust theory and the computational trust research approach using real-life viral ad cases, this study found that only a small proportion of social media users exposed to viral ads tend to contribute to ad diffusion, and those with higher trust scores make significantly stronger contributions to spreading viral ads faster and more broadly. Additionally, individuals’ source trust scores have stronger impact on the extent and speed of viral ad diffusion, especially in the situation where the ads contained socially-controversial messages. Theoretical and methodological contributions and practical implications are offered.
This chapter discusses the emerging practices of social media Influencers. In focus are six influential Instagram Influencers who were ‘exposed’ for involving themselves in campaigns aiming to discredit telecommunications providers in Singapore. In the absence of enforced legal boundaries and industry norms regarding advertising formats and advertising ethics, brand scandals are frequent, causing concern among regulators, brand managers, and platform owners. When starting to accommodate commercial brands and contents in social media posts, Influencers are constantly at risk of breaching their contract of trust with their followers. The case study shows how Influencers, followers, and eventually also the brand clients, are sensitive to what they experience as deceptive and unethical behaviours that will put normative pressures onto the Influencers to conform to certain ethical standards
Though organizations increasingly collaborate with social media influencers, such as bloggers and videobloggers, little is known as to how the contextual cues related to sponsored content affect the authenticity perception of the social media influencers among audience members. This study explores how positive and negative priming of sponsored content shapes the authenticity perception of the vlogger among its audience members. Four different manipulation conditions were constructed to study a U.S. based travel vlog on Qualtrics, with data collected via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. A theory-guided content analysis of 211 open viewer responses was conducted to compare perceptions of authenticity between the manipulation groups. The results verified the significance of priming: the same sponsored content can result in opposite reactions among the audience members depending on the positive/negative valence of the introductory text attached, highlighting the central importance of strategic communication related to the perception of sponsored content. The results also point out the importance of audience member engagement for experienced authenticity: The manipulation of audience participation with the vlog had a stronger effect on the perception of authenticity of the vlogger than the positive/negative valence of the introductory text.
In their marketing efforts, companies increasingly abandon traditional celebrity endorsers in favor of social media influencers, such as vloggers and Instafamous personalities. The effectiveness of using influencer endorsements as compared to traditional celebrity endorsements is not well understood. Therefore, the present research investigated the impact of celebrity vs. influencer endorsements on advertising effectiveness (attitudes toward the advertisement and product, and purchase intention), moderated by product-endorser fit. Moreover, this research investigated two potential mediators underlying this relationship: identification (perceived similarity and wishful identification) and credibility (trustworthiness and expertise). Two experiments (N = 131, N = 446) investigated celebrity vs. influencer endorsers with good vs. poor fit with a beauty and a fitness product (Study 1), or a food and a fashion product (Study 2). Overall, our results showed that participants identify more with influencers than celebrities, feel more similar to influencers than celebrities, and trust influencers more than celebrities. In terms of advertising effectiveness, similarity, wishful identification, and trust mediate the relationship between type of endorser and advertising effectiveness. Product-endorser did not explain the relationship between type of endorser and any of the mediating and dependent variables. In all, our results show the added value of using influencer endorsers over celebrity endorsers and the importance of similarity, identification and trust in this process.
Understanding the complexity of sustainable fashion issues can be overwhelming and a barrier for fashion designers. A number of tools for sustainable fashion design have been developed to aid designers in the integration of sustainability into their design practices. We analyze these to determine their fitness for purpose. Among them, three categories (archetypes) of tools are identified: Universal, Participatory, and Assessment. We propose an innovation framework and a five-dimensional model of sustainability specific to fashion to facilitate the analysis of the tools. Using the archetype categorization may facilitate designers in identifying the most appropriate type of tool for a specific circumstance, depending on context and need.
Nowadays social network influencers play an important role in marketing by introducing products to their audience. In this article, we investigate the persuasion cues related to beauty and fashion influencers present on YouTube and Instagram. More precisely, we investigate how the para-social interaction (PSI) the audience creates with the online influencer, along with their perceived credibility, are related to the purchase intention and how they are, in turn, related to the social and physical attractiveness and attitude homophily. We base our research on four beauty influencers popular in France and control our results by the age of the participants and by the influencer. We find that attitude homophily is positively related to PSI but, surprisingly, the physical attractiveness shows negative relationship or no evidence of relationship. Both credibility of the influencers and PSI exhibit significant and positive relationships to purchase intention.
