THE RISING TREND IN SOCIAL MEDIA: “INFLUENCER MARKETING” AN ANALYSIS WITH INSTAGRAM'S INFLUENCER FATHERS

Abstract

The integration of social media into consumers' daily lives presents businesses with new opportunities for promoting and marketing their products. One such opportunity is influencer marketing. Brands now collaborate with influencers to generate positive publicity about themselves among consumers. Although “influencer status” encompasses a wide range in today's social media, this study limits its scope to influencer fathers. With the rapid changes in technology and social life, parents who have made social media use a routine part of their daily lives have begun sharing many moments of their children's lives on social media, just as they share many of their own moments. Based on this, this study aims to investigate the potential role of fathers, who are becoming increasingly active in the digital environment, in influencer marketing, which has become a new marketing field in the changing and evolving context of social media. Therefore, the study first reviewed domestic and international literature on social media, influencer marketing, and influencer concepts. Subsequently, the accounts of six influencer fathers who actively shared content on Instagram and were selected based on their follower counts were analyzed using content analysis between November 10 and December 10, within the defined categories. These categories were defined as follower-follower counts, number of posts, product placement categories, product-story integration-brand categories, text language, and emoji usage. This study is significant in that it addresses the changing and evolving face of social media and influencer marketing in the context of the changing and evolving perspective of parenthood.