Social media is a phenomenon that has modified the ways people around the world interact and communicate (Edosomwan et al., 2011). More than half of the world’s population (59.4%) use social media, making a total of 4.76 billion users, while in Poland it is 66,3% of the total — 27.5 million residents (DataReportal, 2023).

What has made social media so popular among users is convenience, enjoyment and access to information (Chai & Kim, 2012). Social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc., are an integral part of social media and one of the fastest-growing uses of the Internet today (Omar et al., 2014). Society uses social networks for entertainment, to create and maintain relationships, to connect with others with similar interests or hobbies, or to fill free time (Marino et al., 2016; Ryan et al., 2016). Nowadays, in many cases, social media are replacing traditional forms of communication such as calling or e-mailing (Sigurdsson et al., 2021). The data also show that social media are engaging users around the world, who spend an average of 2 hr and 31 min a day, while for Polish residents, it is 2 hr and 2 min (DataReportal, 2023). Social media users use their favourite platforms because they want to stay in touch with relatives and friends, fill their free time, read news, find interesting content and be up to date. Alongside these reasons, they indicate a desire to find shopping inspiration or just to make purchases (DataReportal, 2023). One of the tools used to respond to users’ purchasing needs is influencer marketing-an extremely popular type of advertising that uses an opinion leader-an influencer. It was chosen to concentrate on this form because 66% of consumers say they trust shopping recommendations from family, friends or influencers. At the same time, only 33% trust brand recommendations (Celestino, 2023).

Moreover, it is decided to focus on the beauty industry, because beautyrelated content is one of the biggest and fast-growing industries across all social media platforms (Van Kessel et al., 2019). Also, an analysis was performed on two-of the most relevant-social media platforms for the beauty field:

• YouTube, because according to the data, beauty-related videos (about makeup and cosmetics) are the most popular content category for females on YouTube (Petrov, 2023).
• Instagram, because there is the second largest number of beauty influencers on this platform (after those addressing lifestyle topics; Statista, 2021). Moreover, Instagram is one of the fastest-growing platforms with the highest engagement from social media users (Phua et al., 2017).

Furthermore, on both Instagram and YouTube, 'makeup’ is the most used hashtag, which also indicates a huge interest in beauty topics (Geyser, 2022). Also, Instagram and YouTube are the most common combination of platforms for beauty influencers. The majority of beauty influencers are active on both platforms (Industry Report — Beauty Brands, n.d.). Taking into consideration, the aforementioned information and the literature review, the objective of the article was formulated, which is to compare consumers’ preferences towards activities and content, published by beauty influencers on Instagram and YouTube platforms.

To achieve the objective, the paper was based on primary and secondary sources. The former was obtained through an empirical study, using a survey method, of a sample of 146 individuals. The latter included a review of scientific articles from the SCOPUS database, industry reports and articles.

Literature Review

Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that allows brands to have commercial partnerships with selected social media influencers, thereby addressing the influencer’s community and the collaborating brand’s content (Lou & Yuan, 2019). Influencer marketing has become an indispensable part of digital marketing strategy that enables reaching out to target customers (Kim & Kim, 2021). According to the Influencer Marketing Hub report, the market of influencer marketing reached $16.4 billion in 2022, an increase of $2.6 billion (so 19%) compared with the previous year.

Influencers are individuals who are active on social media and influence their audience, fans, etc. through the content they add on social media platforms (Vodák et al., 2019). Beauty influencers focus specifically on creating beauty content and promoting beauty products or brands. Tran, Rosales and Copes define a beauty influencer as an aesthetic expert who provides teaching on topics of enhancement (life, health, style, etc.) and beautification practices (Tran et al., 2020).

Beauty influencers are eager to use social media platforms to share the content they create and to promote many of their own products as well as brands that collaborate with them. The beauty industry itself is worth a lot of money, and it is expected to increase from $420 billion in 2018 to $716.3 billion by 2025 (Roberts, 2022). The beauty industry on YouTube has grown, thanks to interesting personalities who engage their audiences. In 2019, there was an important event for the beauty industry when two popular beauty influencers, Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson, created a documentary series of beauty videos titled 'The Beautiful World of Jeffree Star’, which achieved 152 million views on YouTube. The series resulted as the most significant customer engagement and the largest product launch in e-commerce history (Cowburn, 2022) with 2 million users queuing on the website to purchase the products promoted in the series (Weinlich & Semerádová, 2022). Another example is Instagram beauty influencer Kylie Jenner, who released her first product-lipsticks-called 'LipKits’-and sold them out in minutes after announcing the launch on Instagram (Duboff, 2015). Kylie Jenner, who is the biggest beauty influencer in the world, is also in the second place (after Christiano Ronaldo) in terms of the number of followers on Instagram with 378 million (Instagram, January 2023).

