Copenhagen Business School 2015 Why do beauty bloggers

Transcription

Copenhagen Business School 2015
MSc in Social Sciences – Organizational Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Master’s thesis
Why do beauty bloggers recommend and influence?
An exploration of motivational drivers of beauty bloggers to act as
influencers and recommenders online
Name:
Kalle Roman Lukas Kroll
Supervisor:
Michel Avital
Institute:
Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy
Nominal number of pages:
72
Total number of characters: 163.963
Date of submission:
27.03.2015
Signature:_______________________________
Master’s Thesis – Kalle Kroll - Why do beauty bloggers recommend and influence?
DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP ..................................................................................... 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................... 3
FIGURES AND TABLES ....................................................................................................... 7
Figures .................................................................................................................................. 7
Tables ................................................................................................................................... 7
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. 8
1.
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 9
2.
THEORY ..................................................................................................................... 14
2.1.
Field description........................................................................................................... 14
2.1.1.
History .................................................................................................................. 14
2.1.1.1. User- generated content, and Social Media, and Web 2.0................................... 14
2.1.2.
Blogs ..................................................................................................................... 15
2.1.2.1. Definition........................................................................................................ 15
2.1.2.2. Development of the role of the blogs ............................................................. 16
2.1.2.3. Trend of blogs as an important source of information ................................... 17
2.1.2.4. Beauty blogs ................................................................................................... 18
2.1.2.5. The phenomenon of “recent empties” ............................................................ 19
2.1.2.6. Meme .............................................................................................................. 19
2.1.2.7. Consumer Tribes ............................................................................................ 20
2.1.3.
Recommender function of beauty blogs ............................................................... 21
3
2.1.4.
Influencer marketing............................................................................................. 23
2.1.4.1. Word of mouth marketing .............................................................................. 23
2.1.4.2. Influentials/ influencer.................................................................................... 23
2.1.5.
Interplay of bloggers readers and companies ....................................................... 25
2.1.5.1. Adverse effects ............................................................................................... 26
2.2.
Motivation .................................................................................................................... 27
2.2.1.
Need based motivation theory .............................................................................. 27
2.2.2.
Social exchange theory............................................................................................. 29
2.2.3.
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation............................................................................. 30
2.3.
Dimensions of Motivation/ Motive Categories............................................................ 31
2.3.1. Intrinsic motive categories ................................................................................ 32
2.3.2. Internalized extrinsic motive categories ............................................................ 33
2.3.3. Extrinsic motive categories ............................................................................... 34
2.3.4. Framework for motive categories of bloggers................................................... 35
3. METHOD ........................................................................................................................... 39
3.1. Ontological and Epistemological Assumptions .......................................................... 39
3.2. General Methodological Theory ................................................................................. 39
3.3. Research Design .......................................................................................................... 41
3.4. Photo diary Interview Method..................................................................................... 42
3.5. Data collection............................................................................................................. 45
3.6. Conducting the Interviews .......................................................................................... 46
4
3.7. Formulation of Interview Questions ........................................................................... 48
3.8. Subject selection.......................................................................................................... 50
3.9. Method of Analysis ..................................................................................................... 51
4.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS ............................................................................................. 54
4.1.
Introducing the interviewed bloggers....................................................................... 55
4.2.
Intrinsic Motivation .................................................................................................. 56
4.2.1. Intrinsic Playful Task ........................................................................................ 56
4.2.2 Curiosity ............................................................................................................. 60
4.3. Internalized extrinsic motivation..................................................................................... 62
4.3.1. Altruism.................................................................................................................... 63
4.3.2. Make Friends ............................................................................................................ 64
4.3.3. Accomplishment....................................................................................................... 65
4.3.4. Skill Development.................................................................................................... 66
4.3.5. Recognition, Visibility ............................................................................................. 68
4.4. Extrinsic Motivation........................................................................................................ 72
4.4.1. Compensation........................................................................................................... 72
5. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................. 75
5.1. Insights and Implications for Research and Practice .................................................. 75
5.2. Outlook ........................................................................................................................ 78
5.3. Limitations .................................................................................................................. 78
6. REFERENCES................................................................................................................... 80
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7. APPENDIX ........................................................................................................................ 88
Attachment 1 - Interview Guide – Photo diary interview method ..................................... 88
Generelle Motivation...................................................................................................... 88
Fragen zum Phänomen „aufgebraucht“.......................................................................... 88
Beziehungen zu Lesern .......................................................................................................... 89
Beziehung zu Firmen ............................................................................................................. 89
Attachment 2 – Photo 1 ...................................................................................................... 90
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FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
Figure 1 – Social Exchange Theory Model of Bloggers’ stakeholders …………………… 29
Figure 2 – Social Exchange Theory Model of stakeholders adapted for thesis study …… 29
Figure 3 – Bloggers as recommender and influencer in social exchanges ………………... 34
Tables
Table 1 – Motive Categories for bloggers to engage in a role of a recommender…………. 36
Table 2 – Motive Categories for bloggers to engage in a role of an influencer…………..
37
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ABSTRACT
The realm of beauty blogging is growing fast and gaining more and more importance as a
source for consumers to inform themselves about beauty and personal care products. At the same
time companies and brands implement more and more influencer marketing measures in order to
capitalize on the blogger-consumer dynamic in this specific field. The reasons for why predomina ntly
young women spend a considerable amount of time and other resources to act as the intermed iar y
centerpiece in this interplay, remains unclear from extant literature.
In order to investigate the largely unexplored motives of the individuals primarily creating
relevant online content and thus contributing to this emerging phenomenon, this master thesis study
offers a conceptual framework, which was construed based on social exchange theory and need based
motivation theory as well as a literature review on related studies. Thereby the categorization and
analysis of beauty bloggers motives is enabled. Further, the framework was validated qualitative ly,
using the semi-structured photo-diary interview method.
The inductive nature of the study yielded two primary contributions to knowledge. First, the
conceptual framework was found to match the life word of beauty bloggers accurately on a qualitative
level and therefore offers a substantiated foundation for further research, including quantitative
studies. Second, the qualitative study of bloggers motivations provides insight into the relevant
motivations specific to beauty bloggers. From this, it was possible to deduce useful implications for
improving cooperation and partnerships and thus influencer marketing efforts.
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1. INTRODUCTION
The thesis study investigates an internet phenomenon nested within the field of social media
and user-generated content. It exists in the domain of blogs, more specifically beauty blogging, which
are essentially websites for people to self-publish text, pictures and video concerning their thoughts,
experiences and ideas on beauty and personal care products 1 .
Here we can observe an interesting interplay of relationships between bloggers as the
producers of user-generated-content, readers as the consumer of such content and companies or
brands, that may seek to disseminate particular information for marketing purposes (in some cases
even utilize bloggers for information gathering, or open-innovation purposes). Whereas for
consumers, bloggers are a resource for recommendations, and for companies or brands bloggers have
the role of influencers. This interplay is between reader, bloggers and companies is especially well
exemplified by a phenomenon, which for the purpose of this study is titled “recent empties”2 . In this
phenomenon
the beauty bloggers review products that they recently
used up and give
recommendations to their audience on whether or not to purchase it. Companies try to affect these
reviews by sending out free samples to the bloggers, and thus utilize the bloggers influence on their
audience.