Fast fashion, inexpensive and widely available of-the-moment garments, has changed the way people buy and dispose of clothing. By selling large quantities of clothing at cheap prices, fast fashion has emerged as a dominant business model, causing garment consumption to skyrocket. While this transition is sometimes heralded as the “democratization” of fashion in which the latest styles are available to all classes of consumers, the human and environmental health risks associated with inexpensive clothing are hidden throughout the lifecycle of each garment. From the growth of water-intensive cotton, to the release of untreated dyes into local water sources, to worker’s low wages and poor working conditions; the environmental and social costs involved in textile manufacturing are widespread.
In this paper, we posit that negative externalities at each step of the fast fashion supply chain have created a global environmental justice dilemma. While fast fashion offers consumers an opportunity to buy more clothes for less, those who work in or live near textile manufacturing facilities bear a disproportionate burden of environmental health hazards. Furthermore, increased consumption patterns have also created millions of tons of textile waste in landfills and unregulated settings. This is particularly applicable to low and middle-income countries (LMICs) as much of this waste ends up in second-hand clothing markets. These LMICs often lack the supports and resources necessary to develop and enforce environmental and occupational safeguards to protect human health. We discuss the role of industry, policymakers, consumers, and scientists in promoting sustainable production and ethical consumption in an equitable manner.
In the past few years, expenditure on influencer marketing has grown exponentially. The present study involves preliminary research to understand the mechanism by which influencer marketing affects consumers via social media. It proposes an integrated model – social media influencer value model – to account for the roles of advertising value and source credibility. In order to test this model, we administered an online survey among social media users who followed at least one influencer. Partial least squares path modeling results show that the informative value of influencer-generated content, influencer’s trustworthiness, attractiveness, and similarity to the followers positively affect followers’ trust in influencers’ branded posts, which subsequently influence brand awareness and purchase intentions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
This research explores social network site interaction through digital and gendered labor. Due to enhanced interaction possibilities as well as mining and analytic techniques, all digital interaction is labor, at both the social and institutional level. Responses to a survey (N = 455) suggest that digital labor varies depending on the most-used social network site. In addition, women test higher in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, and contribute statistically more emotional labor online through liking and commenting. Women describe intricate processes of deciding whether they can or should socially interact, often fearing interpersonal conflict or being told they are stupid. Men, on the other hand, view social network sites as places for entertainment and base their emotional labor on some judged entertainment value. As such, this study illuminates how social network sites function as extensions of the home. Instead of being invited to contribute new cultural products, women are frequently led to support only those that already exist, arguably creating data that contain less use value and even more exchange and surplus value than other forms of digital labor. Hidden behind the curtain of an "empowering" Internet exist the fruits of social network site (SNS) labor. In the ever-evolving digital environment, user-generated content proliferates, and methods of collecting and commoditizing these data grow as well. Against this backdrop, it is vital to recognize that SNS interactions are always labor. SNSs promote themselves as companies that care about human connection and sharing, but human tendencies to create use value through sociality are exploited to generate exchange and surplus value. Profitable interactions vastly comprise emotional labor, the expectation of which is disproportionately placed on women. As such, this study explores SNS labor and how it has created a new site of "women's work." Responses to a survey (N = 455) reveal that women are more likely to like and comment on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat content, providing valuable data. Much like traditional notions of women's work, SNSs rely on women to support their capitalistic goals. Unlike traditional notions, however,
The study seeks to explore and synthesize current issues in Slow Fashion and discuss potential future directions of the industry. While there are multiple definitions of the term, Slow Fashion typically describes long-lasting, locally manufactured clothing, primarily made from sustainably sourced fair-trade fabrics. It affords latitude to individual style, fosters education about clothing and emphasizes durability. While several challenges regarding the implementation of Slow Fashion principles in current society remain, the study offers an overview of the current state, and presents a fashion matrix-based framework for outlining the position of the Slow Fashion movement within industry-specific fashion segments and uses the matrix to present current knowledge and review future challenges. The support of networks serves as an indispensable tool for Slow Fashion designers, keeping them abreast of the competition.
