There has been a clout of Social Media Influencers (SMIs) in influencing public perception about organizations lately. From fashion fitness to home décor, these new breeds of celebrities that can either make or break a brand. Organizations are realizing the importance of SMIs to their products and services where they provide a link between organizations and their consumers through brand promotion and enhancement. The reputation a brand gains from its social media influencers through two-way conversations helps build direct relationships with its key consumers and encourages brand loyalty for future sustainability. Thus, social media tools are becoming more valuable and have become a communication strategy for organizations and consumers alike. SMIs are seen as mediator and a valuable source when it comes to product and service reviews as well as recommendation. Social media platforms such as Instagram are popular with SMIs and for the purpose of brand promotion. SMIs are brand story tellers and ambassadors that organizations need to incorporate in their brands conversations. SMIs are found to enhance not only brand reputation but also corporate reputation. This study explores the influence that SMIs have towards brands from the perspective of youth. This study uses the quantitative approach and adopts an online questionnaire strategy which targets youth and young adult from the age of 19-30 years of age in the capital of Malaysia. 120 questionnaires were analysed via the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) to examine the role SMIs play in brand promotion and endorsement, and the perception of consumers about them and the role they play. The key results reveals that social media influencer creates trustworthiness, delivers information as well as generates influence in terms of brand reputation. This has led to an increase of sales towards the brand. However, some respondents suggested that their trust on SMI and the brand is reduced with the realisation that the SMI received financial and sponsorhips benefits.. The respondents felt that the paid endorsement is skewed towards advertisement rather than a truthful review. Hence, a sense of genuineness and truthfulness were missing and does not really exist when it comes to social media Influencers’ process of endorsing. Other findings also described the new products and services that SMIs would select to endorse. The practice of using social media influencer effects in the long run is not yet to be determine but from the findings, we can conclude that the use of social media influencer will increase. Future research can explore the implication of this effects to the brand and consumer perception.
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