THE EFFECTS OF INSTAGRAM USE ON SPENDING BEHAVIOR

OF COLLEGE STUDENTS
____________________________________

A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

California State University, Fullerton

____________________________________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

Sociology
____________________________________

By

Laura Kozusnikova

Thesis Committee Approval:

Carter Rakovski, Department of Sociology, Chair

Berna Torr, Department of Sociology
Anthony Alvarez, Department of Sociology

Spring, 2019




ProQuest Number: 13877458




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 ABSTRACT

This study focuses on analyzing how social media and Instagram in particular

affects spending behavior among undergraduate students at California State University,

Fullerton. I designed a survey instrument to measure the effects of Instagram usage on

spending behavior among college students on new fashion products. The online survey

was created using Qualtrics software. An email invitation to participate in the study was

sent to Sociology faculty members, who forwarded this to their students. Using

convenience sampling method, data from the total of 157 students enrolled in

undergraduate degrees at CSUF were collected.

I hypothesized that students with active Instagram accounts spend more every

month on new fashion products than non-users. This hypothesis was supported as well as

hypothesis that spending more than two hours per day on Instagram results in higher

spending. I have conducted independent sample t-test, using IBM SPSS to analyze the

relationship between spending and independent variables - time spent on Instagram and

having and Instagram account. Gender was related to spending, as I hypothesized that

women will spend more money on new fashion products than men. Female students were

more likely to spend some amount of money on new fashion products every month than

male students. I did not support my remaining two hypotheses that having more followers

and following mostly social media influencers has effect on respondent’s spending.

ii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... ii

LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... v

LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. vii

Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1

2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMING ........................... 4

Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4
Research from Sociological Perspective on Social Media and Marketing ........... 6
Contemporary Research on Social Media, Marketing and Social Psychology of
Online Behavior ................................................................................................. 15
Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 25

3. DATA AND METHODS SECTION ................................................................... 26

Survey and Data Collection .................................................................................. 27

Data Analysis ........................................................................................................ 29

4. RESULTS ............................................................................................................. 33

Hypothesis 1 ......................................................................................................... 36
Hypothesis 2 ......................................................................................................... 37
Hypothesis 3 ......................................................................................................... 38
Hypothesis 4 ......................................................................................................... 38
Hypothesis 5 ......................................................................................................... 40
Binary Logistic ..................................................................................................... 41

5. DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................... 44

Explanation of Results .......................................................................................... 44

Implications for Future Research .......................................................................... 54

iii
 6. CONCLUSION..................................................................................................... 57

APPENDIX: SURVEY.................................................................................................. 59

REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 66

iv
 LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Sample Characteristics ......................................................................................... 33

2. Monthly Spending by Income .............................................................................. 35

3. Instagram Users versus Non-Users, Independent Samples t-test, Unequal

Variances Assumed.............................................................................................. 37

4. Gender versus Spending, Independent Samples t-test, Unequal Variances

Assumed............................................................................................................... 38

5. Monthly Spending by Time Spent Daily on Instagram ....................................... 40

6. Classification Table ............................................................................................. 42

7. Variables in the Equation ..................................................................................... 42

v
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1. Use of Instagram .................................................................................................. 43

vi
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would like to thank my thesis advisor PhD. Carter Rakovski from the

department of Sociology at California State University, Fullerton. The door to Professor

Rakovski’s office was always open whenever I needed an advice. She allowed this thesis

to be my own work while helping me to go the right direction.

I also must express my gratitude to my family and friends for providing me with

unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and

during the process of writing this thesis. This accomplishment would not have been

possible without them. Thank You.

Laura Kozusnikova

vii
 1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is to understand how Instagram use is related to

fashion product shopping among college students. Due to the growing popularity of

Instagram and social media, social media marketing has become a significant part of

Instagram, potentially affecting spending behavior of many Instagram users. While

specific paid advertisements are still very popular, the goal of this research is to

analyze how the growing popularity of social media indirect marketing on social

media influences spending of undergraduate students.

As previous research suggests (Sheldon & Bryant 2015), being perceived as

“cool” is one of the main motives behind using social media, and therefore in order

to gain such “coolness” users spend more money on trendy products. Cooley’s theory

of the “looking glass self” will be applied in this research in relation to Instagram

use. The looking glass self refers to the way in which ones’ attitudes about oneself

are formed through the way others treat them. Instagram is also well suited for

creating the most attractive and desirable version of ones’ self which may in turn

help users gain popularity and reinforce a better perception of self.

We can begin to understand this process of posting carefully picked content

on social media by applying Goffman’s theory of impression management.

Individuals commonly aim to present what they consider popular among Instagram
 2

users and are likely to purchase products seen on this social media platform, in

attempt to gain popularity. While gaining more followers in attempt to get popular

and be sponsored by marketers is widely seen on Instagram, this research focuses on

whether or not spending time on Instagram results in higher spending based on

viewing popular products used by the Instagram community.

My first research question is whether or not having an Instagram account

results in higher monthly spending on popular fashion products (such as designer

clothes, jewelry and cosmetics) among college students? Second research question

whether or not spending more time on Instagram affects respondent’s monthly

spending? Having more followers is often perceived as “cool” by Instagram users

and therefore I have formulated the third research question: Will high number of

followers cause higher monthly spending on new fashion products? Next research

question is focusing on analyzing if one’s interest in following social media

influencers, results in higher spending every month? As following social media

influencers might motivate users to purchase similar products. I will also attempt to

answer if gender is related to spending, more specifically, I would like to answer if

women who use Instagram will spend more money on new fashion products than

men? The data in this research will be collected by using an online survey consisting

of 24 questions focusing on respondents Instagram usage and monthly spending on

new fashion products.

Chapter 2 focuses on previous research in this field and lays out a conceptual

framework using Goffman’s theory of impression management as well as Colley’s

theory of looking glass self. I will also discuss the main motives for using Instagram
 3

and further explain the main aspects of social media marketing.

Chapter 3 explains the Methods used in this research, followed by Chapter 4

where I present Results of my research. Chapter 5 consists of Discussion of findings,

followed by Chapter 6 named Conclusion.

 4

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction of Previous Research

In the contemporary developed world, about half of all adults use social

networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest. This

includes over 80% of adults aged between 18-29, with often college education and higher

income (Smith & Anderson, 2018). When people obtain internet access, the most

commonly seen pattern is for them to immediately start engaging in social media

networking (Chayko, 2017).

The majority of people join social media platforms to connect with other

individuals, to create relationships, to share ideas, and to communicate with one another.

The popularity of social media grew over time not only as a tool to easily connect with

others but also a as a new form of marketing, which is now known as social media

marketing (Chayko, 2017).

Fisher (2015) argues that the main difference between social media marketing and

traditional marketing tools, such as TV, Radio or Newspapers commercials, is the fact

that social media users (customers) are producing data on their own. “Liking”,

“Commenting” and “Sharing” of posts on social media shows sociologists and marketers

what interest users on these platforms and can be used when creating new marketing

campaigns as well as applying or testing sociological theories. By posting pictures and

 5

sharing existing posts containing ideas and products such as clothes, cosmetics,

electronics or food, users are expressing their interest in products, which draws attention

to brands who made them. Through analysis of such interests, marketers work with the

data to produce more effective and better targeted commercials.

Social media marketing can be then viewed as two-way process when marketers

create commercials to sell products and then through social media, get significant amount

of feedback from customers. At the same time social media users create even more

commercials for the brand by sharing, posting, liking and commenting brand related

content with their friends. Traditional marketing is a one-way process, where marketers

only create advertisements to be presented to wide population, while social media

marketing offers more interactive approach (Fisher, 2015). Social media marketing being

wo-way process enables users not only to consume content but also to produce it.

Producing their own content then gives marketers fast feedback about the product they

are trying to advertise while at the same time this content creates even more

advertisement for the brand. In traditional marketing consumers are simply viewing ads

without the ability to immediately share their opinions of it. George Ritzer has called this

“prosumption” to capture the dual role of the social media users who consumes and

produces content (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010).

In contrast to marketers, sociologists are mainly interested in what motivates users

to post, like and share ideas on social media platforms. This study will further focus on

the ways in which sociology and marketing interact with one another as two separate

disciplines, while both inform a study into social media and spending behavior.
 6

Research from Sociological Perspective on Social Media and Marketing

Every relationship created online or offline is considered a tie between the two

individuals and in general there are two types of ties that one can create with other

people—strong and/or weak ties. Granovetter (1973) defines an interpersonal tie and its

strength by the combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy

and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie. He also adds that the stronger the

tie between two individuals is, they will more likely have stronger connections to

common friends. In other words, the overlap in their friendship circles is predicted to be

the least when there are very weak or non-existent connections between person A and

person B. On the other hand, stronger the connection between these two individuals is,

stronger the overlap in their friendship circle can be expected.

To better address this situation, Granovetter (1973) explains how in a situation

where there is strong relationship between A and B and also between A and C, there will

exist a relationship between person B and C. This situation with three strong ties is more

likely to happen as people know one another longer and better. To support this argument,

he argues that the existence of the strong tie between A and B as well as A and C,

occurred because of the similarities between the actors therefore when there is many

similarities between A and B, while A has strong connections and many things in

common with C as well, it is likely that there exist similarities between B and C.

Granovetter (1973) expands his theory by introducing and explaining the concept

of “bridges”, he claims that bridge is a tie and the only path between two points (persons,

groups, etc.). Strong ties (also referred to as bonding ties) are those ties we form with our

family and closest friends that have a lot of interconnections, while weak ties are
 7

connections between two people who either barely know each other or relationship that

has been maintained over the years, but the two don’t consider themselves close. When

talking about weak ties (bridges) we can for example imagine a relationship with high

school friends, colleagues, or friends of our close friends.

The importance of weak ties lies in its convenience and the length of the path to

more people. For example, when one wishes to make a connection with his possible new

employer or a person who might know about a new job opening, it is sometimes easier to

reach such connection through weak tie, because weak ties know lots of people that

person doesn’t know and can put him in touch with them. . If one has a weak tie to person

who has weak or strong tie to his possible new employer, it is easier to ask this person for

a contact information rather then, asking family and friends (strong ties) who mostly

know the same people as the person trying to make a connection. Therefore, the strength

of weak ties lies in its short and simplified path.