Based on the mentioned examples, beauty topics are particularly popular and engaging for social media users. Researchers are also paying a lot of attention to the topic of social media (265,987 publications can be found in the SCOPUS database alone). However, considering the purpose of the article and the research gap, it was decided to narrow down the search results.

Table 1 presents a literature review based on the SCOPUS database. In order to search for relevant results, it was decided to use the following keywords: ((’beauty influencer’ OR 'beauty content’) AND 'social media’). Initially, 18 results appeared. Then the results were reduced by branch criteria. Articles belonging to the categories of Business, Management and Accounting or Social Sciences were filtered out. Eventually, 14 articles were included for further analysis.

In the available literature, it is noticeable that the authors address the topic of influencer marketing in the beauty industry on social media in different contexts. Some researchers have concentrated on word-of-mouth marketing as a strategy for promoting brands (Fitriati et al., 2022; Yones & Muthaiyah, 2022), others as a potential determinant of SME resilience and competitiveness (Konstantopoulou et al., 2019). Some researchers concentrated on the influence of electronic word-of-mouth and perceived quality on purchase intention of beauty products (Rosara & Luthfia, 2020). Other papers focused on aspects of gender, such as exploring the topic of beauty in the context of plastic surgery for trans women (Zhang, 2022) or the level to which influencers show themselves in a sexualized manner in various roles (Devos et al., 2022). Previous studies have also examined the impact of beauty content on purchase intentions (Pangaribuan et al., 2019). Others have examined the level of consumer engagement with products (Rutter et al., 2021) or the reasons why users follow influencers (Tran et al., 2022). There was also a concentration on how the attitudes of beauty influencers influence repeat purchase decisions (Ayuaspharalinda & Tanuwidjaja, 2021). The authors also focused on ethical topics, examining transparency while influencers disclose information about advertised products and brands (Lee et al., 2022).

Several articles did not concentrate on a specific platform at all. The studies were conducted in the context of social media in general (Ayuaspharalinda & Tanuwidjaja, 2021; Tran et al., 2022; Zhang, 2022). One article focused its considerations on TikTok platform (Yones & Muthaiyah, 2022). Others approached the research only in the context of Instagram (Devos et al., 2022; Fitriati et al., 2022; Konstantopoulou et al., 2019; Pangaribuan et al., 2019; Rutter et al., 2021) or only on YouTube (Bishop, 2019; Dekavalla, 2022; Lee et al., 2022; Rosara & Luthfia, 2020). However, they did not put both platforms in one study. The exception was the research of Sokolova and Kefi’s (2020) who focused on those two, previously mentioned platforms; however, the paper concentrates on examining the para-social interaction (PSI) that the audience creates with an influencer online and how this influences purchase decisions. To do this, the authors based their study on four beauty influencers who are popular in France. The survey considered not only beauty but also fashion influencers. Also, all the studies have been conducted in foreign markets, mostly in Indonesia (Ayuaspharalinda & Tanuwidjaja, 2021; Fitriati et al., 2022; Indrawati et al., 2022; Pangaribuan et al., 2019; Rosara & Luthfia, 2020).

The literature review helped to reveal that the Instagram and YouTube platforms have not been studied in terms of consumer preferences for the preferred beauty content shared by influencers and the product categories that they are most interested in. Moreover, neither the study focused on the Polish market and addressed the topic of the behaviour nor preferences of Polish consumers in terms of the beauty industry. This lack of information indicates a research gap, which prompted the authors, to conduct the following study.

Research

Methodology

To fulfil the objective of this paper, a research design was prepared according to the following research questions:

RQ1: What are consumers’ preferences for content, published by beauty influencers on Instagram and YouTube?
RQ2: What are the respondents’ preferences for beauty products recommended by beauty influencers on Instagram and YouTube?
RQ3: How do respondents perceive beauty influencers on Instagram and YouTube and how does it affect followers’ purchasing decisions?

Procedure

The study was conducted using a diagnostic survey method, with a questionnaire as the research tool, hosted on Microsoft Forms and distributed via the Internet. The process of collecting responses lasted from December 2022 to January 2023. The selection of individuals for the survey sample was based on a purposive selection scheme, in which the categories were the use of social media, particularly the Instagram and YouTube platforms. A total of 151 questionnaires were collected; however, due to not meeting the criteria, 5 questionnaires were rejected. Thus, a total of 146 questionnaires were taken into further consideration. Responses were given anonymously.

