How Important is Paid Disclosure by Social Media Influencers?

Zayed University students researched the hot topic of social media influencers and paid content disclosure, conducting interviews and Focus groups with 50 Gulf Arab females aged 18-24 (‘Gen Z’) over a six-month period. It emerged from the focus groups that the participants were highly aware that many influencers promote content/brands they are paid for and the majority of respondents indicated that it is not important for an influencer to be ‘trustworthy’. This has important ramifications for market research and academic studies, who within advertising and social media have placed emphasis on trust as an overt category. A focus on storytelling and imaginative content to build the influencer-follower-trust synergy is central and more important than a focus on any particular platform. But influencers do need to be transparent. Paid content disclosure became an obligation in the UAE in early 2018 with disclosure of sponsored content having to include a tag of “Paid partnership with” to “more clearly communicate when a commercial relationship exists between a creator and a business.”

Social Media Influencer and Trust research