Granovetter (1973, p. 1366) mentions that when information is being diffused it

“can reach a larger number of people and traverse greater social distance when passed

through weak ties rather than strong” therefore more people can be reached through weak

ties. I will further examine the role of weak ties in social media networking and its

implications for this research. This concept can be referred to as the “small world”, which

stands for a situation when two newly introduced individuals discover to have some

common friends. As Ritzer discusses in his work, globalization is what can be referred to

as the shrinking of the world due to technological advances and the availability of

internet all over the world. Distance is then no longer a problem and people can connect

with others across continents (Ritzer, as cited in Appelrouth & Edles, 2016). Social
 8

media, through the internet allows individuals to create and maintain strong ties and more

importantly to create weak ties with individuals who share similar interest or who can be

a useful resource in the future. Because weak ties are more likely to link members of

different groups than are strong ties, it is logical to assume that one creates mostly weak

ties via social media.

Whether we talk about strong or weak ties all of these connections create one’s

social capital. The concept of social capital has been analyzed by Pierre Bourdieu who is

one of the classical sociological theorists. He viewed social capital as an important and

real structure that could be activated to yield access to resources. Bourdieu’s (1989) view

of social capital was very instrumental, and his definition of this concept mainly focused

on the benefits of one’s social network. He viewed connections to other people as a path

to gain more resources and in Bourdieu’s perspective of social capital, this phenomenon

could be broken down into two main elements: first the social relationship itself that

allows individuals to claim access to resources possessed by their friends (strong or weak

ties) and secondly the amount and quality of those resources. Portes (1998) builds on

Bourdieu’s theory and explains that through social capital, actors can gain direct access to

economic resources as well as increase their cultural capital through contacts with experts

or actors who affiliate with institutions that confer valued credentials which can be also

called institutionalized cultural capital, as originally introduced by Pierre Bourdieu

(1989).

Long before internet existed, and people had the option to create social networks

and maintain connections through social media, Durkheim’s insights “set the stage for the

sociomental nature of digital grouping to be better understood and for these groupings to
 9

be considered real, legitimate social units” (Chayko, 2017, p. 42, 2017). As Durkheim

explains in his theory these social, mental groupings are extremely important for human

beings as people are far worse and in Durkheim’s perspective even more prone to suicide

when they are not strongly connected within social groups and societies (Chayko, 2017).

Furthermore, Goffman (1956) argues that when people interact one always presents

himself in particular light to gain desired outcome out of the interaction. For example, if

one wants to be viewed as professional during job interview, he will most likely dress

appropriately and speak using professional language expected in this situation. One does

all of this in order to create desired impression about himself and that is why Goffman’s

theory is also known as impression management, as individuals can actively change

impressions of themselves by taking on multiple carefully picked roles. Such impression

management in Goffman’s (1956) theory is the key in every human interaction, whether

in person or online, mainly because one can navigate between multiple roles as she goes

through her daily activities (a woman can be a mother, friend, wife, teacher and so on all

in one day).

Whether we realize it or not, we transmit information about ourselves to others all

the time. In every interaction one gets attitude about himself from others which he does

not just accept, but also actively tries to change. One way we do this is by shifting our

presentation of self in front of others to try to alter their opinion about us. Goffman

(1956) claims that for those who are present in any interaction, there are many sources of

information about each other together with multiple carriers of these information. These

carriers make any face-to-face or online interactions possible, by enabling individuals to

make assumptions and create opinion about the other person participating in any social
 10

interaction. Goffman (1956) refers to these carriers of information as “sign vehicles”. For

example, an individual may form impressions about another person involved in an

interaction based previous experience with the person, or based on his appearance, age,

sex, skin color, clothing, language or accent and so on. All of these are in Goffman’s

theory referred to as “sign vehicles” because they serve as a transport of additional

information that is not necessarily being explicitly communicated. Sometimes “Sign

vehicles” can be viewed as stereotypes, for example driving particular car can be tied

with assumption that the person has enough or very little money, driving a SUV or a van

is viewed as family car, while driving sports cars is a sign of wealth and luxury.

Goffman’s theory is still relevant in contemporary world where the popularity of

social media and designer clothes grows every day. We can see brands around us on daily

basis, whether we talk about clothing brands, car brands, cosmetics, jewelry etc.

Desirability of these brands is undeniable as one can notice that shopping malls are

almost constantly crowded with people, products are running out of stock and people are

willing to pay not a small amount of money to own designer product.

In Goffman’s theory owning and using high-end brands is a part of an act that we

put on every day, it is used to present self in the best light, as many designer brands are

tied with higher status, wealth and prestige. With the accessibility of social media, it is

easier than ever before to spread desired image of self across continents to very high

number of people. Social media allows its users to present themselves in very specific

and often staged situations, capturing only what he or she chooses to show to the world.

While in real-life interactions person not only shows carefully picked aspects of her life

but a lot wider variety of aspects of her life through “sign vehicles”, as addressed in
 11

Goffman’s theory (1956). When interacting online it is a lot easier manage our

impression because the user controls the sign vehicles that are included.

In present days, computer technology and social media has expanded one’s

freedom when choosing who he wished to be seen as Waskul (2003) has examined how

self-expression changes in computer mediated society. Waskul (2003) found that many

participants of online chat found it playful and enjoyable to be able to take on multiple

selves and choose who they want to be. Individual’s self might be different when

presented on social media sites, such as Instagram, in comparison to his true “offline” self

(Gottschalk, 2010). Because of the power and popularity of the internet it has become

normal that one creates a social media self or “digital self” (Zhao, 2005) that differs from

selves in everyday, offline life. In order to get popularity and gain status of social media

influencers, people often seek to post very carefully staged photos containing specific

things and places to send desired message across. For example, posting a photo from

exotic destination can lead many followers to assume that one probably travels a lot and

can afford it, and draw attention to their social media profile, resulting in gaining specific

social status, even if it is just for a status for social media self.

When interacting on the internet and on social media in particular we are

navigating through cyberspace, which is socially constructed space (just like society) or

in other words socially constructed reality. Cyberspace does not physically exist, just like

society we live in, we can’t physically touch it, but we are aware that as a population we

create society, we are aware of the unwritten rules society goes by and most importantly

that to every society there is social order. Cyberspaces then also contains for example

shared meanings, understandings and information shared with each other. With growing
 12

popularity of social media and internet in general, it easily became reality that individuals

started to create an “online self”. In Goffman’s theory as mentioned above one can take

on multiple selves when navigating through day to day activities and online self has

become just one of them. Waskul (2003) also analyzed whether online self in some way

transforms the self from real life and he concluded that since an “online self” is

something symbolic, communicated and presented online, real-life selfhood has to be

necessarily transformed (Gottschalk, 2010). It is because of the loose boundaries of self-

presentation on the internet and the endless possibilities of taking on any role one desires

to take (Chayko, 2017). Often individuals can feel more comfortable with their online-

self rather than the true self and that is one of the reasons why a person takes the created

online self or just part of it and tries to be that person in a real life as well (Gottschalk,

2010). It is the absence of physical presence when interacting on the internet that makes it

possible for individuals to be whoever they wish to be.

Charles Horton Cooley (1983) introduced in his theory the concept of “looking

glass-self” which outlines how one views himself through the way others treat him. In

other words, one creates images about himself through the ways in which others treat him

every day. For this reason, some people try to present themselves in such a light that

gives them desired feedback from their peers, which then makes them feel better about

themselves. On social media this can be seen in the form of attention one is getting when

posting images, the number of likes, comments, and followers. When an Instagram user

realizes for instance that pictures containing designer products give them more attention,

are more likeable among her friends and receive compliments, they are likely to seek

these products just to get this positive feedback resulting in better perception of their life.
 13

On top of the attention gained from other social media users, by posting photos

containing popular brands Instagram user gains more attention from companies focused

on social media marketing. Since many Instagram users seek specifically attention from

companies, which is then translated into some sort of sponsorship, individuals often do a

lot to post images that draw attention to their profile. This sponsorship can take form of

financial compensation and free or discounted products in exchange for promoting the

brand on his social media profile. People who manage to be noticed and sponsored by

companies then gain the status of social media influencer and are often those behind new

trends.

To sum up, individuals can seek attention not only to get feedback and create

better images of themselves as Cooley suggests, but also to be considered an influencer in

Instagram community, receive free products to promote on their profiles and in some

cases to gain profit out of it. While Goffman (1956) focused on how one wants to be

perceived, and what kind of information is being transmitted when interacting with

another person, Cooley focused his work on the way one acts in order to get the desired

feedback and to be treated and perceived in better light which in turn makes him feel

better about their own self. Cooley’s (1983) concept focused mainly on how impression

management can lead to desired social status in the society, which is nowadays highly

affected by the internet.

Orend & Gagne (2009) created a theory of corporate logo tattoos on human

bodies. While their research mainly focused on body tattoos and their meanings, they

came up with a concept of “Human Billboards” which refers to brand loyalty among

customers who are often doing free advertising for the brand by wearing the corporate
 14

logo or by promoting the brand on social media. Individuals often do not realize that they

are being “Human Billboard” simply because of the feeling of “coolness” wearing these

brands and because of the attention it brings to them. Through this process person

becomes visible marketer of the brand he is wearing, and he gains strong feeling of

belonging to the groups that affiliate with it as well.

There is large number of Instagram pages each focusing on different topics and

presenting different lifestyles, while some of these groups might have similar audience,

individuals show their affiliation to the group by posting desired content or using

“hashtags” to show their brand loyalty as well as affiliation with the group. Instagram

users can use these tools with intention to either purely show their loyalty and passion for

the brand or as mentioned above to gain enough attention and followers and therefore

gain status of social media influencer and get free products to promote on their profile.

When one actively tries and works toward gaining more popularity on social media, she

will likely receive more attention and get bigger audience with time. As the topics she

posts become more popular and perceived as “cool”, she can gain status of a small

celebrity by her followers and become popular. This type of popularity is very often

enough for social media users to feel “cool” and better about their lives, and because of

that people continue to maintain their social media profile in certain way, in order to keep

existing popularity.