‘Sustainable fashion’ is one of the most widely used terms in the fashion industry today. It is not only about the trend of socially responsible brands with eco-friendly products or coming up with some regulatory policies but also for catering to upcoming demands of conscious consumers to adopt sustainable fashion. Consumers have evolved over the ages and have become educated about the materials and manufacturing process, which results in their growing interest to make socially responsible choices while updating their wardrobes with a value tag. In fact, International brands like Patagonia, People Tree, H&M, Thought, Indigenous, Rent the Runway, Stella McCartney have become more focused to approach fashion in as ethical and transparent manner as possible considering both environment and customers. Emerging slow fashion brands like 11.11, [Ka] [Sha], Doodlage, Raw Mango, Bodice, Rustic Hue etc. are dedicated to design and offer clothing made using fair and ethical means such as providing safe working conditions to the factory workers, working with handloom weavers and artisans to create handcrafted products, sourcing organic or recycled raw materials and up-cycling post-production and post-consumer wastes. The gradual shift from fast fashion to a sustainable and socially responsible fashion is clearly visible around the globe. Both new and old fashion brands, are undergoing transformation day by day with new business models, new age fashion labels and supply chain practices to address the awareness and demand for sustainable clothing. This chapter discusses on the forms of sustainable fashion, sustainable fashion brands strategies, consumer transparency and the driving forces and scopes; how fashion brands and consumers are advancing towards sustainable fashion.
The rise of social media radically broadens the sources and platforms used for environmental communication. Especially personal green blogs are worthy of study as they are spaces of everyday cultural politics through which people make sense of sustainability issues, and because they entail a radical break from conventional media in terms of legitimacy, form, and content of environmental communication processes. This paper studies the representation of sustainability on personal green blogs, and the communication processes through which these representations are constructed. It does so through a qualitative study of Swedish-language blogs. We study three blogs in-depth: a living experiment blog on sustainable food practices; a lifestyle blog centered around green family life; and a blog about consuming green beauty products. The analysis shows that all three blogs translate the complex landscape of sustainability to individual everyday practices. Yet, what these sustainability practices entail differs considerably between the blogs, ranging from a-political and doable lifestyle choices to an onset to radical redefining of consumption. Also, the communication processes on the blogs differ in quality and quantity. The paper uses these insights to reflect on the debates about how environmental communication is shaped by blogging and social media practices.
Textiles waste is relatively small in terms of weight as compared to other waste streams, but it has a large impact on human health and environment, and its rate is increasing due to the ‘fast fashion’ model. In this paper, we examine the French national programme for managing post-consumer textiles and clothing through a case study research. To date, France is the only country in the world implementing an extended producer responsibility (EPR) policy for end-of-use clothing, linen and shoes. The case highlights the benefits of using an EPR policy and provides interesting insights about the challenges faced by the textiles waste sector. For instance, the EPR policy has contributed to a threefold increase in the collection and recycling rates of post-consumer textiles since 2006. In addition, the material recovery rate of the post-consumer textiles can reach 90%, 50% of which can be directly reused. However, the ‘reuse’ stream is facing some challenges because its main market is in Africa and many African countries are considering banning the import of used textiles to encourage a competitive textiles industry locally and internationally. The EPR policy shows a great potential to identify new markets for ‘reuse’ and to improve the textiles waste sector. Such an EPR policy also could drive societies to financially support innovation and research to provide feasible solutions for fashion producers to adopt eco-design and design for recycling practices. This paper provides guidance for policy makers, shareholders, researchers and practitioners interested in diverting post-consumer textiles and clothing waste from landfills and promoting circular textiles transition.
An illuminating investigation into a class of enterprising women aspiring to “make it” in the social media economy but often finding only unpaid work Profound transformations in our digital society have brought many enterprising women to social media platforms—from blogs to YouTube to Instagram—in hopes of channeling their talents into fulfilling careers. In this eye-opening book, Brooke Erin Duffy draws much-needed attention to the gap between the handful who find lucrative careers and the rest, whose “passion projects” amount to free work for corporate brands. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork, Duffy offers fascinating insights into the work and lives of fashion bloggers, beauty vloggers, and designers. She connects the activities of these women to larger shifts in unpaid and gendered labor, offering a lens through which to understand, anticipate, and critique broader transformations in the creative economy. At a moment when social media offer the rousing assurance that anyone can “make it”–and stand out among freelancers, temps, and gig workers—Duffy asks us all to consider the stakes of not getting paid to do what you love.
