Date of Graduation

5-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Marketing

Advisor/Mentor

Mousavi, Javad

Abstract

Influencer marketing has become exceedingly relevant with the rise of the digital age, difficulties of the attention economy, and successes of social media marketing. Clearly, influencer marketing can be advantageous for brands, however research is limited, and best practices are generalized. This particular research focuses on influencer marketing in the fitness industry and best practices for brands implementing fitness influencers. This paper specifically analyzes the emotion breakdown of fitness influencers’ content and the value of portraying joy through branded content to the success of these influencer marketing campaigns. Through comparing quantitative data collected from third-party platforms with data gathered through a social media audit approach, it was discovered that joy alone is not a deciding factor in engagement or conversions (key indicators of influencer performance) of branded content. However, the results show that joy is an important aspect in representing authenticity, brand alignment, and community, each of which are key to increasing engagement and conversions from branded influencer content. The original hypothesis of this research was rejected but revealed explicit best practices for fitness brands launching influencer marketing campaigns and clarified certain avenues for improvement of effectiveness of fitness influencer campaigns. Overall, this paper aims to add information and clarity to the constantly evolving methods of social media marketing in the fitness industry.

Keywords

Influencer marketing; fitness industry; fitness influencer; joy; social media marketing; social media audit

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