Adler & Adler (1989) have conducted a research focusing on how popularity and

fame affects one’s self. They came to conclusion that the gloried-self (the self that is in

its own way famous) can be viewed as greedy self, likely casting aside other self-

dimensions of the individual. As media platforms talk about popular individuals or in our
 15

case as individuals become popular on their own on social media, it creates an image of

who the person is, media creates a picture of self that is broadly accepted by the audience

resulting in one having to take on this media created identity because it is expected from

him on daily basis. He feels the need to present himself in this light in order to please his

own fans (followers), as it’s the only image they have of him.

There is a possibility of getting blinded by the glory of media-self and a person

can easily forget or cast prior identities and selves that were previously important to her,

because simply these selves don’t bring much attention. This can then lead to partial

alienation of self in order to keep her fans and popularity growing.

Social media is accessible for anyone who has internet and therefore anyone has

the power to become famous in front of his own audience with which they share

meanings and values. Social media users create online-selves that give them the desired

attention and popularity. Such attention makes individuals feel better about their lives

mainly because they are accepted by others in social media community, resulting in

maintaining this online-self every day. In Cooley’s theory this would be a typical

example of how the theory of “looking glass self” is being applied on social media

because it allows us to get a better picture of ourselves. The question that’s left to answer

in future research is to what extent is the online self, created on social media reflective of

one’s offline self and whether or not online self truly represents one’s personality.

Contemporary Research on Social Media, Marketing and

Social Psychology of Online Behavior

Social networking sites are very well suited for establishing new relationships and

maintaining existing ones. This means that social media has its significant power in

maintaining social capital and because of that social media positively influences one’s
 16

well-being (Chayko, 2017). People use social media mainly for networking, but with

growing popularity the motives for having a social media account has changed and

broaden (Sheldon & Bryant, 2015).

As mentioned earlier social capital consists of strong ties, also known as the

process of bonding (such as friends and family) while weak ties can be referred to as

bridging with other individuals who are able to provide us with informational support as

they are able to bridge to other sources of information and more social capital (such as

colleagues and acquittances) (Kramer, Rosner, Eimler, Winter, & Neubaum, 2014).

Because of the unique ability of the Internet to reach across continents large number of

people, it is assumed that bridging social capital (weak ties) is important in social

networking sites as Internet allows people to stay in touch with weak tie contacts and to

mutually benefit from this connection by providing one another information (Kramer et

al., 2014).

When talking about social media networking sites in the present study, I referred

to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram. The most part of

this research focuses on analyzing Instagram not only as online social networking

platform, but also as a marketing tool, affecting one’s spending behavior.

While majority of social media sites are focused on bringing people closer

together by making connections with others, Instagram on top of that allows users to post,

share, comment or like posts (photos) based on person’s unique interest (Casalo, Flavian,

& Ibanez-Sanchez, 2016). Instagram’s popularity in contemporary society is undeniable,

as the number of active users reached 800 million in September 2017, we can now expect

over 1 billion users worldwide (Instagram, 2017). With this constantly increasing number
 17

of users, the number of top brands using Instagram for marketing purposes increased over

the years as well. Miles (as cited in Virtanen, Bjork, & Sjostrom, 2014) mentions,

following and liking is the primary social behavior on Instagram, followed by

commenting. Users then use likes, followings and comments to express their attitude

about particular posts. This is how many companies can use Instagram as a tool when

trying to analyze purchasing behavior of consumers in relation to particular product or

line.

Analyzing steps that marketers take in order to establish successful social media

campaign will not be further addressed in this study, because of the extensive nature and

the lack of resources for conducting such research as Master’s thesis. I will rather focus

on analyzing how undergraduate students daily use Instagram, and whether or not it has

effect on their monthly spending.

Because of the wide range of social media platforms, in general we can divide

them into two groups based on what kind of profiles is the platform focused on: profile-

based social media (such as Facebook) and content-based social media. The difference

between the two is that profile-based social media are focusing on the individual, most of

the information is about certain person and their life. On the other hand, content-based

social media focuses on the content of the posts, discussing it and commenting regarding

the content.

Zhu & Chen (as cited in Godey et al., 2016) argue that Instagram is content-based

social media platform because its main goal lies in connecting individuals with similar

interests, by liking, commenting and sharing posts of common interest. Users then
 18

connect with certain profiles and content on Instagram because they simply “like” it. An

advertisement can be then easily circulated on Instagram through likes and comments.

While there is certain amount of paid advertisements on Instagram trying to draw

attention to products, more powerful way of doing so has become sharing and posting

photos including brands, by bloggers and celebrities. These social media influencers

have large base of followers who are mainly interested in seeing what celebrities are

doing every day. Many Instagram users then follow celebrities to get a peek into their life

rather than to get an inspiration on what to buy. Simultaneously, by seeing celebrity’s

posts including popular places, clothes, cosmetics and so on, users often try to follow this

lifestyle because of the popularity and attention it brings to their personal social media

account.

As mentioned in Cooley’s theory earlier, one makes assumptions about herself

based on how others treat her. This means that being perceived as “cool”, popular and

having fun base on Instagram, can help individuals feel better about themselves. What is

important to realize is that bloggers and celebrities are paid to post photos including

brands and therefore are being a part of social media marketing, while social media users

might see it as their “normal” lifestyle, not realizing there are looking at an

advertisement. Influencer Marketing is discussed further below.

Sheldon & Bryant (2015) focused their work on analyzing the main motives for

using Instagram. Their study yielded that the top three motives to use Instagram are the

following: Surveillance/Knowledge about others, Documentation and “coolness”. In fact,

surveillance, also referred to as knowledge of others, was found to be the most influential

when it comes to Instagram use. This suggests that many people are using social media
 19

including Instagram to gain knowledge and keep up with what others are doing (such as

friends, family, celebrities or even strangers).

Documentation was found to be the second main reason for Instagram usage

among people. Previous research has shown that people who have high level of social

activity (travelling, attending sport events, doing random activities with friends, etc.) are

more motivated to use Instagram as a form of documentation. People who are highly

socially active take a lot of photos and use social media such as Instagram to save their

pictures and keep those memories. Lee, Lee, Moon & Sung (2015) also extend this

findings and ads that by posting pictures about user’s daily life she creates her own

personal cyber documentary and allows her to self-express in multiple ways. Instagram

users therefore utilize pictures of all kinds of things to present to the world who they are,

to show their life style and taste.

The third main motive for Instagram usage is to gain popularity and be seen as

“cool” (Sheldon & Bryant, 2015). Instagram provides many features that are considered

to be cool in contemporary society, such as large selection of filters that can be used on

pictures, ability to link picture to certain topic by using “hashtags”, easy way to explore

new posts, or the option to post short videos of what one is currently doing. All of these

features on Instagram also allow users to easily research brands and get feedback on

products that they are interested in buying. In addition to the cool features users very

often like to use this particular social media platform for self-promotion and to gain

popularity. Some of the major goals for many Instagram users is to gain significant

amount of “likes” on their posts. For many users “likes” can validate their popularity,

status and can even help to gain higher self-esteem (viz Cooley’s theory of looking glass
 20

self). The same goes for gaining significant number of “followers” as such high number

can indicate popularity within the community. Instagram users can also get social support

of others by receiving “comments” on their posts.

Lee et al. (2015) focused specifically on social and psychological motives for

using Instagram and it identified that users have five primary motives: social interaction,

archiving, self-expression, escapism and peeking. Similarly, to motive of surveillance and

knowledge of others, as mentioned above, social interactions were defined as tool to

maintain and create new relationship with others, to interact with them, to communicate,

share ideas, “like” and “comment” on pictures. Lee et al. (2015) also adds that users

actively seek social interactions with users who share their interest on Instagram. To be

connected to individuals with shared values then makes one feel important connection to

these individuals and leads them to communicate about shared topics more often. This

can be illustrated on an example of shared interest in particular brand. When two

individuals share similar taste, they can communicate about the particular brand and

potentially through Word of Mouth spread such information to their close friends. Such

recommendations are then important in building strong brand-customer relationship,

when others see that the brand is popular and used by their friends.

Escapism is another important primary socio-psychological motive for using

Instagram among young adults. Some people use Instagram as a tool that allows them to

escape from their daily routine and allows them to pursue relaxation, while avoiding the

troubles in their real life (Lee et al., 2015). College students are very often living busy

lives when navigating through school, job and maintaining relationships with friends and

family. It is only logical to assume that Instagram can be for many undergraduate
 21

students a form of escape from this busy life and provide stress-free environment in

otherwise busy day. As a part of this study I will attempt to analyze how undergraduate

students use Instagram every day and describe most frequently occurring patterns in my

sample.

Understanding the motives for using Instagram as well as how people interact on

this platform is the key for firms when implementing Influencer Marketing, which is a

type of marketing field that focuses specifically on marketing products through social

media influencers. To understand how Influencer Marketing works, it is important to

define who influencer is. There are multiple definitions of this concept but most of them

describe influencer as a person whose opinion is valued among large scale of people and

who has the ability to shape opinion of others and make changes in a community. On

social media, influencers are daily users of platforms such as Instagram who act as both

producers and distributers of ideas (brands, products, etc.). These influencers usually

have large social media followings and are automatically assumed to be trusted voices

because of their popularity. Social media influencers then can reach large audiences and

spread the electronic word of mouth on much larger and more trustworthy scale (Carter,

2016).

Marketers often seek individuals with significant number of followers who can

produce compelling text, images or videos for their audience. We can imagine for

example a photo of shoes posted on Instagram that clearly promotes the brand. For

posting such photos is social media influencer being compensated either financially or by

receiving complimentary products from the company. The growing popularity of

Instagram in last few years makes influencer marketing a rapidly growing industry with
 22

its main focus on finding the right individuals who can act as influencers and have the

right structure of followers.

While influencer marketing can be a powerful tool when attempting to target the

right population, companies often face the challenge of finding these influential

individuals. One might think that approaching celebrities (such as artists, movies tars,

singers, etc.) can be the easiest way to go because of their extremely high number of fans

(followers). While this can be a rational thought it is not easy for marketers to approach

them, as celebrities only work with brands who are able to offer them very financially

attractive offer. Such marketing campaign could be too costly for growing business.