The questionnaires were divided into three parts. The first part is general questions directed at active social media users. The second part involved questions related to the Instagram platform for respondents who declared that they use it, and a sub-category of this part-question related to beauty influencers on Instagram. Analogous to the previous one was the last part, concerning the YouTube platform and then the perception of beauty influencers.

Sample characteristics

Most of the participants in the survey were women (73.5%). The largest group are the respondents who were aged between 19 years old and 27 years old (76.8%), followed by young people between 12 years old and 18 years old (13.2%), then people who were aged between 28 years old and 42 years old (6.6%). The smallest group are the respondents who were aged between 43 years old and 57 years old (33%). In terms of occupational status, the survey mainly involved those declaring themselves to be university or school students — 91.4% and the rest were people who work. The sample was dominated by respondents who lived in large cities, with over 500,000 residents (536%). The others lived mainly in villages (172%) and mediumsized towns with a population between 50,001 and 200,000 (126%). The fewest number of respondents lived in small towns with a population of up to 50,000 residents (93%) and those who lived in large towns with a population between 150,001 and 500,000 residents (73%).

Results

The first question, in the general part of the questionnaire, required to identify the one social media platform that respondents use most frequently. The largest group chose Instagram (36.4%), followed by TikTok (19.9%) and Facebook Messenger (19.2%). The others indicated YouTube (14.4%), Facebook (5.5%) and WhatsApp (1.4%) as their favourite platform. The rest chose the answer 'other’, indicating Twitter, Telegram and Snapchat here (0.7% each of additional responses).

The second question asked respondents to estimate how much time they spend on average on social media per day. The average was 3 hr and 38 min (SD = 1.96).

The next question allowed respondents to indicate their three favourite social media topic categories. The study found that it was mainly lifestyle (39%), entertainment (38%) and beauty (32%).

The next question referred to the Instagram platform. Thus, only people who use it participated in this part (n = 136). Instagram users declare that they use Instagram an average of 12.8 times per day (SD = 17.77) and spend on average 1 hr and 42 min on the app each day (SD = 1.22).

About 87% said they follow influencers on Instagram. Those who do were asked if they follow beauty influencers. A total of 100 respondents declared that they follow beauty influencers on Instagram.

Respondents, who are active on YouTube, were asked the same questions as with Instagram. Only those who use YouTube answered questions about this app (n = 131). YouTube users say, they use the platform 4.6 times a day (SD = 5.33) and spend an average of 2 hr and 10 min on it daily (SD = 3.36). About 91.6% of respondents said they follow influencers on YouTube. Those 120 people who gave a positive answer were asked if they also follow beauty influencers on YouTube. About 84.1% answered affirmatively. Therefore, 102 people answered further questions about the YouTube platform.

Table 2 presents the preferred types of content published by beauty influencers on Instagram and YouTube. Respondents were asked to rank this content in the order from 1 (most favourite) to 10 (least favourite). They had the following types of content to choose from when ranking:

A – Tutorial videos
B – Product reviews
C – Shopping haul
D – Unboxing
E – Testing products of various brands
F – Comparison of the same products from different brands
G – Videos with invited guests
H – Review of the latest products
I – Promotional videos of own-brand products
J – Promotional videos about the products of the brands the influencer works with

Then a weighted mean value was calculated showing the degree of importance of each quantity, according to the respondents’ preferences.
The lower the value of the measure, the more the respondent prefers a particular type of content. The results are presented in Table 2.

Most respondents mainly prefer to view product reviews on Instagram (2.82%) and then tutorials (4.13%). On the other hand, the fewest number of respondents are interested in promotional videos of the influencer’s own products (7.47%) or a collaborative brand (8.66%) as their favourite type of content. In terms of respondents’ favourite content viewed on the YouTube platform, similar to Instagram, were product reviews (2.95%) and next tutorial videos (3.54%). Again, most consumers were least likely to indicate promotional videos about the products of the brands the influencer works with (8.23%) and videos about influencers’ brands (7.56%).

In the next section, respondents again ranked, but in this case, they decided which beauty products were their most (1) and least (7) favourite in content posted by beauty influencers on Instagram and YouTube. Respondents had the following types of content to choose from when ranking:

A – Makeup products
B – Facial care cosmetics
C – Body care cosmetics
D – Hair care cosmetics
E – Hair styling cosmetics
F – Nail products
G – Beauty accessories

Then, similarly to the previous question, a weighted average value was calculated showing the degree of importance of each quantity according to the respondents’ preferences. The lower the value of the measure, the more the respondent prefers a particular type of content. The results are presented in Table 3.