In the wake of profound transformations in digital media markets and economies, the structures and conditions of cultural production are being radically reconfigured. This study explores the nascent field of social media work through an analysis of job recruitment ads—texts, we contend, that provide insight into a key discursive site of imagining the ideal digital laborer. Drawing upon a qualitative textual analysis of 150 adverts, we show how employers construct workers through a patterned set of features, including sociability, deft emotional management, and flexibility. Such industrial imaginings incite workers to remain ever available, juggle various roles and responsibilities, and engage in persistent emotional labor—both online and off. These expectations, we argue, allude to the increasingly feminized nature of social media employment, with its characteristic invisibility, lower pay, and marginal status within the technology field.
The paper looks at the symbolic interactions on social networking sites, such as Likes on Facebook, and their role in users' sense of social in- or exclusion. In an online experiment, users of Facebook were asked to write a possible status update and then received note about the numbers of hypothetical Likes they received (zero, two, or thirty) and who (close friends or acquaintances) pressed the Like button. Multivariate analysis of variances showed that belongingness and self-esteem needs are threatened when people do not receive Likes. In contrast, more Likes seem to satisfy these needs better. The influence of who gives the Likes is minor compared to the sheer number of Likes.
Social media permeated almost every aspect of our lives. As it enables consumer socialization through peer communication, it has the power to influence and encourage adopting behaviors that might contradict beliefs held by our offline reference group (or the majority). For instance, green lifestyle which promotes conservation and non-purchase behaviors stands in a stark contrast to the cult of consumption held by majority of people in many developed countries. This research asks how sustainability advocates on social media drive their followers to embrace the minority view i.e. green lifestyle. To map the process of green lifestyle adoption, we draw from real experiences of social media users. We examined netnographic data from over 8000 Facebook posts of green lifestyle advocates from the past 3 years, and interviewed their followers. To contribute to the existing body of knowledge, we identify the key elements of social media communication that drive green lifestyle adoption. By the two combing two seemingly contrasting theories, i.e. minority influence theory (MIT) and social learning theory (SLT), we provide a more complete picture of the process of green lifestyle adoption and reveal how both types of influence suggested by the theories, informational influence (II) and normative influence (NI), impact customers at different stages of new behavior adoption. We open the debate on how minority influence can be exerted in an online setting. This research offers a number of practical implications for social agents and policymakers that promote green behaviors.
This review provides insight into the research on the strategic use of social media influencers. A search in the Scopus database yielded a total of 154 peer-reviewed academic publications focussing on influencer marketing, published mostly in the last three years (2018–2020). Most of these studies were empirical and used survey research, an experimental design, content analysis, or interview methodology. While a few studies examined how influencers can incite behavioural change or affect public opinion, the majority of studies focussed on the use of influencers as a commercial marketing tactic. Using Stern’s Revised Communication Model for Advertising as a theoretical framework, the studies were classified according to three research characteristics: source, message, and audience. The first research stream focussed on the perspectives of influencers and communication professionals. The second stream was concerned with the content strategies used by influencers in their sponsored posts. The third research stream focussed on the appeal of influencers and the efficacy of their sponsored recommendations. Several studies in the third stream were concerned with the transparency of this covert marketing tactic. The paper concludes with a future research agenda and implications for marketing practice and public policy.
This chapter reviews research on the group identity explanation of social influence, grounded in self-categorization theory, and contrasts it with other group-based explanations, including normative influence, interdependence, and social network approaches, as well as approaches to persuasion and influence that background group (identity) processes. Although the review primarily discusses recent research, its focus also invites reappraisal of some classic research in order to address basic questions about the scope and power of the group identity explanation. The self-categorization explanation of influence grounded in group norms, moderated by group identification, is compared and contrasted to other normative explanations of influence, notably the concept of injunctive norms and the relation to moral conviction. A range of moderating factors relating to individual variation, features of the intragroup and intergroup context, and important contextual variables (i.e., anonymity versus visibility, isolation versus copresence) that are particularly relevant to online influence in the new media are also reviewed.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 72 is January 4, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
The concept of sustainability has gained in importance since the United Nations made it the main pillar for development in 1992. But while areas like climate change and energy consumption are well known, the concept of sustainable fashion is neither understood nor conceptualized very well. Most research in the field focuses on fashion consumption but has various understandings of sustainability. Through a text-based analysis of the Twitter discourse on sustainable fashion, this study developed a conceptual framework to understand perceptions of sustainable fashion that can help guide theory and practice. The findings contribute to the development of a circular model of sustainable fashion that combines production, diffusion, and consumption processes. The utility and limitations of the conceptual model are discussed.