Many businesses are then trying to approach so called micro-celebrities. These

individuals treat themselves on social media as a brand and are somewhat similar to

celebrities. Micro-celebrities are usually popular only in certain way or because of one

certain product they promote. They are being compensated for promoting the brand and

call themselves social media influencers—they are strictly known for their social media

page (Carter, 2016).

Marketers also very often come across so called “hustlers”. These are individuals

are seeking to be compensated for posting about brands on social media and therefore

they do it for free to get attention from marketing companies. Hustlers are well aware of

how marketers approach social media influencers and so they try to act like they are

already famous for their work. Hustling often involves posting many photos including

brands and promoting the brand name to hustler’s followers. By doing so they are trying

to show the brand that they are doing all of this for free and so they deserve to be

sponsored for what they do. While hustlers are not as famous among people as micro-
 23

celebrities, through hustling and proving feedback on products they gain high number of

followers which makes them an ideal candidate for marketers to approach with their

campaigns—they are not asking for big financial compensation but at the same they have

nearly the same ability to reach population as celebrities.

Whether we talk about social media influencers, celebrities or hustlers they are

creating relationship with their audience, relationship that promotes trust in the person by

being in constant touch with their audience. Showing pictures from everyday life can be

seen as trustworthy, real and authentic and users of Instagram then build relationships

with social media influencers because they feel like they already know them (Carter,

2016).

Relationships with brands can be as important as relationships with individuals

and among social media users. As previous research shows having strong relationships

among Instagram users can translate into strong relationship with brands. To better

understand how the two overlap, it is necessary to further discuss what are the factors that

influence one’s intention to follow and recommend certain brands to his or her friends,

family and other Instagram followers (Casalo et al., 2016).

As previous research shows Word of Mouth (WOM), or consumer-to-consumer

interactions about brands has higher credibility, empathy and relevance for customers

rather than marketer-created sources of information on the Web. As one of the main

advantages of social media in general is that users create their own content, this makes

social median an ideal tool for electronic Word of Mouth. Consumers can generate and

spread brand related information to their friends, peers and other acquittances without

limits (Godey et al., 2016). Electronic Word of Mouth is described as performing certain
 24

actions such as seeking, giving and passing opinions about any interesting subject on

social media platforms. This means that recommendations regarding brands can be

rapidly spread among users through social networking sites (Casalo et al., 2016).

According to Chu & Kim (2011) consumers who seek opinion about certain

brands usually search for information and advice from other consumers when deciding

whether or not to buy a product. On the other hand, there are consumers with high level

of opinion-giving behavior, who can also be referred to as opinion leaders or are

commonly known as social media influencers or bloggers. Opinion-givers have influence

on consumers’ attitudes and behaviors and can affect large number of customers either to

buy a product or help them to decide not to. This is one of the main reasons why many

bloggers or social media influencers are sponsored and paid by brands to post and share

pictures containing particular product, to spread WOM, gain more popularity for the

product and therefore refer more customers for the brand. Finally, online forwarding is

then characteristic of Electronic Word of Mouth that allows the flow of information on

large scale. Khang, Ki & YE (2012) find that when advertisements of products are shared

among friends, they bring more awareness and attention to the marketed brand than

actual paid advertisements. This supports above mentioned argument that consumer-to-

consumer shared information have higher credibility and are more trust worthy than

commercial ads. This fact makes social media marketing crucial for companies and for

success of their products.

In this research I will attempt to answer a research question whether or not daily

users of Instagram tend to spend more money on new fashion products marketed on this

social media platform, such as clothes, cosmetic or jewelry. Another research question I
 25

will attempt to answer, is whether following celebrities and bloggers who promote

fashion brands, is associated with higher spending on new clothes, cosmetics or jewelry.

Another research question I will be answering is whether or not the number of followers

one has affects respondent’s monthly spending on new fashion products.

Conclusion of the Reviewed Literature

Reviewed literature highlights the importance of social media not only as a

networking site but as marketing tool as well. While growing popularity of Instagram is

undeniable nowadays, there is a lack of research on undergraduate students and their

Instagram usage. As many college students live busy lifestyle, to understand what role

Instagram plays in their daily routine is one of the objectives of this research.

A lot of research has been done in regard to social media marketing, because of

the nature and resources available for this project I will attempt to analyze whether or not

daily Instagram users tend to spend more money on new fashion products than non-users.

By spending certain amount of time every day on Instagram one is being exposed to

social media marketing whether she realizes it or no and therefore I will also analyze the

relationship between time spend on Instagram and the likelihood of spending money on

new fashion products every month. The role of social media in relationship with

individual’s spending patterns on fashion related products is the core of this study.
 26

CHAPTER 3

DATA AND METHODS SECTION

The main objective of this study is to look at the effects of Instagram usage on

spending behavior of undergraduate college students at California State University,

Fullerton. In present research I will analyze how undergraduate students at California

State University, Fullerton (CSUF) use their Instagram account. Reason for selecting

undergraduate students at CSUF is their age (similar to the most active group of

Instagram users) and my close proximity to them, being graduate student at the same

University myself. As reviewed literature suggests, the most active group on social

media are young adults as also supported by Pew Research Center report, indicating that

the most frequent users are adults between the age of 18-24 (Smith & Anderson, 2018).

This is the age range of majority undergraduate students at CSUF, as University’s data

indicate that 73.1% of all students at CSUF are between the age of 18 and 25 (Office of

Assessment and Institutional Research. CSUF Facts: Fall 2018).

One should also be aware of the fact that 84.1% of respondents were females

while 14% identified as males. This fact is therefore affecting my research question

regarding gender and monthly spending, as a result of underrepresentation of males in my

sample.
 27

Survey and Data Collection

I constructed a survey with questions focusing on respondent’s activity on social

media in general with a focus on Instagram, followed by questions regarding their

monthly spending on clothes, jewelry, cosmetics and products seen on Instagram. The

questionnaire also included demographic questions such as age, gender, race,

employment status and annual income. These questions were constructed in order to be

able to determine how factors such as annual income, gender and Instagram usage may

be related to spending behavior. To prevent any possible misunderstanding while

answering questions, prior to data collection, this survey was pilot tested among four

individuals to ensure that all questions were clear and provided answers were exhaustive

and mutually exclusive. No major issues with the survey were discovered when pilot

testing.

This survey was constructed using Qualtrics software available for all CSUF

students to access online and contained the total of 24 mainly matrix and multiple-choice

questions (Appendix). In order to circulate an online survey to the targeted population I

obtained an IRB approval, and took steps to ensure that this research is not

discriminatory, and that participation is voluntary and anonymous.

By using convenience sampling, an email was sent to undergraduate students

explaining the purpose of my research. I wasn’t able to use probability sampling method,

because of the resources and time frame available for conducting this study. Convenience

sampling method was therefore selected as the most suitable sampling technique for my

thesis which serves as a pilot study to explore the ground of this topic for future research.

This instrument could be refined in the future and used for probability-based sample.
 28

Being graduate student at CSUF myself, I didn’t have access to email addresses of

undergraduate students at this University and therefore I have sent an email invitation to

take my survey to all Sociology faculty members. This means that only students who

were participating in lectures of sociology department professors and heard about my

study had a chance to participate in this research, causing an oversample of sociology

students. Despite the fact that this survey was sent to students participating in any

sociology class, students from other departments were participating in them as well,

meaning that not all respondents were sociology majors.

After sending email including a link for the questionnaire, students were given

one week to finish the survey. A total of 157 respondents participated in this research.

Keeping the window open for longer period of time could potentially have increased the

number of responses and therefore result in larger sample size, but because of the time

frame of my thesis I had to follow the schedule and close the survey after one week. All

Sociology department faculty members received an email about this research and were

asked to forward my message to their students.

As mentioned above, the main objective of this study is to analyze whether

Instagram usage is related to higher spending among undergraduate students. Following

are the five hypotheses that will be discussed.

Hypothesis1: Instagram users will spend more money on new fashion

products than non-users of Instagram.

Hypothesis2: Women will spend more money on fashion products than

men.

Hypothesis3: Instagram users with more followers will spend more money
on new products than users with less followers.
 29

Hypothesis4: Users who spend more time on Instagram will be more likely
to spend some money on new fashion products every month than less
frequent users.

Hypothesis5: Instagram users who are mainly interested in following

bloggers and social media influencers (such as celebrities) will be more
likely to spend some money every month on purchases of new fashion
products.

Survey questions were designed to answer these research questions and focused

on one’s frequency of checking their Instagram feed as well as, who they are the most

interested in following online, how many followers one has, where do respondents

purchase majority of their clothes and new products as well as how much they on average

monthly spend on new products.

Data Analysis

After the data were collected, IBM SPSS software was used to analyze the data

and present the results discussed below. I have selected 5 different key independent

variables (IV) to be able to address earlier listed hypotheses. In the following step I have

analyzed how each IV affects selected dependent variable (DV)—respondent’s monthly

spending on new fashion products.

In order to conduct statistical data analysis, I have recoded the DV into two new

variables. The original DV had 5 response categories, when asking about how much

respondent spends on average every month on new fashion products:

1. Less than $50

2. $50 - $100
3. $100 - $200
4. $200 - $300
5. More than $300

In order to increase the likelihood of respondents answering the question I

provided options rather than keeping it as open-ended question.

 30

Because of the smaller sample size than originally expected I have recoded this

variable by collapsing responses in three categories:

1. $0-$100
2. $100-$200
3. $200-$300+

By doing this step I was able to get higher cell counts and therefore conduct Chi

Square test of mean difference between Independent and dependent variables.

This coding of DV has been used when statistically analyzing following two hypotheses:

Hypothesis1: Instagram users will spend more money on new fashion

products than non-users of Instagram.

Hypothesis2: Women will spend more money on new fashion products

than

Because of the low response rate after conducting Chi-square and Cross

tabulation, I had to conduct an independent sample t-test even though both of these

variables were ordinal, rather than interval.

An independent sample t-test compares the means between two unrelated groups

on the same continuous, dependent variable (Field, 2014). In the case of H 1 the DV is the

amount of money spend every month on new fashion products measure at the interval

level, while the IV measures whether or not respondent has Instagram account (“yes” or

“no”) and has two categorical, independent groups. Before conducting independent

sample t-test I made sure that all assumptions for the test has been met (Field, 2014).

