Marketing Theses and Dissertations

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Browsing Marketing Theses and Dissertations by Author "Kim, Woocheol"

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    Depth of Self-Disclosure for Social Media Influencers: Tensions and Tradeoffs
    (University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Kim, Woocheol; Henderson, Conor
    Social media influencers wrestle with the decision of how much to disclose about their personal lives. Must attention and financial opportunities come at the cost of privacy? Do risks from being personally vulnerable at least come with rewards? The present research investigates consumers’ responses to influencers’ depth of disclosure on social media. To do so, I adopt a multi-method research approach that incorporates data from controlled experiments, automated text analysis of social media posts, and qualitative theory-in-use interviews. With experiments, I find that greater disclosure is associated with being more relatable, but less aspirational, which combine for offsetting overall effects on influencer endorsement-ability. Consistent with these offsetting effects, text analysis of influencer social media posts reveals a nonlinear, curvilinear effect of depth of disclosure in a social media post on post evaluations (i.e., likes, retweets, comments). Interviews with social media influencers reveal a desire to present themselves as “whole” “well-rounded” people while also protecting their privacy. These influencers note that many brands push them to make posts very personal, but they question whether this is even necessary. My findings suggest these influencers’ intuition is correct, and the brands should not prescribe influencers to be overly personal and risk “over-sharing.” Theoretically, the research contributes to influencer marketing by highlighting the dual importance of relatable and aspirational qualities while showing that the two are balanced against each other, at least in relation to depth of disclosure.