Favourite beauty products in consumers’ feeds on Instagram are primarily facial care products (2.17%). Slightly fewer respondents indicated makeup products (2.44%). The last choice for consumers on Instagram were beauty accessories (5.43%) and nail products (5.43%). For the YouTube platform, respondents primarily pointed to makeup products (1.93%). The second most popular product category was facial care products (2.50%). As with Instagram, beauty accessories were the least popular.

The final part of the survey attempted to explore how respondents perceive beauty influencers on Instagram and YouTube. For this purpose, a 5-point Likert scale has been applied, with which consumers could assess the extent to which they agree with the given statement. Table 4 compares the two platforms: Instagram (IG) and YouTube (YT). Only Instagram users responded to the statements (n = 100), and the same is the case of YouTube (n = 102).

Over half of Instagram users say they trust their favourite beauty influencers on Instagram (55.2% trust and 5.7% definitely trust). By contrast, on YouTube, 42.6% say they trust influencers and 18.5% say they definitely trust them. On Instagram, 9.2% do not trust their favourite beauty influencers, and 5.6% simply do not trust them. Overall, slightly more than one-fifth of respondents do not trust influencers on YouTube (14.8% of viewers disagreed with the statement in Table 4, and 5.6% strongly disagreed).

In the second affirmative given in Table 4, the audience was asked if they agreed with the statement that beauty influencers are the first source of information when they want to purchase a product. About 43.7% of Instagram users agreed with the statement, while 5.7% strongly agreed. In contrast, Instagram users answered rather positive (42.6%) and strongly positive (18.5%). Very similar results were noted in the case of negative attitudes to the given statement, for 9.2% of Instagram users and 9.3% of YouTube beauty influencers are definitely not the first source of product information, and for 29.9% Instagram and 25.9% YouTube consumers are rather not.

Another statement focused on purchasing issues, specifically whether beauty influencers influence followers’ purchasing decisions. The study found that for both platforms they do. About 46% of Instagram viewers declare that beauty influencers rather influence their purchasing decisions, and for 11.5% they definitely do. In the case of YouTube audiences, 35.2% of respondents are rather under the influence and 16.7% definitely are affected by influencers when it comes to purchasing from beauty influencers’ recommendations.

Responses to the last statement were quite divided. About 34.5% of Instagram users tend to agree with the statement: 'beauty influencers on Instagram are credible’. In contrast, 25.3% think quite the opposite, while 28.7% have a neutral opinion on the issue. Meanwhile, in the context of trusting beauty influencers on YouTube, 29.6% rather trust them, 24.1% rather do not, and 27.8% do not particularly have an opinion.

Discussion

The objective of the paper is to compare consumers’ preferences towards activities and content, published by beauty influencers on Instagram and YouTube platforms. The study showed similarities between consumer preferences for content. On both Instagram and YouTube, consumers are most likely to watch product reviews, and secondly tutorials. On the other hand, they least prefer advertising content, such as product promotional videos of brands the influencer works with and promotional content of his own products. This may be because promotional content is increasingly associated with advertisements, and consumers realize that such videos are aimed at profit and selling specific products. Reviews, on the other hand, respond to the needs of consumers, who see value in these videos for themselves, they might get an opinion on a product they are interested in, e.g., some particular cosmetics.

Meanwhile, taking into consideration the product preferences of respondents, some differences were noted between the platforms discussed. Favourite products in the beauty category for Instagram users are primarily facial care products and secondarily makeup products. These two categories are also the most popular on YouTube, with the difference being that makeup products were the primary choice and facial care the secondary choice. Given the high popularity of tutorials and makeup products, it can be assumed that Internet users are learning how to apply makeup from beauty influencers.

The survey also showed that both Instagram and YouTube users perceive beauty influencers rather positively. In both cases, most of the consumers trust their favourite influencers, but they do not always feel the same way about beauty influencers in general. In this case, opinions were mainly spread between rather negative, neutral and rather positive. Respondents also mostly declared that influencers on both Instagram and YouTube are the first source of information when they want to purchase a beauty product, and most often the mentioned influencers later affect their purchasing decisions. Such results show that influencers are opinion leaders and have a real impact on consumers’ purchasing decisions.