In order to answer the following three hypotheses, I had to further recode the

dependent variable:

Hypothesis3: Instagram users with more followers will spend more money
on new fashion products than users with less followers.
 31

Hypothesis4: Users who spend more time on Instagram will be more

likely to spend some money on new fashion products ever month than less
frequent users.

Hypothesis5: Instagram users who are mainly interested in following

bloggers and social media influencers will be more likely to spend some
money every month on purchases of new fashion products.
The original DV was further recoded into YES/NO question. By not analyzing the

exact amount of money respondents put every month towards purchases of new fashion

products, which can be often uneasy to estimate, I have created a new DV variable. This

variable is showing whether or not respondents spend money every month on new

products or not at all, in comparison to the original DV focusing on the amount they put

towards products every month. By simplifying this variable, I was able to better

understand and analyze the dynamics within relatively small sample size.

With recoded version of the DV (Do you spend some money on fashion products

every month? (YES/NO) I have conducted an Independent Sample t-test in order to either

support or reject H3 and H5.

Pearson’s chi-square test for independence was used to statistically analyze

Hypothesis4. I have selected Independent variable coded as time on Instagram, which was

asking respondents if they spend less than 2 hours, about 2 hours or more than 2 hours on

Instagram every day. Dependent variable about spending was coded into YES and NO

option, as explained above. Both of the variables were measured at an ordinal or nominal

level and consisted of two or more categorical, independent groups, meaning that the

variables have met the two assumptions for conducting Chi-square.

As mentioned above I used convenience sampling as a method when choosing

sample for this study. This type of sampling is a non-probability sampling technique

where respondents are selected based of their convenient accessibility and proximity to
 32

the researcher. The most apparent drawback of convenience sampling is the fact that the

sample is not representative of the entire population. Based on university’s data 57% of

all students are females and 43% males. In the sample of 157 students that participated in

present study, men are highly underrepresented (14%), with majority of females (84.1%).

This drawback of questionable representativeness of the sample, makes generalizations

about the entire population limited. As a researcher I was aware of these limitations of

convenience sampling method but because of my position as graduate student at the same

university and the nature and goals of my research, I have decided to use convenience

sampling beside its apparent limitations. It is important to mention that this research

serves as a pilot study for further projects focusing on social media’s effect on one’s

spending and aside from statistical data analysis, I will also discuss the most frequently

seen behavior on Instagram within my sample and provide description of these patterns.
 33

CHAPTER 4

RESULTS

For a better understanding of the sample in the present study, I am providing a

descriptive table of the sample in comparison to the official CSUF data of all students.

Table 1. Sample Characteristics vs. CSUF Student Population*

Sample CSUF data

% or mean (SD) % or mean (SD)
Individual demographics
Women 84.1 57.1
Men 14.0 42.9
Age 23.80 (5.86) 24 (N/A)
Ethnicity
Latino/Latina 62.4 41.5
White 33.1 20.0
Asian 10.2 20.9
Black or African American 6.4 1.9
Race
Black 38.8 37.6
White 53.3 51.7
Total Annual Individual Income
$0 - $10,000 33.1
$11,000 - $25,000 31.8
$26,000 - $40,000 11.5
$41,000 - $55,000 4.5 N/A
$56,000 - $70,000 3.2
$71,000 - $85,000 1.9
$86,000 and over 3.2

*Sample (N = 157); CSUF students (N = 39,774)

CSUF Office of Assessment and Institutional Research, Fall 2018

 34

The characteristics of the sample used for this study differ in some respects from

the overall population of CSUF students (Table 1). The most significant difference is the

overrepresentation of women in the sample (84.1%) in comparison to the overall CSUF

population (57.1%). While my sample is fairly representative when it comes to age of

students, ethnicity distribution of this sample was not representative. Latinx students

were overrepresented in the sample and Asian students were underrepresented (-11%)

compared to the CSUF population. However, the racial breakdown was similar to the

overall population. The differences in gender and ethnicity between the sample and

population of CSUF students were caused by sampling technique used in this research

(convenience sampling, rather than probability sampling method) with a likely over-

representation of sociology majors and a small sample size.

This research focused on analyzing how having an Instagram account is related to

one’s spending behavior. To be more specific, I was focusing my analysis on analyzing

whether the amount of time spent on Instagram, number of followers, gender and interest

in following bloggers and social media influencers is associated with respondent’s

monthly expenditure on new fashion products. I hypothesized that interest in following

social media influencers and attracting a high number of followers will be connected to

higher spending. While analyzing income as a factor associated with spending on fashion

products was not one of the main objectives of this research, after reviewing the collected

data, I came to the conclusion that it is important to mention the relationship between

income and spending as well.

In the sample, 74.7% of respondents spend less than $100 per month on new

fashion products, and only 22.7% of respondents spend more than $100 every month
 35

(Table 2). Further, 65% of respondents in my sample have an income (from all sources

combined) below $25,000 per year. I hypothesized that there would be a relationship

between income and spending, more specifically that higher income would be related to

higher spending among respondents. For better understanding of the relationship between

income and spending a cross tabulation table is provided in Table 2.

As we can see, majority of respondents (76.3%) spend less than $100 on new

products every month. More importantly, 73.3% of students monthly spending between

$0-$100 have annual income lower than $25,000, while at the same time only 12.9% of

students with the same annual income spend $200 and more every month. Because of the

small response rate in cell when conducting Chi-square, I have conducted Pearson’s

correlation.

Table 2. Monthly Spending by Income

$0-$25,000 $26,000-$55,000 >$56,000 Total

Monthly spending % % % %
$0-$100 73.3 88.0 76.9 76.3
$100-$200 13.9 12.0 7.7 12.9
$200-$300+ 12.9 0.0 15.4 10.8

*$0-$25,000 (n = 101), $26,000-$55,000 (n = 25), >$56,000 (n = 13)

After conducting correlation with these two variables I had to reject my

hypothesis that there is a linear relationship between income and spending (r = -.107

p = .210). One of the possible reasons behind the lack of a relationship may be

convenience sampling leading up to a non-representative sample. Secondly small sample

size may also be responsible for the lack of statistically significant results. Because of a
 36

small response rate in categories with annual income above $40,000, there is not enough

data to provide statistically relevant results. Having larger sample size would then lead to

higher response rate in each category, resulting in a more accurate test result. I will

further discuss drawbacks and suggestions for strengthening this study for future research

in the discussion section.

After conducting statistical data analysis using IMB SPSS, three out of the total of

five hypothesis were supported by conducting Independent Sample t-test and Chi-square.

Hypothesis 1

Hypothesis1: Active Instagram users will spend more money on new

fashion products every month than non-users (respondents without an
Instagram account).

This hypothesis was supported by Independent sample t-test.

An independent variable (IV) in this test was respondent’s usage of Instagram as

one of their social media platforms. They were asked whether or not they have an

Instagram account, and given YES or NO option to answer. The dependent variable (DV)

is spending. Spending is here a recoded version of survey question asking respondents to

estimate how much they monthly spend on new fashion products purchases. They were

originally given following five response categories: Less than $50 (N = 58), Somewhere

between $50-$100 (N = 57), $100-$200 (N = 22), Approximately $200-$300 (N = 13),

More than $300 (N = 4). Because of the small response rate in each cell I have recoded

this variable into three categories. After recoding respondents were then distributed

among the following three categories: $0-$100 (n = 115 coded as value 1 in SPSS); $100-

$200 (n = 22 coded as value 2 in SPSS); $200+ (n = 17, coded as value 3 in SPSS) giving

me higher response rate in each cell.

 37

Table 3: Instagram Users versus Non-Users, Independent Samples t-test, Unequal

Variances Assumed

Mean SD t df p-value
Instagram users (n = 129) 1.41 0.71 3.18 75.09 0.002
Non-Instagram users (n = 25) 1.12 0.33

There was a significant difference in the scores for Instagram users (M = 1.41,

SD = 0.71) and non-users (M = 1.12, SD = 0.33); t(75) = 3.183, p = .002. Because of the

significant difference in standard deviation between active Instagram users and non-

users, Independent sample t-test was done for equal variances not assumed. Mean value

of 1.41 indicates higher spending among respondents who have Instagram account, in

comparison to mean value of 1.12, indicating lower spending for respondents with no

Instagram account. To better explain, value 1.1 is closer to 1 = 0-$100 spending level,

whereas 1.4 is closer to 2 = $100-$200 spending level.

Hypothesis 2
Hypothesis2: Women will spend more money every month on fashion
products than men.
In order to conduct independent sample t-test the independent variable (gender)

was recoded as Female vs. Male category, mainly because there were only three

respondents who marked the other options provided for gender (list the other options they

were given here: refused to answer this survey question or identified as gender fluid. The

dependent variable used in this t-test was spending, which was coded as for H1 into three

response categories.

Group statistics of the t-test has showed significant difference in standard

deviation between females and males (female: SD = .70; M = 1.40 and male: SD = .47;

M = 1.14) which has led me to conduct the t-test for equal variances not assumed where
 38

t(39) = -2.252, p = .030. Therefore, I can support my hypothesis that women spend more

money every month on new fashion products than men.

Table 4. Gender versus Spending, Independent Samples t-test, Unequal Variances

Assumed

Mean SD t df p-value
Females (n = 130) 1.40 0.70 2.25 39.04 0.030
Males (n = 22) 1.14 0.47

Hypothesis 3

Hypothesis3: Instagram users with more followers will spend more money
on new products. Chi-square test indicated low response rate in cells,
therefore I conducted Pearson’s correlation.

An Independent variable in this case was the number of followers one has, while

keeping the same dependent variable asking respondents about their monthly spending.

This hypothesis was rejected after conducting Pearson Correlation where r = .005,

p = .959 meaning that number of followers is not significantly related to spending.

