Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-6-2022
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Economics
First Advisor
Joshua Hendrickson
Second Advisor
David Fragoso Gonzalez
Third Advisor
Ron Mau
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
The 2019 coronavirus pandemic, also referred to as the COVID-19 pandemic, altered day-to-day life and has effected the economy quite notably. The aim of this paper is to determine to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic altered consumer behavior and whether these alterations encouraged participation in the influencer economy, which represents social media influencers who create and monetize online content. In order to do so, I administered a survey to 250 respondents to evaluate the reach of influencers during the pandemic and whether social media users felt the presence of influencers was an effective marketing technique. I also conducted an analysis of the returns of companies that used influencer marketing during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to evaluate this marketing method’s effect on performance. The survey results support the hypothesis that consumers shifted their behavior to be more digital and that they find influencers to be an effective form of marketing. However, the company return analysis did not find any significant evidence relating to whether or not influencer marketing positively affected company returns.
Recommended Citation
Richbourg, Emma Grace, "The Coronavirus Pandemic and Participation in the Influencer Economy" (2022). Honors Theses. 2551.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2551
Accessibility Status
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.