Blogs are by no means a new apparition. They have been an integral element of the internet
itself from as early as 1979, when Usenet was created (Bonnett, 2010). However, the medium blog
1 Examples
for typical german speaking beauty blogs :
http://marys-obsession.blogspot.de/
http://honeylenchen.de/
http://muenchnerliiiebe.blogspot.de/
2
Recent empties is the translation of the German expression “aufgebraucht“, which literally means used up
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as we know it today, recently celebrated its 20 th anniversary. On October the 7th 1994 the software
developer Dave Winer published the first blog post (Naughton, 2014). Since then, the medium has
been rapidly growing, while its core functionality remains intact. Blogs or weblogs are a specific type
of social media, where user-generated content is published on the internet. They are in essence online
diaries, where authors publish discrete entries or posts, which are typically displayed in reverse
chronological order (Chesney & Su, 2010). Concurring with the status quo ubiquity of social media
in today’s lives (Eimeren, 2013) blogs as a medium are as prevalent as never before (Nielsen, 2012a).
This trend holds also true for beauty and cosmetics related blogging activities.
A contributing factor to this trend might be the large potential audience for such content. A
recent study shows that almost three in four German internet users (72,2%, 37,15 million) are
interested in perfume and cosmetic products and four out of ten (43,5%, 22,35 million) use the internet
to inform themselves about perfume and cosmetic products (AGOF, 2013). In this constellatio n
beauty bloggers, who share their expertise for example in form of reviews of beauty products take on
the role of a recommender for the reader. In fact, a study found, that this is one of the main reasons
why readers visit beauty blogs (Collins & Smirnov, 2010). Another survey confirmed this sentiment,
stating that 31% of internet users find blogs to be the medium most likely to influence a purchase
decision (Technorati Media, 2014). Similarly, more purchase decisions have been made based on a
recommendation from a blog more than any other form of social media (BlogHer, 2012).
Producers of beauty products more and more use the internet to advertise for their products.
In 2012 the cosmetics industry spent almost €112.000.000 on internet advertisement in Germany
alone, which accounts for more than 7% of total advertisement expenditures (AGOF, 2013).
Correspondingly, the practice of influence marketing, which actually dates back to a publication in
1957 (Brooks), has been gaining a lot of exposure and popularity in recent years (Keller & Berry,
2003). The premise of influence marketing is to leverage already existing interpersonal networks of
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consumers to gain a marketing benefit. The underlying assumption here is that by utilizing the vast
interpersonal networks of so called influentials or influencers, one is able to achieve an almost
limitless leverage for a marketing message (Bakshy, Hofman, Mason, & Watts, 2011). More recently
marketing campaigns have been launched targeting bloggers in their role as influencers. For example
Unilever, one of the largest players in the industry, sent out special test packages of their new line of
“compressed” deodorants specifically to bloggers, who then reviewed them3,4,5 .
The utility for readers and for companies to take part in this interplay are assumed to be selfevident, namely gaining information and gaining influence. However, the reasons for predomina ntly
young women to sacrifice large amounts of time, effort, and money for an activity that has gained
importance in terms of how brands communicate with consumers and how consumers infor m
themselves about beauty products remains unclear. Accordingly the study attempts to explain why
bloggers get involved and maintain such relationships.
From this, we derive the research question: What are the relevant motivational dimensions for
beauty bloggers to get involved and maintain relationships with readers in the role of recommenders
and companies in the role of influencers?
As such a Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey in 2006 found that most blogs are
written as a sort of online diary to document personal experiences and share them with others, or an
avenue for the authors to express themselves creatively. Conversely, only 7% named “To make
money” as a major reason from their blogging activity and 8% named it a minor reason, with 85%
3
http://tes tbi ene.de/2014/03/mei n-deo-i s t-ges chrumpft-di e-neuen-compres s ed-deos pra ys -von-uni l ever/
4
http://www.yuyus -moments .de/2014/04/tes tpa ket-von-compres s ed.html
5
http://mei n-tes tbl og.bl og.de/2014/03/28/dus ch-compres s ed-deos pra y-produkttes t-18043009/
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evaluating it as “Not a reason” (Lenhart & Fox, 2006). This survey leaves us with little informatio n
on the actual motivations at play, as it only rules out money as a primary incentive for the large
majority of bloggers leaving most other aspects unaccounted for. This objection opens up a need for
designing a method to more adequately exploring the motivations of bloggers.
A theoretical starting point for the motivational dimension of bloggers, to generate usergenerated content in the mentioned purposes of recommendation and influence can be found
borrowing from need based motivation theory (Redmond, 2009; Nevid, 2013; Pritchard & Ashwood,
2008) and social exchange theory (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). A similar effort examined
motivation theory in the context of participation in co-creation activities and successfully developed
a framework for categorizing and explaining motivational dimensions of user-generated content
(Füller, 2010).
In this study, therefore, as a first step, a specialized framework for categorizing the bloggers
motives is developed based on a literature review. This framework is then validated by means of
qualitative interviews. This qualitative validation is of great importance in order to obtain an accurate
impression of whether or not it actually applies to the life world of beauty bloggers. The qualitative
analysis used in this is the photo diary interview method, which has been shown to generate “better”
data than other semi-structured interview methods. Further, this method enables the discovery of
unforeseeable motives, which bloggers may follow. In effect, the expected result of this study is an
exhaustive, robust framework, which is applicable to the life world of beauty bloggers as well as
qualitative insights.
The thesis provides a deeper understanding of the phenomenon at hand and of bloggers’
motivations. The results may offer insights, useful for several contexts. Implications for practice
include a sort of canvas for more successful interaction and co-operation between companies and
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brands with bloggers could be derived from the results. For market researchers it offers a substantia ted
basis for further research such as big data analyses and co-creation efforts. For bloggers it may prove
insightful to peek over someone else’s shoulder and understand what motivates their peers. Further,
as a contribution to knowledge in general, a framework for categorizing bloggers’ motivations was
construed upon existing research and validated by means of qualitative analysis. Hereby the study
gives insights into an emergent phenomenon of potentially great economic impact. Further, the
framework will prove of use as basis for further research which weighs the motive categories against
each other quantitatively and explores single motive categories in greater detail.
The thesis is structured as follows. The following chapter 2 contains the theoretical umbrella
including a chronologic account of the development of the internet and social media and specifica lly
blogs and further a derivation of the framework mentioned above employing social exchange theory
and need based motivation theory. The justification and description of the interview methodology is
found in chapter 3, followed by analysis and discussion of the results are in chapter 4. The conclus io n
in chapter 5 offers a summary of the thesis and its results, followed by the studies limitations and an
outlook further detailing the implications to practice and contribution to knowledge.