Hypothesis 4

Hypothesis4: Users who spend more time on Instagram will more likely
spend money on purchases of new fashion products every month

Hypothesis4 was statistically supported as well by conducting Pearson Chi-

Square. As Independent variable for this statistical test I have used respondents average

time spent on Instagram every day. As research conducted by Nielsen indicates, the

average time spent on an app/web on a smartphone (which includes social media as well)

per adult 18+ is about 2 hours. (Q1 2018, Nielsen Total Audience Report) For that

reason, respondents were asked to estimate whether they feel that they spend less than 2

hours, approximately 2 hours or more than 2 hours on Instagram every day. Instead of
 39

analyzing the amount of money spend on new fashion products every month ($0-$50;

$50-$100; $1100-$200; $200-$300 and $300+) I have decided to create two groups of

respondents: those who spend every month on new fashion products (YES) and

respondents who don’t (NO). Respondents who indicated that they spend between $0-$50

on new products every month were recoded as NO, and respondents who spend over $50

on new products every month were coded as YES. I recoded the DV as described based

on the assumption that because of the relatively low annual income levels among

undergraduate students in this sample, spending over $50 every month on new fashion

related products is a significant amount of money. Recoding of the DV (spending) was

necessary because of the low response rate in each cell leading to invalid statistical

results.

Table 5. Monthly Spending by Time Spent Daily on Instagram

More than 2 About 2 hours Less than 2 hours

hours per day per day per day Total
Monthly spending % % % %
No 23.6 40.0 56.5 35.9
Yes 76.4 60.0 43.5 64.1

*More than 2 hours per day (N = 55), About 2 hours (N = 50), Less than 2 hours (N = 23)

Chi-Square test indicated that there is statistically significant association between

the amount of time one spends on Instagram every day and likelihood of spending money

on new fashion products every month (Chi-square (2) = 8.201, p = .017).

Respondents who spend more time on Instagram are more likely to spend some

money on new fashion products every month. Of those who spend less than two hours per

day less than half spend any money (43.5%) on new fashion products, in comparison
 40

those who spend more than two hours of those more than three quarters of respondents

spend some money on new fashion products every month (76.4%).

Hypothesis 5

Hypothesis5: Instagram users who are mainly interested in following

bloggers and social media influencers will spend more money every
month on purchasing new fashion products, in comparison to users with
different interests.

This hypothesis was rejected after conducting Pearson Correlation where r = -.009,

p = .921 meaning that following bloggers and social media influencers is not significantly

related to monthly spending.

Binary Logistic

I have constructed a Binary Logistic multivariate model to see how the

combination of the three significant Independent Variables explain variations in

spending. In summary, the bivariate test results did not support Hypothesis 3 and

Hypothesis5. I did not have enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis that there is no

relationship between spending and number of followers as well as relationship between

spending and following social media influencers.

As we can see in Table 6. the model predicts correctly 65.2% of the cases, when a

cutoff of .5 is used. Time spent on Instagram is the closest to significant (p = 0.07) which

cannot be considered statistically significant because of the p value greater than .05. At

the same time being Female, spending more time on IG and income all increase odds of

spending based on the value of ExpB (odds ration), where all three of these variables are

greater than 1.0 (Table 9.).

As Nagelkerke R Square indicates only 4.3% of the variation in spending is account

for by time spend on Instagram, Income and Gender.

 41

Overall the results of binary logistic regression indicate that time spend on

Instagram is a relatively significant predictor of Spending [Chi-square = 4.365, df = 3 and

p = .225(>0.05)]. The other two predictors income and gender were not significant

according to the Wald Chi-square tests for their model coefficients. None of the

predictors were significant at the 5% level [Time on IG Wald = 3.143, p = .076 (>0.05);

Income Wald = .326, p = .568 (>0.05); Gender Wald = .606, p = .436(>0.05)]. The odds

ratio (OR) for Time on IG is 1.51, for Income 1.18, and for Gender 1.46. This indicates

that identifying as female, spending more time on IG, and increased income, all are

predicted to increase the odds of spending. The model correctly predicts 22.0% of cases

where respondents do not spend and 89.8% of cases where respondents spend some

money every month on new fashion products, giving an overall percentage correct

prediction rate of 65.2%.

Table 6. Classification Table*

Predicted
Do you spend money on new products Percentage
every month Correct
Observed No Yes

Do you spend money on new products No 11 39 22.0

Step 1 every month Yes 9 79 89.8
Overall Percentage 65.2

* The cut value is .500

 42

Table 7. Variables in the Equation

Predictor variables B SE Wald df Sig. Exp(B)

Step 1(a) Time on IG .415 .234 3.143 1 .076 1.514

Income .164 .287 .326 1 .568 1.178
Gender .379 .487 .606 1 .436 1.461
Constant -.973 1.057 .848 1 .357 .378

Having a relatively small, non-representative sample, caused by using

convenience sampling might have been one of the reasons for not being able to

statistically support H3 and H5. Therefore, I have decided to provide a descriptive chart

(Figure 1) of my sample, focusing on daily Instagram usage. The most important patterns

are discussed below.

Usage of Social Media as a tool to keep up with new

trends
Usage of Instragram as a source of inspiration when
purchasing new products

Openness to buy products seen on Instagram

Interest in following bloggers

Interest in following posts from celebrities

Spending 2 hours and more on Instagram daily

Interested in Fashion related content

Interested in Lifestyle related content

Interested in Travelling related content

Chceking Instagram almost every time when using cell

phone

Active Instagram users

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Figure 1. Use of Instagram (N = 157)

 43

Out of the total number of 157 respondents 82.8% are active Instagram users, who

are mainly interested in following posts regarding travelling (45.9%), Lifestyle (43.9%)

and Fashion (35.7%). While these are their main areas of interest when on Instagram,

54.2% enjoy following posts from celebrities and 46.4% like following bloggers also

known as social media influencers.

 44

CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION

Explanation of Results

The goal of this research was to better understand how Instagram as one of the

main social media platforms nowadays is related to spending behavior of undergraduate

students at California State University, Fullerton. With constantly raising popularity of

this social media platform, it is important to understand its effects on one’s behavior

when deciding about new purchases. As reviewed literature suggests, seeing young adults

posting pictures with popular brands, on “cool” places or posting widely desirable

content, can be very tempting especially for young adults seeking popularity. Since

having an Instagram account with a high number of followers can bring attention from

marketers, who are trying to promote popularity of brands and offer free products for

users in return for posting about their products, it is commonly assumed that it motivates

users to post content which gets their account more attention (Fisher, 2015).

Even though analyzing income as one of the factors affecting spending was not

the primary objective of this research, I have decided to include it for better

understanding of respondents’ background. In this sample, income was not related to

respondent’s spending on new fashion products. One of the possible explanations of this

finding is low income level among undergraduate students who are mainly unemployed

or part-time employed and therefore are careful about their spending every month. The
 45

majority of respondents were located in the first two categories with annual income

below $25,000 (Table 1). An important fact to mention is that respondents were given

seven categories to choose from when answering survey question regarding their income.

The vast majority (85.7% of respondents) located themselves in the top three categories,

being in an annual income group between $0-$40,000. The remaining four categories had

very low if any representation making it difficult for statistical data analysis with such a

low response rate in some of the cells.

Further research is necessary to analyze this relationship, with larger sample size

and higher response rate in all income categories. Collecting more qualitative data and

asking more in-depth questions about spending and annual income is another possible

approach for further research. Collecting more quantitative data by keep survey window

open for longer period of time, could resolve this problem and potentially reveal any

patterns in spending behavior of active Instagram users. To recall over the past month

spending is another possible obstacle for obtaining representative dataset, as it might be

too difficult for students to remember their last month spending accurately

As expected, based on the reviewed literature my hypothesis that respondents who

have an active Instagram account, spend more money on new fashion products every

month was supported. This means that participating in Instagram motivates young adults

to purchase new products more. This suggests that products previously seen on this social

media platform with enough positive feedback are more likely to get noticed by users.

While this research lacks evidence of what exactly it is that motivates Instagram users to

purchase more, it is clear that undergraduate students without an Instagram account tend
 46

to spend less. This research does not prove the theory of looking glass self but it also

doesn’t contradict it.

Results show that respondents within the sample are interested in following

bloggers and also getting reviews of new products. As reviewed literature suggests,

following social media influencers is often leading to higher likelihood of spending in

order to gain popularity and “coolness”. This fact was not supported by this research, as

interest in following bloggers and social media influencers was not affecting respondent’s

monthly spending. This finding has led me to reject my hypothesis that interest in

following social media influencers affects respondent’s spending behavior.

The amount of time one spends on Instagram also affects how much a person

spends monthly on new products. Students who spend more than 2 hours daily on this

social media platform spend more than $50 every month on purchases towards new

fashion products every month. On the other hand, respondents who spend less than 2

hours on Instagram spend less than $50 every month. These findings then supported my

hypothesis that more time spent on Instagram translates in higher spending on new

fashion products.

Gender is another important factor when analyzing one’s spending behavior in

combination with Instagram usage. While women were overrepresented in my sample,

results show that females are more likely to spend more money on purchases of new

products than men. While this finding was statistically supported by conducting

independent sample t-test it is necessary to mention that having more representative

dataset with higher representation of men could make this statement stronger if supported

by a large dataset.
 47

Binary logistic also shows that time spend on Instagram is the most significant

predictor of spending, while Income and Gender does not show statistical significance. At

the same time as we can see in Table 7., all of these three predictors have odds ration

greater than 1.0 meaning that Time on Instagram, Income and Gender all increase the

odds of spending money on new fashion products every month.

While I was not able to statistically support Hypothesis 3 that having more

followers leads to more spending, as Figure 1 indicates, nearly all respondents had

between 0 and 1000 followers with a majority having between 0 and 500 followers. I was

interested in seeing whether there is a statistically significant difference in scores between

these two groups in terms of monthly spending. Independent sample t-test did not

indicate such significance. While the number of followers is not directly related to

spending, respondents are interested in following content from bloggers and social media

influencers who are paid for posting pictures containing brands. Nearly half of all

respondents seek bloggers and social media influencers to follow their account, often

involving posts about cosmetics, fashion, or lifestyle tips. On top of that over half of

respondents were interested in following actors and celebrities who are also paid for

posting carefully selected content. While a substantial number of respondents like to

follow social media influencers, Hypothesis5 concerning following bloggers and social

media influencers was not supported by the data. Interestingly enough we can see that

more than third of students are likely to buy products that they saw on Instagram,

especially when these products got positive feedback from the people they follow.

