Trust in Influencer Marketing: Factors Influencing Followers' Perceptions in the Baltic Countries

2.1 Influencers’ Expertise and Image

Expertise is described as the degree a person is regarded to have the necessary knowledge and experience on a specific product or service (Van der Waldt et al., 2011). Followers tend to value the influencer's recommendations more if the influencer has any expertise and experience in that specific topic (De Veirman et al., 2017). Moreover, when an influencer's image fits with the promoted products, the credibility and attitude toward further possible intentions improve. The more the product is congruent with the influencer's style, the more positive effects it might bring (Belanche et al., 2021). However, influencers are frequently persuaded to make advertisements that do not correspond to the represented image for a higher payment, resulting in negative short and long-term consequences. Followers can judge such publications for the absence of coherence between the product advertised and the influencer's typical content (Kim and Kim, 2021). Therefore, influencers should think wisely before doing such collaborations and incorporating them into the personal narrative (Casaló et al., 2020). There is a good example of this case when influencer Chriselle Lim, that usually covers beauty and fashion topics, posted a component of a new Volvo car consequentially, both the brand and the influencer received negative feedback and poor advertisement results. On the contrary, when Danielle Bernstein who is associated with a healthy lifestyle posted a workout video with Fiji water – the advertisement brought very positive reactions and success to both sides (Hesterberg, 2019).