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2. THEORY
2.1. Field description
2.1.1. History
Historically, blogs are an integral element of social media and the internet itself. As early as
1979 the worldwide discussion platform Usenet was created to allow for Internet users to post public
messages (Bonnett, 2010). The beginning of social media is in all likelihood marked by the release
of the social networking website “Open Diary” in 1998, which offered a platform for publishing diary
entries publicly and anonymously and connected writers. The term weblog originated approximate ly
at the same time, as did its abbreviation blog. (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). The first blogpost, as we
know them today, was published in 1994 by the computer programmer Dave Winer on his Blog
Davenet (Naughton, 2014).
Going along with increased availability and access to high speed internet connection for
private users, collaborative projects like Wikipedia (founded 2001) and social networking sites like
MySpace (founded 2003), Wordpress (founded 2003), Facebook (founded 2004), Twitter (founded
2006) emerged. Examples for other social media platforms, which are enabled by ever faster
broadband and mobile internet connections and which are focusing on image and video sharing, are
YouTube (founded 2005), Instagram (founded in 2010) and Pinterest (founded 2010).
2.1.1.1. User-generated content, and Social Media, and Web 2.0
The concepts of user-generated content, social media, and Web 2.0 are often used as
interchangeable synonyms, however in order to further discuss them, it is important to clearly delimit
them in context to each other.
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For the purpose of this study we look to the OECDs definition of user-generated content,
which states that it is firstly content made publicly available over the Internet, which secondly reflects
a certain amount of creative effort, and third, which is created outside of professional routines and
practices (Vickery & Wunsch-Vincent, 2007). In other words, user-generated content excludes
privately exchanged content, such as private messages on networking platforms, emails or online
chats. Further excluded are copied material without any sort of modification or alteration by end
users. Lastly, content, which has been created for commercial purpose is excluded, since the
commercial purpose would shift the creator from a mere private user to a professional actor (Vickery
& Wunsch-Vincent, 2007). In short, user-generated content are “forms of media content that are
publicly available and created by end-users” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, pg. 61).
Social media is then defined as media, which allows for the publication, dissemination, and
discussion of user-generated content online. Forms of social media can be classified by levels of
social presence, media richness, self-presentation, and self-disclosure (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
Web 2.0 is the technological foundation, which enables user-generated content and thus social
media. In contrast earlier technology, labeled Web 1.0 aimed at creating and publishing by
individuals, whereas Web 2.0 seeks to enable continuous modification and collaboration by multip le
users. In other words, Web 2.0 technology makes social media possible, which is used to publish,
disseminate, discuss and alter user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
2.1.2. Blogs
2.1.2.1. Definition
All of the three mentioned concepts are of fundamental importance for blogs. Blogs are a
specific type of social media, where user-generated content is published using Web 2.0 technology.
They are in essence an online diary; thus, a blog can for example be used to document the writers’
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life or a topic that the author has an interest in. From a technological or usability standpoint they
differ from private personal websites in that a blogs’ architecture is designed to be updated more
frequently, sometimes daily (Chesney & Su, 2010). A blog can accordingly be defined as “a webpage
usually displaying date-stamped entries in reverse chronological order” (Vickery & Wunsch-Vince nt,
2007, p. 36).
2.1.2.2. Development of the role of the blogs
In general, internet usage is continuously on the rise. In Europe, young people from ages 16
to 24 spend an average of 19.2 hours per week online and the general European population 14.8 hours
per week (IAB Europe, 2013). Concurring with this is the development of internet usage in Germany
which rose from 133 minutes per day in 2012 to 169 minutes per day in 2013 (Eimeren, 2013). The
overall amount of German internet users is 55.6 million, of which approximately 17% or 9.5 millio n
use blogs at least occasionally and 5% or 2.8 million use them at least every week (Eimeren & Frees,
2013). Concurring with the status quo ubiquity of social media in today’s lives (Eimeren, 2013), blogs
are as prevalent as never before (Nielsen, 2012a). A good indicator for this is that in the USA in 2012,
two of the most visited social media sites were the blog hosting sites blogger with nearly 60 millio n
unique visitors, and Wordpress, with just over 30 million unique visitors. That is a combined 90
million unique visitors, which compare to Facebook as the most popular social media site with 150
million unique visitors for 2012 (Nielsen, 2012b).
Although, as previously mentioned, the social medium of a blog goes back as far as the
beginning of the internet, enabled by the introduction and adoption of Web 2.0 technology, the use
of blogs exploded. To put this into perspective the largest blog hosting website Blogger, was founded
in 1999, and by February 2000 had about 2300 registered users, which rose to over 100,000 a year
later and the spiked to over a million in 2004 (Rosenberg, 2009).
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The entirety of blogs is called blogosphere. It is defined as the collection of all blogs on the
web, and their respective archived (user-generated) content, which is produced by hundreds of
millions of bloggers worldwide, who can write about virtually anything (Santos, Macdonald,
McCreadie, Ounis, & Soboroff, 2012). A Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey found that
most blogs are written to a sort of online diary to document personal experiences and share them with
others, or an avenue for the authors to express themselves creatively. Conversely, only 7% named
“To make money” as a major reason from their blogging activity and 8% named it a minor reason,
with 85% evaluating it as “Not a reason” (Lenhart & Fox, 2006).
2.1.2.3. Trend of blogs as an important source of information
Blogs started out as a medium to publish online diaries, and this function still holds true for a
large population of blogs today. However, the spectrum of their role in the media landscape
broadened. Some blogs developed into being journalistic ventures in their own right, covering e.g.
political topics of high complexity to enormous audiences. Blogs thereby created a new niche, which
grew to be a sizeable alternative to other news and information sources. For information related to
politics, popular examples are Politico.com or Huffingtonpost.com. For a large audience these news
blogs have become the principal source of information (Rosenberg, 2009).
Similarly, in the case of consumer technology, tech blogs have become one of the most
important sources of information and likely the most important source for product recommendatio ns
regarding consumer technology products. In some cases blogs have thus replaced other sources for
recommendations (Smith, Menon, & Sivakumar, 2005).
Moreover, a recent study on the impact of user-generated media on music sales concluded that
future sales of to be released music albums is positively correlated with the volume of blog posts
about that album (Dhar & Chang, 2009). Although the prediction of future sales of books in general
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is difficult based on blog mentions alone, it is possible to successfully predict spikes in sales rank
from the volume of blog mentions of a book (Gruhl, Guha, Kumar, Novak, & Tomkins, 2005).
2.1.2.4. Beauty blogs
The topic landscape of blogs comprises all fields of human interests, hobbies and causes.
