Ethics and influencers in Russia : what do users expect from bloggers’ advertising on Instagram?

Abstract

Influencer marketing in Instagram has become a powerful form of social media marketing in recent years in Russia. This allows companies and brands to promote their products to the loyal audiences of the influencers and, therefore, efficiently develop their image. However, popularity and usage of influencer marketing bring an issue of false and misleading advertising published by influencers on their pages in order to attain financial or other benefits. The problem of false advertising is a serious issue which causes different negative consequences, influencing lives and health of the followers, and the whole social media market as well.

Therefore, this work analyses the current situation on the influencer marketing in Russia from the sustainability perspective and determines a set of recommendations on improvement of online marketing from users’ point of view.