Through in-depth interviews with 15 women in the United States, this pilot study contributes to filling the gap in scholarship on consumer perceptions of sponsored content posted by social media influencers (SMI). We found women may follow social media influencers because of prior topic interests, perceived relatability, and authenticity. Social exchange and relationship management theories do not sufficiently account for purchasing decisions despite negative views of consumers. We argue for a new theory called Influencer-Follower Relationship Management Theory.
While the literature related to this topic has predominantly focused on investigating the influence mechanism that social media influencers (SMIs) impose over their followers, less is known about their attachment mechanism. Given that social media platforms were originally designed to facilitate personal bonding and not product or brand recommendations, we posited that social media followers' emotional attachment to SMIs is an important precedent that affects the followers' behavioral inclination to accept the SMIs' endorsements. We thus drew new attention to the relationship between SMIs and their followers by focusing on their attachment development mechanism and its casual factors and effects. In doing so, Study 1 inductively analyzed the key causal factors, both with respect to SMI persona- and content-driven attributes, that make followers feel attached to SMIs. By integrating the findings of Study 1 with the human brand theory, Study 2 provided empirical evidence after analyzing 325 U.S. consumers' responses about how SMIs' personas (i.e., inspiration, enjoyability, and similarity) and content curation abilities (i.e., informativeness) affected followers to perceive the SMIs as human brands who fulfill their needs for ideality, relatedness, and competence—all of which resulted in an intense attachment to SMIs. It was this positive emotion shaped with SMIs that transferred to SMIs’ endorsements and positively influenced the followers to acquire the products/brands that the SMIs recommended.
Media coverage of influencer marketing abounds with ethical questions about this emerging industry. Much of this coverage assumes influencers operate without an ethical framework and many social media personalities skirt around the edges of legal guidelines. Our study starts from the premise that influencer marketing is not inherently unethical but, rather, the ethical principles guiding production of sponsored content are not well understood. Through a case study of the travel and tourism media industry, our findings demonstrate that influencers use the concept of authenticity as an ethical framework when producing sponsored content. This ethics of authenticity is premised on two central tenets: being true to one’s self and brand and being true to one’s audience. This framework puts the influencers’ brand identity and relationship with their audience at the forefront while simultaneously allowing them to profit from content designed to benefit brands and destinations.
This study investigates the effects of influencer advertising attributes on consumer responses via multiple motive inference processing. Influencer-product congruence and sponsorship disclosure are manipulated as independent variables. In so doing, this study examines whether social media users infer two types of motives (Affective vs. Calculative) of the influencer derived from perceived congruence (High vs. Low) and sponsorship disclosure (Presence vs. Absence). Results suggest that influencer-product congruence can be used to enhance product attitude and reduce advertising recognition by generating a higher affective motive inference. Sponsorship disclosure can also affect product attitude in a serial mediation of calculative motive inference and advertising recognition. The multiple motive inference model explained the dual processing of influencer advertising by attributing to the prior persuasion knowledge and situational characteristics simultaneously. The findings discussed theoretical and managerial implications on native advertising on social media.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the type of disclosure used by social media influencers on consumer evaluations of influencer transparency, product performance expectations and how those factors ultimately influence purchase intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
An experiment was conducted with 321 participants recruited from MTurk to test a moderated serial-mediation model.
Findings
The results indicate that when consumers become cognizant that an influencer’s branded promotional post may have been motivated by an underlying financial relationship, they evaluate the influencer as significantly less transparent if a more ambiguous disclosure is used relative to a clearer disclosure. Transparency perceptions of the influencer impact consumers’ perceptions of product efficacy as well as purchase intentions.
Originality/value
Social media influencers are rapidly emerging as a popular marketing tool for brand managers, but consumer response to this form of promotion is not well understood. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate how the type of endorsement disclosure used by a social media influencer impacts consumer perception of influencer transparency, product efficacy and purchase intentions. Further, this research demonstrates the applicability of the persuasion knowledge model in the domain of influencer marketing.