Focusing on the topic of beauty and cosmetics, “beauty blogging” refers to the authorship of a
personal blog, in which an individual primarily presents activities, thoughts or personal beliefs
pertaining cosmetics, beauty and personal care products. The content of beauty blogs’ posts include
discussions and reviews of beauty and cosmetics products, reports of shopping experience, shopping
advice and make-up and personal care tutorials. However, most blog will also feature non related
entries about e.g. personal experiences, travel, books, music etc. As Lenhart and Fox note, “most
bloggers do not confine themselves to one topic” (2006, p.9). The delimitating factor remains, that
the principal amount of entries deals with the topic of beauty and cosmetic products.
A common occurrence is the promotion of blogposts via multiple social media channels and
networking platforms. As such pictures may be uploaded on the picture sharing platform Instagram,
as well as to the blogs, further dedicated accounts on the social networking platforms Twitter and
Facebook are used to inform “followers” about new content (Smith, Fischer, & Yongjian, 2012). In
doing this, beauty blogs can amass very large followings. For the most popular ones, it is not
uncommon to accumulate an audience of over one hundred thousand readers. Very popular examples
are www.viviannadoesmakeup.com with 99,000 followers, www.essiebutton.com with over 125,000
followers, www.zoella.co.uk with over 1,500,000 followers on their Instagram feeds alone (Cooke,
2014). Their Instagram feeds are, in the case of these examples, used to promote blog posts and thus
reach the target audience, each of the examples also cultivate Facebook and twitter accounts.
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2.1.2.5.
The phenomenon of “recent empties”
Within the field of beauty blogging a certain phenomenon of considerable interest can be observed.
For the purpose of this study this phenomenon is labeled “recent empties” or “aufgebraucht” in
German.
The “recent empties” post is a reoccurring format found on beauty blogging websites, within
which all of the products the author has used up in the previous month, are discussed and evaluated
accompanied by pictures. A typical post is structured as follows: firstly in the headline, the author
includes the identifying keyword “recent empties”. Further, the post is divided into several sections.
One section deals with one specific product, which is identified very precisely. Then, the products
are evaluated individually regarding product attributes, such as satisfaction with function, smell,
haptic, usability, price, design, etc. Each section concludes in an assessment of whether or not the
author intends to re-purchase the same product again in the future. It is of note that this formula ic
structure is prevalent throughout the entire population of “recent empties” posts. Although, beauty
blog authors do not adhere to any professional trade group, who retain generally accepted princip les
or rules of the trade (e.g. principles of journalism), the adherence to the formulaic structure above
persists.
2.1.2.6. Meme
Similarly, other internet phenomena exist, which notably manage to reoccur, albeit the
absence of a reconciling professional culture or rules of the trade. In this they appear to be somewhat
structurally uniform, regarding their constituting elements. This is exemplified by popular forms of
jokes (“List of Internet Phenomena”, 2014) rumors and videos (Shifman, 2013). The phenomeno n
“recent empties” essentially exhibits all of the characteristics of a meme. The term internet- meme, or
meme for short, describes a self-replicating unit of culture that has a life of its own. In this form a
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thought, an idea, a fashion of any other cultural content “seem to spread virus-like from one mind to
another” (Dawkins, 1999). These criteria are met as the virus-like of “recent empties” posts is enabled
and occurs within the beauty blogging scene via social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram,
and twitter. There are very large numbers of such blog entries suggesting they have a life of their
own. They all following the same formulaic structure elucidated above, which makes them
delimitable from other units of culture. Enabled by the ubiquity of social media in today’s lives ,
memes travel faster than ever before. “In this way the web, through blogs, becomes a medium fo r
rapid transfer of memes” (Adar, Zhang, Adamic, & Lukose, 2004, p.1).
The headline to each post carries the keywords “recent empties” or “aufgebraucht” which can
be classified as identifiers for the phenomenon for the respective languages. Other forms of social
media (e.g. twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) use so called hashtags (#) as designated identifiers in
a similar fashion. Hashtags serve social media users as a tool to identify their posts as adhering to a
specific group of posts or topic. Simultaneously this enables others to search and find them.
In effect, when a beauty blog posts carries the identifier “recent empties”, the post becomes
findable for interested readers. At the same time like minded bloggers, who post in the same structure
can be identified via a single search query. Another very important effect of this findability of “recent
empties” as a memetic phenomenon is that this structure, albeit implicit, makes it considerably easier
for new bloggers to mimic the format and thus enter the beauty blogosphere and adhere to the
customary conventions with ease.
2.1.2.7. Consumer Tribes
The bloggers creating content within the “recent empties” phenomenon can be characterized
as belonging to a consumer tribe. The consumer tribe is as described by Cova, Kozinets and Shankar
(2007) as follows, traditional tribes are groups with deep interpersonal connections, which are built
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via shared experiences, rituals and traditions. Tribes conduct meetings, establish rituals, which can
be physical and also virtual. Consumer tribes, accordingly, are tribes of people with similar
consumption values. The relationships herein are, however, not commercial, as with brand
communities, which focus on relationships between brand and consumer. Consumer tribes rather
focus on consumer-consumer relationships.
2.1.3. Recommender function of beauty blogs
One explanation for these high numbers in readership can be found in a recent survey of 1074
women, in which respondents were asked to determine which resource they found to be most helpful
in providing beauty product advice and recommendations a vast majority of 61% percent of them
named “Familiar Blogger” as compared to “Store Website” at 46%, “Social Network” at 33%, and
“Blog that was stumbled upon in search” at 19%. While only 5% would use Facebook or twitter for
research on beauty products and traditional media such as television or print were used by only 4%
each. Further, a “Review from a known blogger” was named the third strongest incentive to purchase
a beauty product, after “recommendation from offline friend” and cost savings in the form of
“Promotion” and “Free sample” (Collins & Smirnov, 2010). Moreover a contributing factor might be
the large potential audience for content on beauty and cosmetics. A recent study shows that almost
three in four German internet users (72,2%, 37,15 million) are interested in perfume and cosmetic
products and four out of ten(43,5%, 22,35 million) use the internet to inform themselves about
perfume and cosmetic products (AGOF, 2013).
When digital media is concerned, (personal-) blogs take a special spot in the landscape
because they primarily contain user-generated content. This means per definition that, firstly, they
are composed by private authors, secondly, that these authors are producing the content themselves
and thirdly, they have no commercial market context in mind when writing (Kaplan & Haenlein,
2010). Blog authors seemingly do not stand to gain any monetary rewards from activities such as
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publishing recommendations or product reviews, even if they express extremely favorable attitudes
or evaluations. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, the authors primarily do not seek monetary rewards
either (Lenhard & Fox, 2006; Collins & Smirnov, 2010). It can be argued that this observation places
bloggers at eye-level with their audience, so that any advice or opinions expressed come from a place
of similarity in status. They are expressed by “someone like me”.
They are thus considered to be especially trustworthy when compared to professiona lly
authored sources of information e.g. journalistic content, sponsored content, etc. This sentiment is
confirmed by a recent survey stating that 31% of internet users find blogs to be the medium most
likely to influence a purchase decision (Technorati Media, 2014). Further, when comparing blogs to
other forms of social media, blogs are found to be the most trusted source for advice and informatio n.
