The role social media influencer strategies on brand communication in telecommunication industry

Abstract

Society is advancing in the digital era every other day. Thus, social media has become more of a basic need for many people, who check their social media accounts habitually. Influencers on social media have become a model used by companies to advance their brands. Influencers are independent of any third-party supporters who form the audience's attitudes via tweets, blogs, and others. Thus, the aim of the study was to establish the influence of social media influencer strategies on brand communication at Safaricom Limited. The study was built on social judgment theory and the target population was 269 Safaricom staff in the Social Media department. The descriptive research design was applied while primary data was collected using questionnaire administered electronically. The collected data were analyzed quantitatively using both descriptive and inferential statistics. From the result, the overall model was found to be significant given the p-value of 0.000< 0.05. The value of the R-Square was found to be 0.53, which means that the model explains 53.0% of the total variations in the dependent variable (Brand communication) resulting from social media influencer strategies. Based on the results, social media influencer strategies enhanced Branding communication at Safaricom Limited. Thus, generally, holding other factors constant, social media influencer strategies enhanced brand communication by 0.558 units. Results further showed that a unit change in social media influencer strategies improved branding communication at Safaricom Limited by 0.848 units. Given other factors held constant, the study recommends that the telecommunications companies in Kenya need to adopt the best social media influencers strategies for better brand communication. This is because the results revealed that this variable had a positive and significant influence on brand communication and, hence, the performance of telecommunication companies. Also, before implementing influencer strategies, telecommunication companies should clearly define their communication objectives.