Instagram Post Caption as the Tool to Influence User Attitudes towards Brand-Sponsored Weak Ties' Recommendations

Electronic word-of-mouth(eWOM) is used by marketing specialists to raise awareness of the brand and drive sales. The prevailing eWOM strategy is sponsoring a recommendation blog post by the opinion leader. According to Statista in 2020 global Instagram influencer market size reached 2.3 billion U.S. dollars while in 2017 it had been three times less. Recently companies started to reach out to average users in order to offer compensation for the publication in their accounts. However, most work on the influence of sponsored recommendations on attitudes toward a publication is built around an author and reader with a parasocial relationship. However, the findings from these studies cannot be applied to users' attitudes toward the sponsored recommendation of a weak-tie, since the source credibility, skepticism, and advertising recognition vary considerably in the case of interpersonal rather than parasocial interactions. This study aims to investigate attitudes users have towards sponsored publications posted by their weak ties. The experimental design is applied to understand how the message in the post caption, in particular, the presence of the disclosure and sidedness of the text, influences attitude towards the brand-sponsored recommendation and purchase intention.