Conclusions

The study fulfilled the purpose of the article and answered the research questions. However, the conducted survey had some limitations, such as non-random nature of respondent’s selection and a relatively small sample size. Therefore, it is difficult to generalize the results of this research. Nonetheless, it is hoped that the presented article can expand the knowledge of buyers’ perception towards influencers. In the future, it would certainly be worthwhile to overcome these limitations. Moreover, future research could focus on other social media platforms, such as TikTok, which has recently become incredibly popular, especially among teens and young adults.

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The transition of the 20th into the 21st century is a period of many significant and often revolutionary changes related to or initiated by the spread of information technology. The main carrier of these changes was the emergence of the Internet and the possibility of direct, single- or multi-person communication and direct interaction. The digital economy is changing the realities of marketing communications, its forms, the palette of available tools and subsequent breakthroughs in the areas of elationship building, sales and advertising. These challenges are considered in numerous academic publications (Mazurek & Tkaczyk, 2016; Gregor & Kaczorowska-Spychalska, 2018; Bartosik-Purgat, 2019; Wiktor & Sanak-Kosmowska, 2021). With the emergence of social media, Internet participants gained the opportunity for creative expression, exchange of experiences, and creation of original content, with almost no restrictions.It follows that users familiar with the usage of Internet-based technologies were the main source from which the newly emergent Internet-based business models at the time derived their principal utility and value, and in particular the emergence of the advent of social-media-based marketing gave rise to a new generation of businesses that typically channelised a significant portion of their revenue from avid social-media users. Internet users, especially on social media, became both receivers and creators of the offered value. Their influence on consumer decisions remains unquestionable today-from simple decisions related to choosing a restaurant, a book to read or a museum worth visiting in a given location, or booking a specific destination for a business trip or family vacation; to decisions that change economic, social and political reality, such as shaping beliefs and decisions in parliamentary or presidential elections. Creators using the Internet have thus become another source of information, competing for consumers’ attention with professional information services, trade media and the so-called 'reliable sources of information’. This is due to the premises mentioned above, namely dissemination and development of digital technologies, including mobile technologies. In addition, the opportunity to contact and learn about the opinions and experiences of people similar to oneself, i.e. ordinary people constituting users of the Internet and social media, possibly from one’s own or a related interest group, has gained importance (Kaczorowska-Spychalska, 2020).

Regulatory Forces in a Creative Environment

User-generated content (UGC) is typically created voluntarily. In other words, it is not paid for by its creators. Creative expression can take many forms, given the available and growing opportunities to share knowledge, news, creativity and activities of all kinds. Digital creators express themselves mainly through photos/images on platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat; and through video formats using TikTok, YouTube and Vine. They publish their advice, opinions, comments and analyses not only in virtual spaces dedicated to longer forms, such as blogs, but also in the form of shorter statements and updates on commonly visited social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Quora. The mentioned activities do not exhaust all possible forms of expression. In the area of content creation, it is also worth mentioning the publication of reviews, e.g. on Amazon or TripAdvisor, comments and content within sharing platforms such as Uber or Airbnb, crowdfunding activities, e.g. on the Kickstarter platform, or contributing to the content forming part of Wikipedia. The quality of posted content is increasingly subject to scrutiny, although it is essential to keep in mind that both the subject matter and the medium’s specifics will influence the message’s final reception. However, as previous studies have shown, reviews posted online by independent community members are usually consistent with expert opinions (Luca, 2015). It is worth noting that the Internet environment, especially the space allowing for the creation of independent content by individual creators, is increasingly subject to the activities of companies, politicians and other centres wishing to exert influence through the mass formulation of opinions. This involves not only activities that stimulate interest in a given issue, company or politician, such as generating posts or comments on request, and paying for promotional activities using, for example, influencers or influential experts, but also unethical activities of these entities such as fake reviews. Their scale may be difficult to estimate. A study by Luca and Zerwas (2016) analysed over 316,000 reviews of restaurants operating in the Boston area using an algorithm developed by Yelp. They identified 16% of the reviews flagged as suspicious by the algorithm. This takes on particular significance because previously published content influences subsequent publications and their tone. A study by Muchnik, Aral, and Taylo (2013), which analysed content published on a platform with the ability to rate articles by voting, showed that information with positive votes increased the likelihood of attracting subsequent positive votes by 32% (Luca, 2015). On the other hand, we have all kinds of 'distortions’ in the visibility of published content resulting from the content sharing algorithm imposed by social media platforms. The algorithm and the criteria that are taken into account play a key role in selecting the content displayed and ultimately determining what content among all the content published will be seen by the users of the platforms (Skorus, 2020). According to Instagram’s Head of Product, only half of the content published by profiles, including brand profiles, is visible to those who follow those profiles (https://influmarketing.pl/ algorytm-instagrama-2021-duzo-nowej-wiedzy-od-samego-instagrama/, 2022). Additionally, often the exact workings of the algorithm are not made public, other than what areas of publishing activity are considered in the construction of the algorithm. In June 2021, the Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, published an article that closely examines how content display mechanisms work on Instagram. The article begins with the sentence, 'It’s hard to trust what you don’t understand.’ (Mosseri, 2021). Changes in the display of content on the Instagram platform are presented in Table 1. Raychoudhury (2022), Meta’s Vice President and Head of Research, argues-in his article published on Meta’s corporate portal-against the growing voices that have pointed out that social media algorithms exercise a significant, and even predominant, influence on the already-ascendant polarisation of society and the formation of information bubbles. The article emphasises that the contribution of social media to the phenomena described is much more complex, and the mainstream media play a more significant role in disinformation. A 2019 study conducted by Nielsen on a sample of more than 25,000 respondents found that only 9% of consumers are confident of the impartiality of the algorithms behind the so-called social media feed (Cigionline.org, 2020).

