There’s a new study that shows that FOMO or the fear of missing out is indeed real for young shoppers, especially when it comes to the influencers they follow for their fashion needs.
- The study, ‘Fear of missing out, social media influencers, and the social, psychological and financial wellbeing of young consumers,’ published recently in the journal Plos One, said that young shoppers feel a strong connection to a social media influencer who may help them decide what to buy can be related to their feelings of well-being.
- FOMO has a negative role to play on young consumers as they look to keep up with what's fashionable — the fear is of missing out on the latest fashion trends.
- This kind of FOMO is a real thing, and it is linked to people's well-being. And a key reason for the success of social media influencer marketing is that followers feel they connect to the influencer like a friend.
- Although the findings show why consumers are attracted to social media influencers, it is still not clear that the impact is all positive. Influencers can provide a sense of connection that benefits consumers in terms of their feelings of well-being, but there are still concerns about overconsumption and what this might do to people in the long run. There's still more to learn about what this is doing to people.
Cäzilia Loibl is co-author of the study and professor and chair of consumer sciences at Ohio State; it has been co-authored by Jung Eun Lee, an associate professor of consumer and design sciences at Auburn University.
- The researchers expected that people with higher levels of FOMO would feel less well-being in all three areas, judging from findings in other studies, which is exactly what they found.
- If young shoppers feel that they are missing out on events or trends that their friends are involved in, it is not surprising that their well-being will be hurt.
- A reason why social media influencers are so popular could be because the youngsters feel connected to this influencer and so they feel that the products they buy based on the recommendations of the influencer may make their life better. And that is linked to well-being.
- However, there was one surprise for the researchers. They hypothesised that those with stronger attachments to influencers would have a more negative sense of financial well-being. The thought was that people would buy more things on the advice of the influencer—possibly things they didn't need or couldn't afford—and that could be linked to higher levels of financial regret.
- But that's not what they found. Even financial well-being was higher for those with stronger attachments to social media influencers.
- The researchers emphasised that they didn't have objective financial data on participants, and the financial well-being measure was based just on their self-reports, and it is something being explored in another study.
INFLUENCER WHO? An influencer is someone who has become famous through social media and not through traditional celebrity means, like being a movie star or professional athlete. These influencers often have partnerships with companies to endorse their products or services.
- This new form of marketing has grown quickly, and the number of firms using influence marketing almost doubled from 4,000 in 2019 to 7,300 in 2021, with Instagram being the preferred channel, according to the Influencer Marketing Hub.
- Because of the stunning growth of influencer marketing, the researchers wanted to see how it is connected to consumer behaviour in terms of FOMO and well-being.
The study involved a sample of 863 US adults between 18 and 40 years old who participated online. All of them used social media and said they followed a social media influencer.
- Participants completed measures of how much FOMO they experienced and how attached they felt to the influencers they followed.
- In addition, they rated their experiences of shopping on social media, such as how often they bought items recommended by influencers.
- Finally, they rated their social, psychological and financial well-being.