Similarly, more purchase decisions have been made based on a recommendation from a blog, than
any other form of social media (BlogHer Inc., 2012). It can therefore be assumed that the noncommercial nature of user-generated content promotes this high level of trustworthiness. Further, a
study found that consumers trust peer recommendations more, if they have a high rapport with the
recommending author. The mere existence of a peer recommendation was found to be an “invaluab le
resource for consumers, especially when they are overwhelmed by the amount of information that is
available to them during online shopping experiences” (Smith, Menon, & Sivakumar, 2005, p. 32).
Products, which require a somewhat deep level of analysis to evaluate whether or not they
possess the attributes a customer is looking for and involve an elevated level of commitme nt.
Accordingly, they require a “good fit” with the reviewer or recommending author, i.e. the same likes
and dislikes regarding key attributes is important (Dhar & Chang, 2009). This means that the more
the taste and opinion of blogger and reader match, the more the reader can identify with the author
and therefore the more a sense of trustworthiness is instilled in the author and thus the blog’s
recommendations.
22
It can be assumed that this mechanism affects the content of blogs, as bloggers seek to retain
their audience and have close interactions with their readers. A fairly widespread tactic, especially
among smaller blogs, for retaining audience is the self-disclosure of personal and private informatio n
to the readers. This practice has been shown to have a positive effect on the audience, as it suggests
or creates a deeper bond between author and readers (Detember, Wijaya, Goh, 2008; Hua & Scott,
2007). Women in this are more inclined to reveal personal detail about themselves than men
(Pedersen & Macaffee, 2007). Based on these learnings, it can be assumed that at some level, beauty
bloggers are actively seeking to increase their own influence on their audience. In other words, they
seek to increase the relative importance of their recommendations in the perception of the readers.
2.1.4. Influencer marketing
2.1.4.1. Word of mouth marketing
Word of mouth is regarded as a valuable and important mechanism, by which information can
reach large populations. The premise of word of mouth marketing remains to purposefully leverage
interpersonal networks existing within the consumer market for marketing benefit (Brooks, 1957).
This underlying principle, however old it is, has persisted more or less unchanged. The recent spike
in attention to this mechanism is due to the ascent social media platforms enabled by Web 2.0
technology. The premonition is that the vast interpersonal networks ostensibly offer limitless leverage
of word of mouth marketing actions that can be accessed cheaply. It is thus attainable to possibly
influence public opinion, adoption of innovations, the market share of new products, and brand
awareness (Bakshy, et al., 2011).
2.1.4.2. Influentials/ influencer
Influencer marketing, a topic which has in recent years attained considerable interest among
market researchers and marketeers, seeks to exploit the word of mouth mechanism and is based on
23
the notion that so called influentials or influencers can be utilized to propel the desired marketing
efforts (Keller & Berry, 2003). Therefore the influencer marketing utilizes the assumption about the
diffusion of information via social media:
“diffusion [of Information] can be maximized by seeding a piece of information or a new product
with certain special individuals, often called “influentials” or simply “influencers,” who exhibit some
combination of desirable attributes—whether personal attributes like credibility, expertise, or
enthusiasm, or network attributes such as connectivity or centrality—that allows them to influence a
disproportionately large number of others, possibly indirectly via a cascade of influence” (Bakshy et
al., 2011, p. 65).
It was demonstrated that blogs under the right circumstances exude considerable influence on
their audience, when it comes to informing purchase decisions. When further applying the definitio n
of influentials, or influencers, which are individuals and who disproportionately impact the spread of
information or some related behavior of interest (Bakshy, et al., 2011). This means that certain
individuals exude disproportionately more influence in terms of spreading information, than they are
influenced by others. We can conclude that in the sense of the definition, authors of beauty and
cosmetic blogs all are potential influencers.
Given this definitions’ rather non-specific scale of how much influence one needs to exude ,
in order to have the desired “disproportionate impact”, any blogger, who has a considerable audience,
can assumed to be an influencer. In comparison to e.g. certain celebrities, with a potential reach of
millions, the impact that one blogger has appears rather limited. Nevertheless, the claim that the
influence process, underlying successful word of mouth diffusion, is driven by a small number of key
influencers, is so far based on several assumptions unsubstantiated by empirical evidence (Bakshy,
et al., 2011). Correspondingly, it has been shown, that popular social media users, who have a large
number of readers or followers, are not necessarily proportionally influential in terms of forwarding
the message. Nor is sheer popularity or number of followers necessarily related to the highly
important aspect of influence of engaging the audience (Cha, Haddadi, Benevenuto, & Gummad i,
24
2010). Furthermore, a recent study concluded, that one particular user will prompt a large cascade of
information dissemination are relatively unreliable, and finds that the word of mouth diffusion can
only be harnessed reliably, if a large amount of potential influencers is utilized (Bakshy, et al., 2011).
In utilizing a large amount of individual influencers, it is possible to attain a larger sum total
of engaged readers or followers, who in turn are more likely to re-share the message. The probability
that a marketing message is disseminated thusly is higher when compared to utilizing few influence rs
with very large followings. The measure most important for spreading a marketing message therefore
is not the net audience reached, but rather the expected engaged users reached. Like a cascade, the
message is passed on by the engaged users through their respective social networks. Additiona lly,
this described focus on engagement may prove to be more cost-effective than to pay large amounts
of money to celebrities, in order for them to endorse a product.
2.1.5. Interplay of bloggers readers and companies
In general, consumers do not make referral if they do not feel much attachment to products,
which is especially applicable to products in the category of fast moving consumer goods (Kumar,
Petersen, & Leone, 2007). Fast moving consumer goods customarily comprise most beauty and
cosmetic products, and in turn one would expect that consumers are not willing to make referrals and
recommendations about them. However, as has been demonstrated, the “recent empties” phenomeno n
proves this notion to be inaccurate. The large volume of beauty bloggers committing a considerable
amount of content to product recommendations, therefore represents a large population of possible
influencers with an engaged audience and an enormous amount of trustworthiness. At the center of
this interplay is, therefore the blogger. They are important sources of trusted recommendations for
readers and they hold the potential to be very effective in any sort of influencer marketing efforts.
25
2.1.5.1. Adverse effects
As Bob Hoffman summarized succinctly on his Ad Contrarian blog “there is no-one more
gullible than the marketeer who thinks they are missing out on a trend” (UMWW, 2013 pg. 4). In the
context of influencer marketing this may lead to marketeers, intrigued by the promise of marketing
campaigns that “go viral” in exchange for very little expenditures, to overcrowd the blogosphere.
Previously such exploitations that are targeting political blogs, have generated considerable buzz in
doing this. Dan Bartlett worked as an advisor to George W. Bush’s second campaign for the US
Presidency and was quoted on how they exploited sympathetic political bloggers to their advantage:
“I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate.
They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve
cultivated and have tried to put quite a bit of focus on” (Rosenberg, 2009, p. 163).