Previous research shows that social media influencers and celebrities with high

number of followers are being sponsored (paid) for posting specific content to promote
 48

higher purchases of products by spreading awareness. Given the fact that nearly half of

all the respondents in my sample do follow celebrities, bloggers or in many cases both, it

is then logical to expect their involvement in social media marketing. As reviewed

literature suggests, this research supports the fact that Instagram is widely popular as a

source of inspiration and new ideas for their users. In this study, Instagram was ranked

second in terms of using it as a source of inspiration for purchasing new products, right

after getting inspiration from friends and family. Nearly two thirds of respondents

indicated that they use Instagram as a main source of inspiration when looking for ideas

prior to purchasing new fashion products (Figure 1). This finding alone shows why is

Instagram well suited for social media marketing. Aside from the fact this research

proves that respondents use it when looking for ideas on what to buy, users create content

of their own by liking, commenting and posting, which provides feedback to marketers

on what are consumers most interested in. This gives marketers the ability to suit

advertisements based on what people are searching for and used targeted marketing in

order to get consumer’s attention (Fisher, 2015).

Due to their low incomes and college student status, this behavior could be

interpreted as anticipatory socialization (Clayton & Ellis, 1968) into the marketing

schemes on Instagram. Once they graduate and have higher incomes, it seems indicative

that spending on fashion items could increase.

To further support my statement that Instagram and social media in general do

play a role in one’s decision making when purchasing new products, respondents were

asked to describe how they keep up with new fashion trends. About a third of respondents

indicated that they use specifically Instagram to stay in the loop of new fashion lines. If
 49

we look at how many people use some kind of social media platform (such as Facebook,

Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube) we can see that half of respondents who use social media

platforms for following new trends and lines. In combination with following celebrities,

bloggers and social media influencers, but also seeing what their peers wear and where

do they shop is all affecting person’s decision when make a new purchase.

One of the facts to consider when reading this study is whether or not respondents

answered questions about their spending and Instagram usage truthfully. It is not always

easy to recall exactly how much do they spend every month, and some of the responses

might have been just roughly estimated. Questions about money spending and income

levels can be sometimes sensitive and uneasy to respond and this fact might have caused

underestimation of annual income as well as monthly spending. To avoid this problem in

the future research, I will be asking more detailed questions, while at the same time

trying to motivate respondents to really think about the answer rather than providing an

estimate. Collecting qualitative data could be another possible approach when trying to

get more data and understand how Instagram works in relationship to spending.

In summary, because Hypothesis 1 was supported we can say that undergraduate

students who are actively using Instagram as one of their social media platforms spend

more money on fashion products every month in comparison to students without

Instagram account. While Instagram could be directly related to this finding there might

have been other factors affecting this result, which were not addressed by the researcher

(such as the necessity for purchasing the product, products recommended by friends

rather than Instagram users, and others). It is important to keep in mind that majority of

respondents were females between the age of 18-25. Previous research has shown that
 50

women spend more overall on designer products than men (Pentecost & Andrews, 2010)

and therefore this fact might be affecting my supported hypothesis as well.

Sheldon & Bryant (2015) in their research discovered that gaining popularity and

becoming “cool” is one of the main reasons behind using Instagram. Such popularity is

gained through hashtags, likes and comments on Instagram content which then leads to

more followers. While I was not able to prove that coolness is one of the main motives

for using Instagram, results has showed that two thirds of respondents in my sample use

“likes” to express their taste rather than by leaving comments (less than one quarter of

respondents). Another major motive for using Instagram is documentation. Posting

pictures is one of Instagram’s main purposes with intention not only to document but also

to present self in desirable form, accepted by others. As analyzed in this study, posting

pictures is one of the main interactions on this social media platform with nearly three

quarters of respondents posting on average three pictures per month. By posting carefully

staged pictures on Instagram, it easily became reality that individuals started to create an

“online self”. Because of the loose boundaries of self-presentation on social media,

individuals can take on multiple selves throughout the day and online self has become

just one of them. Waskul (2003) suggests that an online self might in some way transform

the real-life selfhood. Because of the freedom of becoming anyone on the internet, one

can feel more comfortable with their online-self rather than the true self and therefore

might attempt to bring a part of this online created self into the reality (Gottschalk, 2010).

Instagram users express who they are by posting pictures about their life, but what is

important to mention is that they are physically absent when interacting on any social
 51

media platform and that is what allows individuals to be whoever they want to be

(Waskul, 2003).

I originally hypothesized that Instagram users are building their self-images

through spending on fashion and brand-name products, which make them more popular

on social media. I found that while posting fashion related content in order to gain more

followers was not popular in my sample, half of respondents enjoy posting “Selfies” the

most. This could mean that respondents are crafting their media self, using other things

besides brands, like showing that they have a lot of friends in real life while doing

exciting things every day.

While respondents do not like to post fashion related content, results show that

Fashion is one of the main areas of interest for respondents when browsing Instagram.

With more than third of respondents interested in viewing fashion related content we can

assume that Instagram can serve well for people who are looking for inspiration to

purchase products but choose not to create their own fashion content, which makes it an

ideal marketing tool. While posting pictures of brands in order to shape online-self was

not one of the main characteristics in present sample, posting mostly selfies and pictures

of friends might be a different way of what is perceived as “cool” among undergraduate

students at CSUF.

As Chayko (2017) explains, one of the strongest drives for participation in social

networking sites is self-expression, she also states that it is easier to be a self than a

friend, which means that posting selfies and self-expression is more fulfilling than

commenting and liking on others. Posting pictures of self and friends presents one as

popular in “real life” therefore possibly leading to more followers with similar interests.
 52

This ties to Goffman’s (1956) theory of impression management when individuals

carefully decide how they want to be perceived in public, by showing only what they

think is appropriate. In this research students choose to be viewed as popular among

friends, therefore they post selfies rather than pictures involving brands. Because posting

on any social media platform does not require physical presence, impression management

becomes easier to control. As a result of impression management, a person can get

positive feedback from her peers which results in creating better self-image and

perception of her life (Cooley, 1983).

Students in this sample also express their taste and views by rather liking photos

of others rather than leaving a comment. At the same time receiving like and comments is

perceived as positive feedback on one’s profile which can promote better perception of

self in real life. In this case social media can serve as the glass into which person looks

and either see positive self-reflection or negative one. In other words, being popular on

Instagram by having a lot of likes and comments helps students feel better about their life

in general.

The desire of being seen as popular comes from Cooley’s (1983) theory of

looking glass self. Positive social media feedback, whether gained through posting

selfies, liking or commenting, can serve as a mirror for individuals that makes them feel

better about their real-life self. Exploring why undergraduate students prefer to post

selfies rather than brand related content is an area that needs further research, focusing on

the perception of “coolness” among targeted group of respondents, could be a new area

of study for future research.

 53

Aside from “coolness”, escapism is another social-psychological motive for using

Instagram among young adults (Lee et al., 2015). As results in this study indicate, two

thirds of undergraduate students claim that it is common for them to get lost when using

Instagram and that they often spend more time using the app than they originally

intended. This is an excellent example of escapism as one of the motives behind

Instagram usage, that shows that students are likely escaping from their daily routine and

often stress, while being able to relax on Instagram avoiding the troubles in their life.

Instagram, as a social media platform is then fairly successful at enticing people to spend

more time on the site than they intended (Chayko, 2017).

This exploratory research served as a descriptive study of main behavioral

patterns on Instagram among undergraduate students at CSUF. In order to conduct this

pilot study, I have used convenience sampling while being aware of its drawbacks when

it comes to representativeness of the sample. To further improve this study, researcher

should use rather probability sampling method of the targeted population, resulting in

more representative sample. With representative sample, researcher will be able to

generalize findings for the overall population. Because this was a pilot study, findings

provided above are only descriptive of this sample and cannot be applied to the whole

CSUF undergraduate population. Supporting three out of my five hypotheses gave me a

better understanding of dynamics among young adults who actively use Instagram. As a

part of this research I have also analyzed other patterns of behavior such as the preference

of liking posts rather than commenting or areas of interest when using Instagram. All of

these above-mentioned findings will help future researchers to construct a new study with

larger sample size in order to better understand spending behavior and its connection to
 54

Instagram use. Another possible approach for future research is keeping a diary of

monthly spending, which makes it easier for respondent to recall on how much they spent

in the past month. In the present research it might have been too difficult for students to

remember their last month spending and therefore they might have just roughly estimated

their spending with low accuracy.

As we can see based on the findings undergraduate students are not financially

independent enough to make significant purchases on new fashion products. Having

Instagram account and spending more time on it was significantly related to spending, as

well as gender. On the other hand, some of the respondents enjoy following bloggers,

celebrities and fashion related content, but most likely because of their financial situation,

they are not able to spend much money on unnecessary items in general, let alone on

purchases of “cool” and trendy items seen on Instagram.

Implications for Future Research

While I was able to support my hypotheses that having an Instagram account,

spending more time on Instagram and gender all play a role in spending behavior among

respondents, a further study will be necessary for better understanding and analysis of

specific aspects of Instagram as a social media platform.

As the present study reveals, students were interested in following bloggers,

celebrities and importantly they use Instagram as a main source of inspiration for

purchasing new products. Because of the smaller sample size and limited resources to

conduct probability sampling I did not have enough evidence to support how following

social media influencers can lead to higher spending.

 55

As a result of my analysis, new research questions emerged for future research,

which I have listed below. This future research would focus on comparing whether or not

there is a difference in spending patterns between undergraduate students and new

graduates who have full-time positions. Both of these groups are considered young adults

and their age group creates the most active Instagram users. Further analysis of how they

use Instagram and how the content seen on this social media platform affects their

spending, will be a part of this research. In order to provide valid results, with the ability

to generalized findings, I am suggesting conducting this research using probability

sampling method with a larger sample size. Respondents should also be asked more in-

depth questions while attempting to motivate respondents to really think about their

answers, rather than quickly estimating the answer.

I would also like to follow up with the students to see whether or not their

spending changes over time with higher income. This could potentially lead to analyzing

whether active use of Instagram now predicts future spending, even when we did not see

much spending in the present. In future studies, I would like to see if the results would be

different among students from private, more expensive, local universities, such as

University of Southern California or Chapman University.

