Methodology

An online survey was used in this study to collect data from 100 college females between the ages of 18 and 24 about their thoughts and feelings toward Instagram influencers and sponsored content. A survey was the chosen instrument for this research because it is the most straightforward, efficient approach to collecting ample amounts of data within a reasonable amount of time. This survey method also drove the purpose of this research in the sense that it made people think about the social media influencers they have interacted with in their personal lives and asked questions about sponsored content that they normally would not think of when scrolling through social media.

Using a survey engaged respondents and asked them to answer questions based on the content they view. The questions included in the survey asked respondents about their attitudes towards sponsored content on Instagram and their perceptions of social media influencers who participate in celebrity endorsement marketing. Surveying also allows participants to answer questions truthfully without having to worry about being identified because the responses are anonymous. According to Cocker, et. al. (2021) a survey analysis provides researchers with a rich understanding of the community they are studying and allows them to conduct a more focused investigative type of research. This method allowed the research to be broken up into sections based on each research question. Each section asked questions that correlate with the study’s research questions and hypotheses.

The importance of this study was also to better understand the overall effectiveness of using social media influencers and sponsored content for marketing purposes and the impact this has on consumer audiences. Using social media influencers as marketing tools can bring up a variety of different emotions and reactions within consumers, impacting their brand attitudes, perceptions of social media influencers, and the activation of persuasion knowledge.