Introduction

An influencer or prescriber refers to an individual who has the power to impact consumers' buying
decisions or choices. The impacting influence can result from the relationship between the influencer
and the consumer or the influencers position, authority, and knowledge (Srivastava & Wagh, 2020).
Influencers are majorly marketing tools and social associations with assets that enable them to attain
their marketing objectives. According to the findings of Twitter and Annalect, consumers reported five
times increases in buying intent due to exposure to influencers; 49% of the consumers also reported
that they depend more on influencers' recommendations when making buying goods and services
(Srivastava & Wagh, 2020). In modern society, global marketing has taken the trend of using social
media. Social media has taken over the role of influencers in impacting consumers' attitudes, opinions,
and thoughts.

Companies and many sellers collaborate with prescribers to increase their market share and
popularity. This is because influencers target to evoke positive attitudes or emotions and encourage
buyers to buy. However, it can still have a negative impact when the influencer is involved in a scandal
that causes negative reactions towards the influencer (Sánchez-Fernández & Jiménez-Castillo, 2021).
Consumers have different reactions to the influencers, and hence the impact of influencers varies to the
consumers; companies tend to be keen when choosing their influencers. Influencers can change the
consumers' taste by recommending them to taste a certain brand. If the brand is appropriate, the
consumers may end up changing to the product or the service. Influencers add more knowledge to the
consumers concerning different products; hence, the customers can make suitable on the service or
product they are to buy (Sánchez-Fernández & Jiménez-Castillo, 2021). Therefore, influencers promoting
services and products are part of consumers' ordinary lives.

The modern society is changing to more interconnected world as result of advancement in technology.
For instance phone discovery people to transact orders via on-line and buy without having them moving
to the shop. Also companies and shops have taken the advantage of the phone and other related
devices to create awareness of the products to consumers. Social platforms such as Facebook, TikTok
and Instagram today are used greatly in brand advertisement. Businesses from all parts of the globe are
using the internet for advertisement and influence customers to move to their products. According to
the studies enterprises that ensure effective marketing have been associated with increased market
share. The 2016 Eurostat survey indicated that around 80% of the population in European countries and
United States use internet almost daily in their basis hence creating awareness via internet has turned to
be one of the effective way of influencing the buyers. Also was evident that the an approximate of two
thirds of the internet users have been influenced by the adverts that appear in social media platforms
and made purchase of either one or more items. The discovery of the social media channels for
communication made it easy for companies and businesses to reach the consumers in a more
convenient way.

Research back ground

With phone and internet discovery, consumers and the companies have become more informed than
before when consumer influence was via traditional means such mouth. Today’s business environment
involves strong competition hence each firm has to strive to compete favourably and have a market
share the same as other firms. The current era is featured by the fact that meeting requires market
consumers to have an extremely varied and large range of various products. This promotes consumer
perception as an essential part of social life. The emergence and rapid spread of social media in all parts
of the globe has turned to the common mode of communication. Social channels have medial platforms
such as Instagram that enable sharing of photos, videos, news and other essential information. Online
interaction have therefore become common and business have taken the advantage on the same to
ensure that consumers are able to interact with their brans via online. Applied evidence and research
indicate that virtual opinion leaders are essential promoters of services and products in various sectors
of marketing and business tools. Currently the influencer marketing is critical tool to impact to impact
the consumers behaviour and be explained as the process that involves identifying, engaging and
supporting individuals involved on high influential conversations. This is an important kind of online
marketing that targets a sub-population of the influential individuals instead of the entire potential
buyers.

Influencer in marketing refers to those involved in influencing the buying behaviour of other people. The
purchasing influence is as at many times as result of reputation, popularity and expertise influencers.
Social media channels (Instagram) establish crucial and important conditions to use as an instrument to
influence the consumers of specific product. Branding which involves use of celebrities is one of the
common among the bloggers. It also includes ordinary consumers who have much influence to other
consumers. Influencer marketing is categorised as one of the rapidly growing methods of reaching new
consumers and creating brand awareness.