The adverse effects of influence marketing are lurking behind this promise of a „free lunch“.
With a continuing growth of media attention on influential bloggers, the risk of the content of blog
posts being manipulated rises accordingly. Companies in this may believe that a fabricated increase
in volume of coverage will prompt sales increase, which in turn diminishes the predictive power of
analyzing blog posts (Dhar & Chang, 2009). Concurring with this, blogs that simply “regurgitate” the
marketing messages of companies will eventually lose their status of trustworthiness with their
readers. Similar effects have been shown with native advertising content in journalism (Carlson,
2014; Shields, 2015). While this remarkable interplay of relationships between readers, bloggers, and
companies holds a lot of promise for marketing and market research, the over-exploitation of it will
consequently lead to the phenomenon’s demise.
26
2.2. Motivation
The writing of a blog and connected activities can require considerable effort on the part of
blog authors. The reasons, why bloggers engage in the describe interplay of relationships and put in
the considerable effort, is explored in the following.
Humans have been trying to understand why people do what they do since the time of
Sokrates, Plato, Artistotle (Reeve, 2014).
“To be motivated means to be moved to do something” (Ryan & Deci, 2000a, p. 54). In this,
people vary in the amount of motivation they have for doing something, but they also have different
kinds of motivations that drive their actions. That is to say they not only vary in the level of
motivation, but also in the orientation or type of motivations (Ryan & Deci, 2000a).
2.2.1. Need based motivation theory
"The term motivation refers to factors that activate, direct, and sustain goal-directed behavior. [...]
Motives are the "whys" of behavior - the needs or wants that drive behavior and explain what we do.
We don't actually observe a motive; rather, we infer that one exists based on the behavior we observe"
(Nevid, 2013, p.288).
The need based motivation theory, also named content based motivation theory, arises from
the question of “what” the needs or wants are that spur these “whys”. Need-based motivation theory
states that on the understanding that motivation stems from an individual's desire to fulfill or achieve
a need (Redmond, 2009). This means in turn, that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs.
In the context of need based motivation theory, motivation is defined as follows: “Motivation is the
process to allocate energy to maximize the satisfaction of needs” (Pritchard & Ashwood, 2008).
From a literature review of relevant publications; we can gather that the following
fundamental psychological needs are applicable to the case at hand. The need for self-disclosure,
which is herein defined as revealing information about one’s self (Derlega & Chaikin, 1976). The
27
need for affiliation, is defined as the desire for social interaction and to be accepted by others (Heckert
et al., 2000). The need for achievement is defined as the desire to excel and improve upon past
performance (Heckert et al., 2000).
Further important needs that explain/affect human behavior are the need for dominance, which
in motivation literature is also referred to need for power, is defined as the desire to influence and
direct others (Heckert et al., 2000). The need for autonomy, is defined as the desire for self-directio n,
rather than direction from others (Heckert et al., 2000). And the need for competence, can be described
as a desire of people to feel competent in what they are doing.
In 2012, a survey of 312 female bloggers explored the influence that three major needs, the
needs for self-disclosure, affiliation and achievement, which might be gratified via the activity of
blogging. It concentrated on women, because personal blogs are most likely to be written by women.
The survey’s findings revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between need for selfdisclosure and seeing blogging as a way to express one’s own voice (Chen, 2012). This finding
confirms earlier studies (Ledbetter et al., 2011). Furthermore, Hollenbaugh (2010) states that these
disclosive bloggers typically are motivated to blog in order to organized and archive their thoughts
and in this sense use the blog format as an online diary. Self-disclosure is also seen as tool for blog
authors to retain their special status of trustworthiness amongst their audience (Technorati Media,
2014). This provides evidence that beyond expressing oneself there are additional important motives
of women for writing a blog, such as gratifying the need of affiliation (i.e. connect with other people)
and gratifying the need for power (i.e. gain influence in the blogosphere).
An additional finding is that the time spent on blogging activities is relevant. That is to say
that the amount of time women spend on blogging activities, is an important factor of whether or not
they feel gratified by means of blogging (Chen, 2012). This particular study however is limited in its
28
explanatory power. As the author points out, regarding why women write personal blogs, it does “not
tell the full story” (p. 178) and that “clearly, more research is needed to understand what other needs
may play a role in motivation women to write personal blogs” (p. 179).
2.2.2.
Social exchange theory
Social exchange theory contributes to understanding why humans behave the way they do in a social
context (Füller, 2010).
Social exchange theory offers a theoretical touch point by its contribution of explaining social human
behavior, or why people behave in the way they do in a social context (Füller, 2010). A main functio n
of the social exchange theory framework, is to view human relationships as exchange between
individuals or parties (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). These exchanges between humans are
conducted for the satisfaction or gratification of needs (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). Thus they are
depending on the respective human’s personal motivations. Again, the motivation itself cannot be
observed but is inferred based on the behavior with regards to gratifying needs (Nevid, 2013).
In the context of the relationships examined
by the study, the audience receives
recommendations and advice from bloggers and companies tap into the bloggers’ influence. By
maintaining relationships, the bloggers are in exchange able to gratify needs. In other words, these
relationships are driven by extrinsic and internalized extrinsic motivations. Intrinsic motivations can
by definition not influence these relationships.
29
Figure 1 – Social Exchange Theory Model of Bloggers’ stakeholders
Figure 1. shows the relationships between bloggers, readers and companies as an exchange. The
relationships with the advertiser and other bloggers are omitted, as they are not in the scope of this
particular thesis study. Rather the thesis focuses on the relationships with the audience and companies
(see figure 2).
Figure 2 – Social Exchange Theory Model of stakeholders adapted for thesis study
2.2.3.
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
One of the most basic differentiations between types of motivation is between intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation. People are intrinsically motivated in doing something, if it is inherently
interesting or enjoyable to them. In the case of this study that is, they derive value from producing a
30
specific kind of user-generated content for the activities own sake. There is an extrinsic motivatio n,
if they are doing something because they are after a contingent outcome separate from the activity in
itself (Ryan and Deci, 2000a; Füller, 2010). This classic duality of motivations has persevered over
time in psychological research concerning motivation. However, in the explication of extrins ic
motivations there is further need for differentiation. Concurringly, research shows that one can
conduct extrinsically motivated activities with unwillingness, resentment, or disinterest or, on the
other hand, perform them with an attitude of inner acceptance of the value of the activity or task. To
illustrate this distinction further. Ryan and Deci offer that in the first case, “the classic case of extrins ic
motivation – one feels externally propelled into action” (2000a, p.55), while in the later “case the
extrinsic goal is self-endorsed and thus adopted with a sense of volition” (Ryan & Deci, 2000a, p.55).
We call this later case internalized extrinsic motivation (Roberts, Hann, & Slaughter, 2006). With
these revised definitions, we have three superordinate types of motivations: intrinsic, internalized
extrinsic, and extrinsic.