Achieving the anticipated business benefits of a social medium is important as organizations diligently invest in different social media platforms. While much previous research assumes that social media helps organizations to communicate with customers, less is known about whether customers embrace using social media to interact with organizations. It is important to understand the role of social media for business communication from the customers’ perspective, as this may significantly deviate from the organizations’ own communicative intentions. In this exploratory case study of the Moon Struck hotel in China, we investigate both how customers interpret the hotel’s use of WeChat official account for business communication and how customers respond to messages received from Moon Struck’s WeChat account. Adopting a symbolic interactionism perspective, we surprisingly find that WeChat personal accounts and Moon Struck’s official account offer radically different meanings to followers. Specifically, WeChat personal account symbolizes a sociality-oriented meaning (e.g., relationship and image building), while Moon Struck’s WeChat official account symbolizes information broadcasting-related meaning (e.g., selling, advertising, and branding). Both technological features and the distance of relationships among users contribute to the constructed symbolic meaning of technology, subsequently affecting users’ WeChat use patterns. The theoretical implications of this study are discussed and recommendations are made for future research and practice.
Given the prevalence of social media usage among consumers in China and the rise of social media endorsements, it is important to understand the effects of social media influencers and their product endorsements on consumers. The present study explores the effects of self-influencer congruence on brand attitude, brand engagement, and purchase intention in China’s dynamic social media context. The perceived motive of social media influencer’s endorsement behavior, parasocial identification with social media influencers, and their roles in the endorsement process were examined. The results of this study suggest that a high degree of congruence between the image of a social media influencer and the consumer’s ideal self-image leads to effective endorsement outcomes. Parasocial identification was found to mediate the relationship between self-influencer congruence and endorsement outcomes while perceived endorser motive was found to moderate the effects of self-influencer congruence on such outcomes through parasocial identification.
Social media influencers – such as the ‘Instafamous’ – are required to disclose any commercial relationship. To achieve transparency, Instagram has introduced a standardized disclosure (‘Paid partnership with [brand]’). This study examined whether this disclosure effectively raises ad recognition, and how this consequently affects consumers' responses to the message, influencer, and brand. Additionally, the effects of the disclosure were compared between micro- (<10,000 followers) and meso- (10,000–1 million followers) influencers. Results of an online experiment (N = 192) with a 2 (no disclosure vs. standardized disclosure) x 2 (micro-vs. meso-influencer) between subjects design showed that the disclosure did achieve its goal of increasing ad recognition. Furthermore, the disclosure positively affected brand recall and intentions to engage with the post, via ad recognition. The parasocial interaction with the influencer was not affected. Moreover, influencer type did not moderate the effect of the disclosure and did not affect people's responses to the message, influencer, or brand.
Strategic social media influencer communication has become a major topic in strategic communication. However, despite the growing relevance of this new strategic communication instrument, research has paid only limited attention to elaborating its basic concepts. In this article, we adopt a strategic communication perspective to develop a conceptual framework for strategic social media influencer communication. Particularly, we draw on research findings that identify the external resources social media influencers contribute to organization-influencer cooperation. We use these findings to systematically develop functional definitions of social media influencers and of strategic social media influencer communication. We define social media influencers as third-party actors who have established a significant number of relevant relationships with a specific quality to and influence on organizational stakeholders through content production, content distribution, interaction, and personal appearance on the social web. Subsequently, we define strategic social media communication as the purposeful use of communication by organizations or social media influencers in which social media influencers are addressed or perform activities with strategic significance to organizational goals. We then situate these definitions within the broader framework of strategic communication by discussing related concepts and by describing the strategic action field that has emerged around strategic social media influencer communication.
Many brands are now working on Instagram to promote, showcase their products and services, and benefit from the potentialities of Influencer Marketing. A detailed investigation of the effects of Instagram influencer advertising on the influencer-related outcomes is thus becoming urgent. The present study addresses a conceptual model in which the fit influencer–product congruence and the role of a more prominent disclosure are explored with respect to ad recognition, sponsorship transparency and influencer-related outcomes. Findings from a 2 (disclosure prominence: high vs. low) × 2 (influencer-product congruence: high vs. low) between participants experimental design first show a positive effect of influencer product fit on attitude, credibility and continuance intention to follow the influencer. Moreover, a prominent disclosure enhances users’ perceived sponsorship transparency when the higher congruence makes it harder to discern a genuine endorsement from a sponsored one. Finally, we disentangle the mediating effects of ad recognition and sponsorship transparency between influencer–product congruence and the influencer-related outcomes.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of two types of celebrities (Instagram celebrity vs traditional celebrity) on source trustworthiness, brand attitude, envy and social presence. The proposed theoretical model consists of the celebrity type as the independent variable, social presence as the mediator and self-discrepancy as the moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
A randomized two-group comparison (Instagram celebrity vs traditional celebrity) between-subjects experiment (n=104) was conducted.
