Beyond the hype

Abstract: Influencer marketing has grown in popularity making it crucial for firms to understand how they should optimize their influencer marketing campaigns. This is an even greater issue for parsimonious unknown brands who tend to have limited resources and, as such, might refrain from employing macro-influencers in their marketing campaigns. In fact, many researchers are now questioning the current consensus in the industry of using macro-influencers, instead stating that nano-influencers might be more effective. In this thesis, this shift from macro-influencer to nano-influencer is called into question. Should the use of nano-influencers be the new go-to-strategy for new and unknown brands in their instagram marketing initiatives? After conducting a survey with 174 social media users, this quantitative study pointed towards that unknown brands should use macro-influencers rather than nano-influencers. More specifically, macro-influencers were shown to elicit more positive brand attitudes and higher brand credibility. Brand attitude was shown to be mediated by influencer expertise and fit whereas brand credibility was shown to be mediated by influencer expertise.