2.3. Dimensions of Motivation/ Motive Categories
The aim of this study is to explore which types of motivation or motive categories are relevant
in explaining why bloggers do what they do. More specifically, (what their perception is on) why
they take on the roles as influencers and recommenders. For this reason, a framework for engaging
in virtual co-creation- projects by Füller (2010) is adapted and developed to meet the specific
requirements of the beauty blogging life world and the aims of the thesis study at hand. Going along
with the proposed subdivision of motive categories described in the section above, the following
discussion of applicable needs and motivations are also structured into the categories intrinsic,
internalized extrinsic, and extrinsic.
31
2.3.1. Intrinsic motive categories
Self-determination theory tells us that humans have an inherent tendency to explore the novel
and seek out challenges and being curious (Berlyne, 1960). It can be observed in children that despite
of an absence of any rewards human children are inquisitive, curious and playful. In past research it
has been demonstrated that a strong linkage exists between satisfying the needs for competence and
autonomy and intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000a). Therefore, intrinsic motivation is divided
into intrinsic playful tasks and curiosity. An intrinsic playful task is one that is perceived as valuable
for its own sake and thus intrinsically rewarding by the individuals who do it, because they find it
playful and enjoyable (Füller, 2010). As such, individuals can derive pleasure from the creative outlet
of writing short texts and playing around with photographs and videos in the context of
recommending products. As mentioned above expressing oneself is an intrinsically motivated act,
herein the associated need for self-disclosure (Hollenbaugh 2010; Chen 2012) is also considered.
The motive category curiosity, addresses actions by individuals that are caused by their natural
desire of knowing things. This natural tendency to be curious and inquisitive (Ryan & Deci, 2000a)
can manifest itself in individuals, who test and compare and ultimately review products, in part,
because they are curious about them.
At this point, it is of note that, when feelings of competence are not accompanied by feelings
of autonomy, intrinsic motivation is not enhanced. In other words, when feeling competent or
efficient, people need to also perceive their behavior as self-determined in order to enhance their
intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000a).
32
2.3.2. Internalized extrinsic motive categories
Internalized extrinsic motive categories comprise all those extrinsic motives that are by
mechanisms of internalization and integration, more willingly adopted as the value of the task is met
with an attitude of inner acceptance (Ryan & Deci, 2000b).
Altruism, is understood as doing something for others without anticipating any reward in
return (Füller, 2010). In the context of beauty bloggers this may entail positive recommendations and
also negative recommendations, for the purpose of preventing others from experiencing the same
disappointments
they encountered
(Henning-Thurau,
Gwinner,
Walsh,
& Gremler,
2004).
Corresponding needs to this are the needs for power (exerting influence) and affiliation (interactio n
and endearment as a measure of gaining acceptance by others). Further the desire to help a company
is linked to this motive category (Henning-Thurau et al, 2004).
The motivation to make friends is driven by the need to affiliate with others. In this, the
bloggers may want to get in touch with like-minded people. This motive category is largely based on
fulfilling the need for affiliation, and doing so online (Ledbetter et al., 2011). This goes beyond an
interest in the topic itself (Füller, 2010).
Bloggers may derive a sense of accomplishment from their contributions, which is driven by
a need for achievement and a need for competence. They might view the activity of blogging as
contributing to the public discourse (Lakhani & Wolf, 2005) and as a challenge to be mastered (Unger
& Kernan, 1981).
By pursuing Skill development through their blogging activities, blog authors are able to
develop their skills and gain additional knowledge. As such, becoming better at informing the public
(i.e. the audience) about beauty and care products, requires them to improve on their past performance
in a multitude of related skills, including writing and narrative skills, design, creating and maintaining
33
a webpage, photo and video editing, audience engagement, and cooperation with companies. This
ties in with the need for achievement, as in becoming better at what they are doing, and the need for
competence (Heckert et al., 2000).
Recognition, visibility and approval, is desired by bloggers. Recognition and visibility in this,
are driven by a need for dominance or power that gratifies the ego (Füller, 2010), whereas approval
is driven by a need for affiliation in the form of positive peer recognition (Henning-Thurau et al.,
2004). The interactive element of the social medium of blogs allows for feedback and approval, in
the form of positive public feedback from the audience, is sought after by bloggers. Further, approval
in terms of visibility – i.e. being mentioned by others – and reach – i.e. a large audience – are desired
(Henning- Thurau et al., 2004). Although other bloggers are omitted from the scope of this study, it is
noteworthy that other bloggers also are part of the audience of a blog. Therefore, their feedback, on
a superficial level, can be viewed as positive peer recognition. From the side of companies,
recognition can take place in the form of offers regarding influencer marketing, or growing amounts
thereof. Furthermore, affiliating mentions in company publications like websites and company
magazines, are forms of approval in the sense of visibility.
2.3.3. Extrinsic motive categories
Compensation can occur in the form of monetary rewards, or other economic rewards. While
the cash utility of such rewards is apparent, economic rewards have also been shown to be considered
as a sign of positive recognition by the recipient. Examples for such extrinsic incentives are obviously
money in the case of sponsored content, but can also be free products, product samples, or gifts.
34
2.3.4. Framework for motive categories of bloggers
In order to gain a clearer understanding of the two relationships, or social exchanges, central
to this thesis study, it is necessary to investigate the gratified needs in motive categories for both
relationships individually (see Figure 3). As described above, the need gratifications that these
relationships offer, have been delimitated and assigned into motive categories
Recommender
Influencer
Figure 3 – Bloggers as recommender and influencer in social exchange
For further clarifying the way different motive categories are affecting these relationships are
depicted in table format. In this table 1 depicts motive categories relevant for the bloggers role as a
recommender, in the relationship with their audience. Analogously, table 2 depicts motive categories
relevant for the bloggers role as an influencer in the relationship with companies or brands. The layout
has been designed to be comparable. In this, categories which do not apply to the specific role, have
been left blank. Further, intrinsic motivation, by definition, is not affected by relationships with
others. However, intrinsic motivation influences all actions of an individual and thus is depicted in
the design of the tables in order to offer a complete overview.
The resulting framework, which was construed using the literature review above, illustrated
in Table 1 and Table 2, has the purpose of answering the research question posed in the previous
chapter: What are the relevant motivational dimensions for beauty bloggers to get involved and
maintain relationships with readers in the role of recommenders and companies in the role of
influencers?
35
However, the framework is primarily based on theoretical, and to a lesser extent empirica l
research. In turn this poses a risk of the framework not being fully applicable to the actual life world
of bloggers. Recent quantitative studies were assessed as limited in explanatory power as they were
able to determine for example that only 7% of bloggers find the extrinsic motivation of monetary
compensation as a major reason for their activities (Lenhart & Fox, 2006) and others did “not tell the
full story” (Chen, 2012, p. 178). Therefore, a qualitative validation of the framework is of paramount
importance to ensure it is applicable to the bloggers life world and subsequently holds high
explanatory power for further research. Hence, the hypothesis of this study must be, that the
framework depicted in Table 1 and Table 2 is accurate.