Findings
The results indicate that consumers exposed to Instagram celebrity’s brand posts perceive the source to be more trustworthy, show more positive attitude toward the endorsed brand, feel stronger social presence and feel more envious of the source than those consumers exposed to traditional celebrity’s brand posts. Structural equation modeling (Mplus 8.0) and bootstrap confidence intervals indicate that social presence mediates the causal effects of celebrity type on trustworthiness, brand attitude and envy. Multiple regression analyses reveal the moderating effects of appearance-related actual–ideal self-discrepancy.
Practical implications
Ultimately, managerial implications for social media marketing and Instagram influencer-based branding are provided. From the perspective of marketing planning, the findings speak to the power of influencer marketing as an effective branding strategy.
Originality/value
The paper discusses theoretical implications for the marketing literature on celebrity endorsements.
The rise of fast fashion has meant that young women (even those on relatively low incomes) are able to ‘regularly consume and discard fashionable clothing’ [Buckley, Cheryl, and Hazel Clark. 2012. “Conceptualizing Fashion in Everyday Lives.” Design Issues 28 (4): 18–28. doi:10.1162/DESI_a_00172., 21]. While this development may be aligned with the democratisation of fashion—the fact that the supply chains that deliver fast fashion are not consistent with the principles of global democracy is now also relatively common knowledge in the democratised West. This, along with growing awareness of the ecological harms associated with the fashion industry has contributed to what Elke Gaugele [2014. Aesthetic Politics in Fashion. Vienna: Sternberg Press] has termed the ‘ethical turn’ in fashion. However, despite the fact that young women are often not deemed capable of translating their (ethical) attitudes into (ethical) behaviours [McNeill, Lisa, and Rebecca Moore. 2015. “Sustainable Fashion Consumption and the Fast Fashion Conundrum: Fashionable Consumers and Attitudes to Sustainability in Clothing Choice.” International Journal of Consumer Studies 39 (3): 212–222], nor able to be ‘trusted to consistently make good decisions’ [Brooks, Andrew. 2015. Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-Hand Clothes. London: Zed Books, 241], they are also increasingly being called to recognise their individual role in the politics of global fashion supply chains. Drawing on examples from scholarly and popular discourses as well as online peer to peer communications, this article explores the historical moment of fast fashion as an instance of both the feminisation of consumption and the feminisation of responsibility.
This study investigates the constructs of environmental concern, consumer creativity, and fashion consciousness and examines the relationships between these variables and consumer interest in learning upcycling techniques and purchasing upcycled clothing. Students (n = 120) at a Mid-Atlantic university were surveyed with an instrument created for the study using multi-item scales to measure each variable. Simple linear regression and multiple regression tests were run to measure the strength, direction, and significance of the hypothesised relationships. Results show a positive and significant relationship between interest in learning upcycling techniques with environmental concern and with consumer creativity, as well as between interest in purchasing upcycled clothing with environmental concern and with fashion consciousness. The findings can be used by brands selling upcycled apparel to successfully target creative, as well as environmentally and fashion-conscious, consumers to limit post-consumer textile waste.
Several studies have investigated millennials' perceptions of sustainable products, and the factors that make these products appealing. Yet insight into the green purchase intentions of this demographic and influencing factors is limited. This study investigates the influence of social media usage and online interpersonal influence on green purchase intentions among millennials in the USA. In addition, the study considers how the cultural dimensions of individualism–collectivism and masculinity–femininity moderate the relationship between social media usage, online interpersonal influence, and green purchase intentions. Results indicate that social media usage and online interpersonal influence have significant, positive relationships with green purchase intentions. Masculinity was found to exert a weakening effect on the relationships in the study, while the effects of individualism were found to be insignificant. Results have important managerial implications for firms' sustainability strategy and provide a framework for investigating green purchase intentions in additional cultures around the world.