Is Influencer Marketing a Solution?

Since doubts prevail widely concerning the veracity of the information made available through social media platforms in particular and the Internet in general, several areas of the economy and multiple facets of its operation, especially businesses whose primary marketing modus operandi involves using an online mode of information propagation, are faced with the crises of loss of trust, and credibility being called into question; such a situation poses a significant challenge that could be potentially overcome by running an online campaign explaining 'things from the enterprise’s point of view’. (Pasek, 2018). In their case, effective communication is one of the critical factors in building brand awareness on the market, and reliable information is also a tool to build a true identity of the company. Companies exposed, on the one hand, to the activities of unfair competition and demanding customers and, on the other hand, to difficult-to-predict changes in algorithms affecting the visibility of published content began to see the benefits of working with influencers. These are individuals who, as a result of their activity on the Internet, have gained the trust of their observers, thus becoming influential persons, especially about purchasing decisions and attitudes of buyers towards brands, or more broadly defined, ideas. These are known as influencers because they are people who formulate specific opinions and influence their recipients with the content they create, typically through selected channels on social media. The idea of brand ambassadors is nothing new. The first-known ambassador was Queen Charlotte, who represented the Queen’s Ware line of Wedgwood brand back in the 18th century. Recommendations from well-known and respected personalities have effectively influenced consumer choices for centuries. The turn of the 20th century, ushering in the development of technology, introduced the possibility of mass communication; and the advantages of television, radio and newspaper advertising addressed at a large audience became a much more practical solution for entrepreneurs, with regard especially to the wide-range of communication possibilities offered by these new media. It was not until the advent of the Internet and a turn away from traditional media, especially among the younger generation, that companies again began to see the potential of non-standard solutions, including the potential of influencers who combined all the features of former brand ambassadors with the high reach of mass media. It is worth noting that 2021 in Poland was characterised by the advantage of online advertising over TV advertising, amounting to 42.7% and 42.4%, respectively. The remaining 14.9% of the advertising market consisted of radio advertising (7.4%), outdoor advertising (3.8%), magazines and dailies (total 3.1%) and cinema advertising (0.6%) (https://interaktywnie.com/biznes/newsy/biznes/rynek-reklamowy-wpolscewiekszy-niz-przed-pandemia-na-czele-reklama-online-261981, 2022). If we additionally consider the activity of Internet users in blocking online ads and the phenomenon of the so-called banner blindness (https://www.emarketing.pl/reklama-internetowa/slepota-banerowa-dlaczego-internauci-ignoruja-reklamy/, 2022), then influencer marketing seems to be an attractive solution for the institution of an effective mechanism for brand propagation.

