The grey side of influencer marketing: Content, contexts, and consequences

Abstract

The wall of differentiation between genuine recommendations by social media influencers and brand-sponsored promotions has become thinner since brands are increasingly sponsoring influencers to promote their products and services. This study has followed a qualitative research method using the grounded theory approach to conduct in-depth, one-to-one, semi-structured interviews with 25 social media users to delve into influencers' brand paid promotions and sponsorship disclosure, which marks a grey area in influencer marketing. The results delineate the grey characteristics of influencers through three main themes: (1) Disclosure of paid promotions/ non-promotions (i.e., content factors), (2) Consumer conviction conundrum (i.e., context factors), and (3) Social media users' avoidance behaviour (i.e., consequences). This study also defines ‘Sinfluencer’ (i.e., commercially motivated influencers who hide their paid partnerships) and elucidates ‘evaluation’ as a critical step, thereby extending the discussion on the social media engagement cycle.