Opinion leaders are important sources of advice for other consumers. Instagram is the most used platform by opinion leaders in the fashion industry, and this trend is expected to continue in the near future. This study aims to identify some key antecedents and consequences of opinion leadership in this context. Our results, based on data collected from 808 followers of a fashion focused Instagram account, suggest that originality and uniqueness are crucial factors if a user is to be perceived as an opinion leader on Instagram. In addition, opinion leadership influences consumer behavioral intentions toward both the influencer (intention to interact in the account and recommend it) and the fashion industry (intention to follow fashion advice posted). Finally, the perceived fit of the account with the consumer's personality strengthens the influence of opinion leadership on the intention to follow published advice. These results have interesting implications for the fashion industry.
The purpose of this research is increasing understanding of Taylor's Six-Segment Strategy Wheel (SSSW) by exploring how message strategy makes of commenters’ parasocial interactions with Social Media Influencers (SMIs). Recent research findings have concluded that younger viewers often consider their parasocial interactions/relationships to be highly similar to their social interactions/relationships. To understand this phenomenon, the research explores the dynamics of the vaping community because SMIs are a primary means of product information. Vaping companies use SMIs that are known only to the collective group of like-minded peers to create a loyal audience. The present study uses research from the SSSW and parasocial interactions to understand persuasive cues while watching a video featuring the SMI.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how today’s new type of opinion leaders, “Citizen Influencers” (CIs), persuade their followers by exploring which characteristics contribute to their persuasiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
Combining theories within opinion leadership, celebrity endorsement, product placement and user-generated content (UGC) five source characteristics – namely, expertise, trustworthiness, likeability, similarity and familiarity – are investigated using fashion as an example. A longitudinal netnographic study of ten CIs and their UGC and six focus groups with followers of specific CIs on Instagram are conducted.
Findings
All five characteristics contribute to the persuasiveness of CIs with trustworthiness as the main contributor. CIs persuasiveness lies in their unique ability to encompass two opposing qualities simultaneously: being attainable and relatable like ordinary consumers; being taste leaders with superior, celebrity-like status.
Research limitations/implications
Only qualitative studies within the fashion category have been conducted, wherefore the relative weight between the two qualities cannot be quantified.
Practical implications
When choosing a CI, managers may consider: the amount of followers per CI as an indicator of influence; similarity between follower and CI as it provides the basis for trust; and the CIs personal universe on their Instagram profile as it leverage the meanings associated with the brand.
Originality/value
The key driver of CIs persuasiveness is their trustworthiness which mediates and amplifies the effect of the other four characteristics. CIs’ persuasive power rests upon the balancing act of being relatable and aspirational.
This note discusses an unexplored problem at the nexus of fashion and intellectual property law: how “fast fashion” leads to unsustainability of global resources and human rights issues pertaining to overseas manufacturing facilities. This unnecessary chain of events could be avoided if fashion designers were granted more substantial intellectual property rights rather than an overall lack of protection. Instead of turning a blind eye to the consequences of consumer demand and “fast fashion,” Congress needs to address these issues head on through legislation that mirrors some of the copyright protections afforded fashion designers overseas.
In this article, I examine the material and everyday practices of a community of thrift-shoppers at the Goodwill Bins. Their practices reveal that shopping in these cutthroat environments is anything but leisurely. By attending to how these spaces are utilised as resources for independent ventures in the informal economy, I show how the occupation of reselling blurs the lines between consumption and production, and shopping and work. I argue that the thrift store can be viewed as a microcosm of the broader shifts occurring in the economy and the latest capitalist reorganisation of work into non-standard and precarious forms.
This study investigates the relation between age and sustainability awareness for consumers via the third, mediating variable of influencers to reduce the intention-behaviour purchase gap. It proposes that traditional theories of planned behaviour are limited as they do not account for unconscious and indirect pathways to axiological change. A structural model with the three constructs of age, influencers and sustainability awareness is tested with LISREL on a sample of 788 consumers, complemented with focus groups and interviews to generate deeper insight into the model’s constructs. The results demonstrate a relationship between age and sustainability awareness, as well as between the importance of influencers for increased sustainability awareness in younger consumers, namely millennials. This suggests that practitioners should work with influencers perceived as trustworthy to increase sustainability awareness for the millennial sub-set consumer group. The methodology applies a mixed approach, interpreting both qualitative and quantitative aspects, and contributes to the ethical consumerism literature with new knowledge on age differences connected to sustainability awareness, particularly highlighting on the influence of influencers for the younger generations.