The estimated value of the influencer marketing market in 2022 will reach $15 billion. Considering the 2019 market value of $9 billion, there is a great interest in this kind of activity in the world (https://raportstrategiczny.iab.org.pl/raport/influencer-marketing/, 2022). Also, in Poland, cooperation with influencers is becoming increasingly popular. The LTTM network paid out US$ 42 million to influencers, and the estimates of the value of the influencer market in Poland on the Instagram platform increased from US$ 18.7 million in 2019 to US$ 22.7 million in 2020 (https://raportstrategiczny.iab.org.pl/raport/influencer-marketing/, 2022). Unfortunately, the influencer marketing market in Poland is not researched in terms of advertising expenses dedicated to cooperation with influencers, and thus it is difficult to say what percentage of the advertising pie these activities represent. It is especially worth emphasising that brandrelated activities and recommendations of influencers enjoy a maximum of 71% trust so far as consumers are concerned, whereas trust above 80% is only achieved by recommendations of friends (89%) and by the brand’s website (84%). On the other hand, advertising activities on the Internet do not enjoy a high level of trust among Internet users. Banner ads are distrusted by 38% of them, social media and search engine ads are distrusted by 36% of respondents, 34% of Internet users consider ads on mobile devices to be untrustworthy and 33% of Internet users consider online videos to be untrustworthy (https://annualmarketingreport.nielsen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/pdf/full_report_1649855483_4140011690.pdf, 2022). In addition to the issues of trust and changes in media consumption, including traditional media, mainly among the young audience, who typically tend to belong to generation Z, significant is the phenomenon of the emergence of solid ties between the influencer and his audience. According to the Nielsen report, especially in the last 2 years, a period associated with the pandemic and very often the need to physically restrict social contact, the relationship between influencers and their followers has grown significantly, and influencers themselves began to be seen as one of the most reliable sources of information about brands and sales channels. Indeed, the source of this success, particularly the bonds built, is the perception of influencers as 'people from the neighbourhood’. Influencers who do not belong to the category of 'celebrity influencers’ are usually ordinary Internet users who share their passions and daily choices and regularly report on events in their lives. What is particularly attractive is that the influencer market is very diverse, making it possible to choose a specific influencer in terms of the desired topic and the reach or number of followers. Any brand can work with an influencer, even brands with small advertising budgets. The popularity arising from the results achieved is not only mega influencers with several million followers or celebrity influencers with similar reach but also micro or nano influencers who are followed by a smaller audience. According to Omnicore data, for every $1 invested in influencer marketing activities on Instagram, marketers reach $5.20 (https://www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/, 2022). It makes this marketing activity worth considering and including in the brand’s promotional mix. Of course, influencers can only influence their audience if they can both gain and maintain their attention (Hearn & Schoenhoff, 2015).

Methodology

In order to identify the impact of algorithms on the freedom and effectiveness of social media communication, it was decided to conduct a narrative literature review. In addition to the methodology of a systematic literature review, a narrative review of the literature is applied, especially in cases where there are few scientific papers on the topic under study (Rozkwitalska, 2016). Establishing the state of knowledge in the research subject up to the present time is important for conducting empirical studies and creating new knowledge (Czakon, 2015). It should be mentioned that by effectiveness, the author means the message’s visibility to the social media user and not its persuasive function. For this purpose, the Web of Science database was searched using the words and phrases 'algorithm’ or 'algorithms’ or 'filter bubble’ or 'algorithmic power’ and 'Instagram’ and 'marketing’ and 'social media’ and 'influencer’, considering all search fields. The decision to choose the words 'marketing’ and 'Instagram’ was dictated by the specificity of the analysed issue, which should refer to marketing activities using the most popular influencer marketing platform. Research shows that most marketers (89%) and consumers (65%) indicate the Instagram platform as the most popular choice for influencer marketing activities and influencer followings (https://www.fourstarzz.com/post/instagram-influencer-marketing, 2022). Instagram is also indicated as the platform of choice by 78% of marketers worldwide for influencer marketing activities (https://www.tractionwise.com/ wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Industry-Report-2021-Final.pdf, 2022). The author then narrowed the results to articles in peer-reviewed journals in behavioural sciences, communication, business and economics and narrowed the date range from 2016, when Instagram abandoned the chronological display of content, to the present. The results were then narrowed to publications in English, yielding 12 articles. As a result of the content analysis, eight articles were rejected due to the lack of references to the Instagram platform and lack of relevance to the issue under study.

