Big five personality and influencer marketing related behaviors and attitudes

: an exploration

Abstract

With social media deeply rooted into individual’s lives, influencer marketing has become one of the most used marketing tools by brands. However, it is still necessary to conduct more empiric research to understand the factors involved in consumer’s answers to influencer market. This study aims to explore relations between consumers’ personality, supported by the Big Five personality theory, and influencer marketing related attitudes and behaviors. To do so, data was collected through an online survey targeted at Millennials and Generation Z. Results were tested for covariance and significante mean differences. Findings indicate correlation between extraversion and active engagement with influencers, and between conscientiousness and previous purchases made by influencer recommendation. When it comes to platform utilization, there was evidence of higher conscientiousness in users of LinkedIn, while Twitter users showed a lower score in this personality trait. Meanwhile, TikTok users demonstrated higher neuroticism and Twitch users demonstrated lower extraversion. Higher conscientiousness and openness to experience were found in followers of influencers on LinkedIn, lower openness to experience was found in followers of influencers on YouTube, and lower extraversion when it comes to followers of influencers on Twitch. Additionally, higher agreeableness was found in followers of celebrities, higher conscientiousness in fashion and beauty followers, lower conscientiousness was found in gamming followers and lower extraversion in humor followers. Lastly neuroticism was lower in users preferring travel content, conscientiousness was higher in users preferring fashion and beauty content and extraversion was lower in users preferring lifestyle content. This research intends to complement and extend the literature in influencer marketing and consumer behavior, and to provide relevant guidelines to the definition of brands’ influencer marketing strategy.

Date of Award	14 Jul 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Joana Machado (Supervisor) & Carla Martins (Co-Supervisor)