Influencer marketing is grounded specifically on the confidence of the buyers that if gotten from opinion
leaders. According to researches most bloggers are influencers as they an individuals who share their
stories, interests and experiences with thee large internet public. Many of the influencers have other
sources of interests as they are not originally influencers they just become. When it comes to beauty
industry for instance most influencers are actors or artists. For instance Huda Katten is one of the
influencers in the beauty but she has other interest’s fields such as her as an entrepreneur and American
makeup artist. Huda started her brand in 203 named “Huda Beauty” with support from her sisters. Huda
Instagram is an influencer as it has most followers who goes beyond 47 million followers. Huda Beauty
has worldwide influence and it loved on the US and globally. It is among the top selling “makeup brands”
in Harrods in London and Sephora in Dubai. Considering the beginning of Huda the impact of influencers
on the consumer behaviour is noticeable. Huda started by beauty product that were force eyelashes
that become well known after they were publicized by Kardashian sisters.

The importance of influencer marketing can be viewed as product promotion. It is a must for the
influencer to be associated with the product so that he or she can recommend the product with
experience and knowledge that can convince consumers. Many consumers behaviour is changed by the
influencer and tend to go with the information given the influencer. The influencing ability also depends
on the power of the influencer and thus a company have to choose suitable influencers to be able to win
more consumers. It is not must for an influencer to be blogger, journalist or celebrity, the can just be
normal individuals who have social pull and right connections. Trust is essential value that plays key role
in changing the consumer’s behaviour. The purchasing behaviour of the consumers is influenced by the
several factors for instance online advertising and the knowledge or experience that the influencer
indicates to consumers.

Currently in United States there are several existing influencers who have greatly changed the
consumers’ behaviour to the other brands that they advertise. Examples of these influencers include
Huda Ketten, Kylie Jenner, Nyma Tang, Nam Vo and Katie Jane. The behaviour of consumers and
audience is the key aspect that is considered in any advertisement. The way consumers reacts to a
service or product influences the ways the product is promoted and how the future promotion can be
done. The response and perception towards promotional material depends much on the power relations
and “socio-cultural processing celebrity capital.” According to the current statistics, Kylie Jenner is one
of the top influencers for young girl in the field of cosmetics. Jenner established a cult after introducing
her cosmetics range. The cosmetic was launched immediately after the success of the “line’s flagship
product, Kylie’s Lip Kits.” From this Kylie’s image became more popular and influential among the
people. Kylie then creatively used her Instagram to frequently post photos of herself wearing her
products and the photos of packaging. Jenner used the “hedonic experiential model” of promotion
which majorly relies on the non-verbal and symbolic promotional communication methods. Through this
it seemed that Jenner was not taking part in structured promotion that is only if she was the product
being marketed. Attitudes are associated with behaviour influence hence Jenner followers viewed her
and idolized her lifestyle which impacted consumers to buy her products.

The prescribers have the capability to influence the buying decision thus there is an association between
the purchasing behaviour and the influencers; it infers to the implicit association to credibility
trustworthiness, and authenticity. Brand promotion has always tried to adapt to consumers society,
lifestyles. In the current years, many advertisements have targeted on “ambassadors” principle who are
the influencers. Bloggers are digital influencers who have an impact on groups gathered around with
same interests. Blogs comprises bloggers posts comments, and life experiences together with their likes
and dislikes. Bloggers can be organizational or personal sponsored. In the modern society the bloggers’
popularity is increasing hence leading to more influence on the consumers’ buying choices.

Buyers’ decision making within fashion is impacted by the information that is available in the society
from various sources such as magazines, advertising, celebrities, online friends and bloggers. Fashion
and beauty are on of the areas where by consumers especially women depend more on the influencers
as they admire a certain fashion within the influencer. Many beauty influencers use the method of
taking photographs and posting via social channels such as Instagram. This photos impact the customers
decision as they tend to wish to look like the influencers via going for the items that the influencers is
advertising and also the same service.

Basically the are five factors that influence consumer behaviour. Different consumers have different
choices for instance for beauty a buyer can follow to buy following the impact of Nyma Tang while other
may choose to follow Katie Jane. Influencers have to be aware of the factors that induce consumer
choices so that they can effectively impact as many consumers as possible. Factors that influence the
consumer include;

 Psychological factors such as motivation, beliefs and attitudes

Research problem
The thesis divides into two areas, consumer buying and the role of influencers to these consumers
behaviour. Understanding the association between influencers and online purchase seem to be linked
with the actual characteristics that influencers have and how they are perceived by the audience. In the
past many researches on influencers have been done with, exploring the success of the influencers as
brans advocates; and also exploring their growth and success as viewed on personal brands. The
credibility of the influencers have been studied in the context of awareness and brand messaging or
under the fashion bloggers context. Buying intention has also been addressed by various researchers via
different contexts. Trust has been proved to have significant effect on the buying intention. Online
environment provides suitable environment for consumers to interact with items.