Discussion

The final analysis was conducted on four articles. In them, the authors draw attention to the invisible influence of algorithms on social media activities (Cotter, 2019) and the peculiar game that content creators seem to be playing, in which identifying the 'rules’ of algorithms is fundamental. Cotter (2019) calls this the 'visibility game’ while pointing out the significant role of influencers in working out visibility rules, which can guide brands and help identify behaviours that improve publication visibility. Algorithms significantly impact the visibility of communications and mainly influence the structure of experiences and social realities on social media, although not necessarily user behaviour (Cotter, 2019). Influencers, as people who care about visibility and reaching their followers, place great importance on collecting information about how algorithms work: they read expert blogs, participate in discussions and collect examples of actions. Research by Cotter (2019) shows that influencers are mainly interested in two areas of information: information that reveals what influences the visibility of communication (such as the choice of hashtags, ideas for building engagement or the times and frequency of publication) and what are the acceptable boundary behaviours (such as what is perceived as spam, or what tools are acceptable to use by the Instagram platform). It includes the phenomenon of shadowbanning, which involves limiting the visibility of posts due to violating the platform’s rules, virtually blocking the reaching of new audiences and expanding the reach of posts (Cotter, 2021). Certainly, influencers, for whom visibility is one of their primary activities, based on their experiences, see in advance and recognise signals of censorship, discrimination or unequal application of policies (Cotter, 2021). Gaenssle and Budzinski (2019) refer to the algorithm as part of effectively serving advertising messages to the most tailored audience. The authors show the algorithm discussed so far in a different context as a supportive tool for optimising corporate advertising spending. They emphasise the importance of experience in dealing with algorithms that determine the visibility of content for web developers. They also point out that experience resulting from time spent on the platform and constant experimentation to improve content visibility become factors that build an influencer’s expert position and create a barrier to entry for new creators. Gaenssle and Budzinski (2019) refer, like Cotter, to the notion of a 'game’ while emphasising that winning (in this case with an algorithm or a recommender system) can create a snowball effect and improve the visibility of a given influencer. O’Meara (2019), on the other hand, refers to the problem of algorithms influencing the working conditions of digital creators by identifying 'worker resistance’ activities. As an example, he gives bottom-up constituted groups, providing each other support by giving likes, shares, mentions and comments, which are measures of engagement. Engagement is a crucial element of the algorithm on the Instagram platform. Unlike Cotter, who presents a 'game’ approach to visibility that assumes a rather individual and even expert dimension, the author sees visibility efforts on the platform as a collective effort by a specific community. One of the effects achieved by influencers by engaging in 'engagement pods’ is also the professional building of an audience base that attracts brands interested in cooperation and improves the influencer’s negotiating position when establishing the terms of advertising cooperation with an interested company. However, these activities also face criticism from influencers who see them as fraud (O’Meara, 2019).

Conclusion

There are still many open questions and issues in the field of influencer marketing that need to be explored or verified. The social impact of the content generated by Internet users, especially by influencers, is gaining importance. Influencers are becoming a kind of 'creative enterprise’ by transforming their activity and presence on social media platforms into a product consumed by the acquired audience and as an advertising medium for advertisers (O’Meara, 2019). To what extent can activities using social influence enter the canon of marketing tools and contribute to generating recognisable and comparable effects? Indeed, by observing the activities of social platforms, we can see efforts being made to impose specific rules for publishing and serving content that is shared not only by brands but also by digital creators. The shift from chronological publishing of materials shared by profiles to mechanisms serving photos and videos according to a planned scheme is supposed to, on the one hand, improve the visibility of valuable content, but, on the other hand, it introduces many conditions to be met. Additionally, the visibility of observed profiles was reduced by serving in the news not only content published by observed profiles but also ads and sponsored content. Considering the time users spend browsing Instagram, published posts compete for attention with advertising and sponsored posts. A review of the changes that took place in the algorithm and content ranking mechanisms on Instagram, especially the changes introduced after 2020, further indicates the great importance of creating thoughtful and consistent content. In this dimension, better results can be observed by influencers with a clearly defined profile of activity. Influencers whose activity is diverse may face difficulties in reaching a broad audience. The issue under discussion and the method used have some limitations. Changes related to algorithms are being made all the time, and information about them is not widely available. The literature analysis conducted also has its limitations. A review of other databases could identify additional scientific publications for analysis. The number of articles referring to the issue in question remains small and raises the need for further research that could provide answers to additional questions. To what extent does the visibility of content moderated by algorithms affect aspects of consumer perception and behaviour and brand image? How can knowledge of algorithms among influencers determine their negotiating position with brands?

What are the implications of the above considerations for brand owners? Online marketing is one of the technology trends impacting marketing and online sales (Trzmielak & Zehner, 2018). Advertised and suggested posts appearing in the news can be successfully used to improve the visibility of the brand profile or promoted content. On the other hand, openly reaching out to the community of influencers and presenting the brand as a perpetually improving continuum that has arisen and is being maintained as an outcome of cooperation between its creators and the providers of feedback on the various digital platforms is a chance to build engaging content and context in which to display the brand among an interested audience. However, bearing in mind the limitations described above, when deciding to work with an influencer, it is worthwhile to pay attention to the profile of their activity, especially its consistency and uniformity, in addition to several essential criteria such as reach, audience profile, engagement of followers and authenticity of the influencer. It would help if managers also considered to what extent the cooperation with an influencer will be an essential element of the brand’s promotional mix.

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