The more followers the better? The impact of food influencers on consumer behaviour in the social media context
Abstract
The study explores the impact of food influencers on consumer behaviour in the social media context. It assesses the interplay between the number of followers an influencer has and the type of content this influencer communicates to the audience. Doing so, the research contributes to the strategic refinement of influencer marketing practices, especially in the food industry.
Study specs
Quantitative analysis examining the relationship between influencers' follower counts, content type, and consumer reactions using social media data.
- Institution
- Monash University
- Discipline
- Marketing
- Study Type
- Experimental Study
- Year
- 2025
- Human Data Platform
- Prolific
- Source
- View Source DOI Google Scholar
Measured Outcomes
Influencer follower count, type of content communicated by influencers, consumer behavior influenced by these variables.
Peer Review & Critical Discussion
Potential Selection Bias in 2023 Cohort
The participant pool shows a concerning overrepresentation of users from high-income demographics. Looking at Table 3, we can see that 78% of respondents had annual incomes above $75k, which significantly limits the generalizability of these findings to broader populations.
Non-naive Participants Issue
I've noticed a methodological concern regarding participant naivety. Given that Prolific users often complete multiple studies, there's a real risk that participants had prior exposure to similar experimental paradigms, which could confound the results.
RLHF Applicability to This Study Design
The implications for RLHF training pipelines are understated. If we accept the authors' conclusions about preference stability, this has direct consequences for how we should structure reward model training. The temporal decay effect described in Section 4.2 is particularly relevant.
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