The perceived credibility of Instagram influencers and the impact of health product posts on Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) students’ purchase

• Main Authors: Intan Azura Al Zahra, Abdullah, Heng, Kai Jian
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: HF Commerce
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4026/1/fyp_AV_2020_IAAZ_%2D_1800437.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/4026/

Social media platform like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have provided people opportunities to share out their point of views and ideas to their followers. Some people who owns a huge number of following on their social media platform are known as “Social Media Influencers” as they are capable to give significant influence to their followers like altering their opinion or decision through their creative content. This study aimed to find out the credibility of Instagram influencers among UTAR students and the impact of these Instagrammers towards their purchase intentions towards sports supplementary products. This could help advertiser or marketer to hire appropriate influencers which are most credible to promote for their products and raise their products’ awareness through social media platform. Our study aims to contribute towards the understanding of perceived credibility of Instagram influencers and the impact of health products’ posts on UTAR students’ purchase intentions. Qualitative method was utilized in the form of a focus group with 5 participants in a group in order to collect data from our participants. After that, the data collected were transcribed and be analyzed using phenomenology method to better understand the phenomenon of UTAR student’s perceived credibility of Instagrammers and how it impacts their purchase intentions. Our study will be able to contribute towards the understanding of advertisers in selecting the most appropriate influencers to endorse their products and also the understanding of how consumers especially teenagers perceive the credibility of Instagrammer in this digital era. Based on this study, it is likely to conclude that UTAR students will perceive Instagrammers as not credible and will not impact their purchase intentions.