IMPACT OF NIGERIA SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS ON THEIR FOLLOWERS IN ONLINE COMMUNITY

Abstract

The main aim of this research was to investigate the Nigerian influencers and their influence on their followers in an online community – Twitter. The study adopted a mixed method comprising of online social media followers and a content analysis of influencers’ posts across three themes of interest: marketing, political and advocacy. The specific objectives of the study were to: (i) determine whether influencers with high personality attributes exert more significant influence on their followers than those with low personality traits; (ii) determine whether influencers with high personality traits and social characteristics have more significant reliability and thus exert greater influence on their followers than those with lower personality traits, social attributes and lower credibility; (iii) examine if there is a significant relationship between influencers’ communication ability and the impact they have on their followers; and (iv) examine the difference between the level of impact that political influencers have on their followers than marketing influencers. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics at 0.05 significance. The findings of the study were that: (i) the frequently used communication strategy employed by the influencers is informative (6, 42.9%) to influence their followers; (ii) personality attributes of all categories of influencers had a significant effect on the extent of influence their online activities exert on their followers; and there was no significant difference between the level of impact political influencers had on their followers compared to what marketing influencers had on theirs. The study therefore recommended that media literacy among youths should be enhanced to increase their capacity for following influencers reasonably.