Specifically, I propose the following research questions for future research.

Is there a difference in spending on new products among college students and new

graduates who are full-time employed who are actively using Instagram?

Is interest in following celebrities and bloggers related to likelihood of

higher spending among respondents who are actively using Instagram?

Would longitudinal study of the same students lead to different results

over time, as they transition from being full-time students to paid full-time
employment?
 56

Would students from private universities show different results that

students from state schools?

Is age playing a significant role in spending in relation to Instagram?

Would high school students show different results than undergraduates or
post-graduates?
 57

CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

This study has analyzed how social media and Instagram in particular affect

spending behavior among undergraduate students at California State University, Fullerton

(CSUF).

By using convenience sampling method, I collected data from the total of 157

students enrolled in undergraduate degree at CSUF. I constructed a survey instrument and

entered this into the Qualtrics software. The online survey was sent to Sociology faculty

members, who forwarded this email to their undergraduate students. Being aware that

convenience sampling can lead to a non-representative sample, because of the

exploratory nature of this project, I decided to proceed with this sampling technique

despite its drawbacks.

The results showed that having an active Instagram account resulted in higher

spending every month among college students, in comparison to non-users of Instagram.

At the same time students who are actively using this social media site every day for two

hours and more are more likely to invest money every month on new fashion-related

products than students who spend two hours or less on average on Instagram. Gender also

affects monthly spending of college students, with women being more likely to spend

money on new products every month than men.

 58

My hypothesis that having more followers, results in higher likelihood of monthly

spending was not supported. Also, my hypothesis that following social media influencers

will lead to more spending was not supported.

While analyzing annual income in relation to spending was not the main objective

of this study, because of the lack of statistical evidence to support my hypotheses

mentioned above, I decided to analyze income as the reason for low spending. Results

have shown that income is also not statistically related to spending. Because of the small

sample size and very low response rate in cells with income levels higher than $40,000 I

was unable to prove that income is affecting one’s spending.

Further analysis of income and spending among Instagram users is necessary to

be able to provide generalizable results for a larger population. I am suggesting using

probability sampling method as well as collecting more responses to get a larger sample

size. Implementing these steps could potentially lead to better analysis of how specific

behavior on Instagram (such as having high number of followers, following posts by

social media influencers and using likes or comments to express taste) affects students’

spending behaviors.
 59

APPENDIX

SURVEY

1. TO WHICH GENDER IDENTITY DO YOU MOST IDENTIFY?

o Male (preferred pronoun “he”)
o Female (preferred pronoun “she”)
o Gender variant/Non-conforming/Gender fluid (preferred pronoun “they”)
o Not listed ____________
o Prefer not to answer

2. WHAT IS YOUR AGE?

o ___________

3. WHICH ONE OF THE FOLLOWING BEST DECRIBES YOUR EMPLOYMENT

SITUATION?
o Full-time employed
o Part-time employed
o Running my own business
o Unemployed
o Not listed (please specify) _______________

4. CAN YOU ESTIMATE YOUR APPROXIMATE ANNUAL INCOME WHETHER ITS

SOURCE IS YOUR JOB OR FAMILY FUNDS?
o $0-$10,000
o $11,000-$25,000
o $26,000-$40,000
o $41,000-$55,000
o $56,000-$70,000
o $71,000-$85,000
o $86,000 and over
o N/A

5. DO YOU USE INSTAGRAM AS ONE OF YOURS SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS?

o Yes
o No (If you select this option you don’t need to proceed to answer following questions)

6. APPROXIMATELY HOW MANY TIMES PER DAY DO YOU LOOK ON YOUR

INSTAGRAM FEED?
o I don’t look every day
o Once per day
o 2-3 times per day
o I check almost every time I am on my phone

7. ON A SCALE FROM 1 TO 5 (1 NOT AT ALL LIKE ME, 5 EXTREMELY LIKE ME)

HOW MUCH DO THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS DESCRIBE YOU:
 60

1 2 3 4 5
(NOT (OCCASIONALLY (NEUTRAL) (SOUNDS (EXTREMELY
AT LIKE ME) A LOT LIKE ME)
ALL LIKE ME)
LIKE
ME)
I enjoy
being on
Instagram, it
is fun to
follow my
friends and
find new
trends, it is o o o o o
not
uncommon
for me to
get lost
when using
the app and
I spend
there quite
some time
Sometimes I
don’t intend
to spend
much time
on
Instagram
but
somehow, I
spend there o o o o o
more time
than I
originally
expected, its
just so much
new
information
every time I
look
I am usually
looking for
specific
information o o o o o
on
Instagram
and it rarely
takes me
more than
15 minutes
to find it
I organize
my time
well and I
 61

never spend
more time
on
Instagram o o o o o
than I intend
at the
beginning, I
am busy and
can’t afford
spending
there more
time

8. CAN YOU ESTIMATE HOW MANY FOLLOWERS DO YOU HAVE? ______

9. CAN YOU ESTIMATE HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE YOU FOLLOWING? _____

10. ON A SCALE FROM 1 TO 5 (1 BEING NOT AT ALL LIKE ME, 5 BEING EXTREMELY
LIKE ME) HOW MUCH DOES THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS DESCRIBE YOU:

1 2 3 4 5
(NOT (OCCASIONALY (NEUTRAL) (SOUNDS (EXTREMELY
AT ALL LIKE ME) A LOT LIKE ME)
LIKE LKE ME)
ME)
It is
important
for me to
have more
followers o o o o o
than the
amount of
people I
follow
I enjoy
following
posts from o o o o o
my friends
and family
I enjoy
following
posts from
celebrities
(such as o o o o o
actors,
models,
singer, etc.)
I enjoy
following
posts by
bloggers o o o o o
and social
media
influencers?
 62

I enjoy
following
people who
I have never o o o o o
met in
person but
we share
similar
interests

11. PLEASE MARK THE TOP THREE AREAS OF YOUR INTEREST WHEN USING
INSTAGRAM
o Traveling
o Fashion
o Life inspiration
o Lifestyle
o Food
o Fitness
o Other (please specify) ___________________________

12. PLEASE NAME TOP THREE SOURCES OF INSPIRATION FOR YOU WHEN
PURCHASING NEW PRODUCST
o ______________________________________________________
13. APPROXIMATELY HOW OFTEN PER MONTH DO YOU PURCHASE NEW THINGS
LIKE CLOTHES, JEWELRY, SHOES OR ACCESSORIES (including online purchases)?
o Less than once per month
o About once per month
o Two to five times per month
o About once a week or more
o N/A

14. PLEASE NAME SOME OF THE BRANDS YOU PREFFER WHEN PURCHASING NEW
CLOTHES
___________________________________________________________________

15. PLEASE NAME SOME OF THE BRANDS YOU PREFFER WHEN PURCHASING NEW
COSMETICS
____________________________________________________________________

16. PLEASE NAME SOME BRANDS YOU PREFFER WHEN PURCHASING NEW
JEWELRY
_____________________________________________________________________

17. CAN YOU NAME SOME BRANDS YOU ARE THE MOST INTERESTED BUYING
COSMETICS FROM?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
 63

__________________________________________________
18. CAN YOU ESTIMATE HOW MUCH DO YOU MONTHLY SPEND ON CLOTHES,
ACCESSORIES, SHOES, JEWELRY AND COSMETICS?
o Less than $50
o $50-$100
o $100-$200
o $200-$300
o More than $300
o N/A

19. PLEASE EXPRESS ON A SCALE FROM 1 TO 10 (1 being not at all like me and 10 being
extremely like me) HOW LIKELY ARE YOU TO BUY A NEW PRODUCT WHICH HAS
SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF POSITIVE FEEDBACK FROM BLOGGERS AND SOCIAL
MEDIA INFLUENCERS EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF IT BEFORE?
_______________

20. WHERE DO YOU PURCHASE MAJORITY OF YOUR CLOTHES AND COSMETICS?

o In store
o Online
o N/A

21. WHICH ONE OF THE FOLLOWING BEST DESCRIBES THE WAY IN WHICH YOU
INTERACT ON INSTAGRAM?
o Liking posts
o Commenting on posts
o Using direct message with friends
o None of the above
o N/A

22. WHICH ONE OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS ABOUT POSTING A NEW

PICTURE ON INSTAGRAM BEST DESCRIBES YOU?
o I just follow my friends, I don’t really post pictures
o Usually three times per month or less
o I am trying to keep my profile fun for my friends and people who follow me so I try to
post on average 1-2 times per week
o There is so many new things every day that I want to share pictures with my followers
every day!

23. WHEN POSTING A NEW PICTURE ON YOUR INSTAGRAM PROFILE, WHICH ONE
OF THE FOLLOWING IS THE MOST TYPICAL CONTENT OF YOUR POSTS?
o I like to post about healthy lifestyle, such as my workouts, healthy food etc.
o I like to post about new fashion trends and my posts often include some inspiration on
what to wear.
o I love to post pictures of food!
o Traveling is what my Instagram is focused on
o I just post random pictures of what I do or what I find interesting, my Instagram is not
focused on one theme.
o When I think about it, I think majority of my posts are selfies, either selfies of myself or
with friends and family, it’s just so easy to take them!
o Other ____________________________________________

24. ON A SCALE FROM 1 TO 5 (1 HIGHLY DISGAREE, 5 HIGHLY AGREE) HOW MUCH

DO YOU AGREE WITH THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS:
 64

1 2 3 4 5
(STRONGLY (DISAGREE) (NEITHER (AGREE) (STRONGLY
DISAGREE) DISAGREE AGREE)
OR AGREE)
When I buy
something
new, I am
excited to
share it with o o o o o
my
followers on
Instagram to
get some
feedback
People that
follow me,
give me
more
“likes”
when my o o o o o
posts
include
some
known and
popular
brand
product
My friends
and people
that I am
interested in
following,
often post
pictures of o o o o o
some
popular
brands
Sometimes I
like to buy
products I
saw on o o o o o
Instagram
that seemed
popular
I like to post
pictures
about brand
products
that I have
recently
bought to o o o o o
express my
taste and
give my
followers
reviews on
 65

certain
products
 66

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