36
Table 1 – Motive Categories for bloggers to engage in a role of a recommender
Motive Category
Intrinsic
Intrinsic Playful Task*
Curiousity*
Altruism
Make Friends
Extrinsic
Internalized Extrinsic
Accomplishment
Skill development
Recognition, Visibility
Description
Individuals derive pleasure from the creative outlet of
writing short texts and playing around with photographs
and videos in the context of recommending products.
Individuals test and compare and ultimately review
products in part because they are curious about them.
Positive and negative recommendations for the purpose
of enabling the audience to have the same good
experiences as the blogger and conversely to prevent the
audience from having the same bad experiences that the
blogger encountered. A reward (economic) is not
anticipated.
Affiliation with like-minded people that share similar
interest and consumer-values.
Individuals may view the activity of blogging as
contributing to the public discourse and as a challenge
to be mastered.
Bloggers may want to become better at informing their
audience and accordingly improve on their past
performance in required skills, such as writing,
designing and maintaining a webpage, photo and video
editing.
Approval in the form of positive public feedback from
the audience is sought after by bloggers, this might
entail positive peer recognition. Further, approval in
terms of visibility and reach are desired.
**
Compensation
*Intrinsic Motivations exist per definition in the absence of external stimuli. They are mentioned here,
because they co-exist in every situation including the relationship with the audience.
**Does not apply to the relationship between blogger and audience.
37
Table 2 – Motive Categories for bloggers to engage in a role of an influencer
Motive Category
Curiousity*
Individuals derive pleasure from the creative outlet of
writing short texts and playing around with photographs
and videos in the context of being an influencer.
Individuals test and compare and ultimately review
products in part because they are curious about them.
Altruism
Bloggers may have the desire to help a company or
brand that they feel affection for.
Intrinsic Playful Task*
Intrinsic
Description
**
Make Friends
Extrinsic
Internalized Extrinsic
Accomplishment
Skill development
Recognition, Visibility
Compensation
Individuals may view the activity of blogging as
contributing to the public discourse and as a challenge
to be mastered.
Bloggers may want to become better at being an
influencer and accordingly improve on their past
performance in required skills, such as writing,
designing and maintaining a webpage, photo and video
editing.
Approval can take place in the form of offers regarding
influencer marketing, or in the form of offers regarding
visibility like affiliating mentions in company
publications.
Monetary and other economic rewards from companies
and brands, such as free products and gifts, may
motivate bloggers.
*Intrinsic Motivations exist per definition in the absence of external stimuli. They are mentioned here,
because they co-exist in every situation including the relationship with the audience.
**Does not apply to the relationship between blogger and company.
38
3. METHOD
3.1. Ontological and Epistemological Assumptions
The motivations of beauty bloggers as social actors are specific to their own life-worlds, i. e.
realities. These realities are relative to each of the social actors individually. Which consequently
means, that there can be no universally valid statements on the real motivations of all beauty bloggers.
Therefore, the expected result of the study can only result in an approximation.
Further, the process of gaining knowledge in a first step has been conducted via a literatur e
review. The result of which is a framework for classifying relevant motives into categories (see Table
1 and Table 2). However, this framework must be limited in explanatory power, as it was not
construed based on observation or interaction with a primary source. In other words, the framework
is limited because it was developed by a researcher. In order for it to have validity and be useful for
explaining the real motivations of bloggers, a qualitative method must be employed. Moreover, in
order to know about which motive categories apply to the life worlds of the beauty bloggers, each
one must have a relatively meaningful impact on their overall motivation for carrying out their
blogging activities. It is important to note at this point, that any interaction of the researcher with the
researched will have an effect on the findings resulting from such interaction. Therefore, it must be
acknowledged, that the interaction itself will negatively affect the accuracy of the findings. However,
without this step, there would be no valid proof that the framework is grounded in reality.
3.2. General Methodological Theory
As mentioned above, the method employed in this study must be a method of qualitative
analysis, in order to gain a deep understanding of the motivations that beauty bloggers have, for
playing their roles as influencers and recommenders. Further, any other motivations of beauty
39
bloggers for creating content in the aforementioned roles are of interest. Qualitative analyses are
especially well suited for this, as they are generally aimed at exploring the new.
“Qualitative research can be open to what is new in the material being studied, to the unknown in
the apparently familiar […]This very openness to the world of experience, its internal design and the
principles of its construction are, for qualitative research, not only an end in themselves giving a
panorama of ‘cultural snapshots’ of small life-worlds, but also the main starting point for the
construction of a grounded theoretical basis” (Flick, Kardorff & Steinke, 2004, p. 5).
Conversely, quantitative research methods, such as standardized questionnaires, require a firm
understanding of the scrutinized subject (Flick, et al., 2004). The theoretical foundation that is
provided in the previous chapter illuminates, to an extent, the phenomenon itself, bloggers
motivations as well as key aspects of the relationships between bloggers and their readers and further
the relationship with corporate interest. However, this level of understanding is not available to the
researcher as to a considerable extent the perspective of the blogger as the principal actor (i.e. object
of investigation), is not yet taken into account. Therefore, a quantitatively analyzable questionna ire
would rather hinder than aid the generation of rich information (i.e. rich data), because it is highly
possible that any questionnaire design might miss vital questions and thus miss to illuminate vital
issues.
Upon choosing qualitative interviews as the qualitative method for this study, in order to create
an effective research design, we must consider the different forms of qualitative interviews. In the
field of social sciences, qualitative interviews are a widespread and accepted method of data
generation. It has been estimated, that 90 percent of all investigations in the field of social sciences
are based on data generated from interviewing (Briggs, 1986). Especially in the field of ethnographic
research they are employed to e.g. gain insight into expert knowledge regarding a specific field of
knowledge or to capture and analyze subjective perspectives. They enable researchers to directly
inquire about a subject’s perception of a situation and their motives for action in an open manner (i.e.
open ended questions) (Hopf, 2004).
40
For the purpose of this study it is useful to go beyond the conventional definition of intervie w,
“a meeting at which information is obtained from a person” (“Interview”, n.d.) and define the
interview for the purpose of conducting research, as follows: “the research interview, or inter-vie w,
is an exchange of views between two people – one of whom is in the role of researcher – who are
talking about a topic of common interest.” (Kvale, 2007, in Schultze & Avital, 2011, p. 2). Thus, the
interview allows people to convey a circumstance, form their own perspective to others and in their
own words. Research interviews in this are at their core conversations between researcher and subject,
which are defined and controlled by the researcher. Although the research interview may not lead to
objective information, however, it captures many of the subject’s views, opinions and thoughts on
something. In the context of this, it is important to remember that the objective herein is not object
data, but as qualitative research dictates the goal consists of interpreting meaningful relations (Kvale,
1996).
3.3. Research Design
There are many forms of qualitative research methods with varying degrees of researcher subject interaction. For the purpose of this study, a qualitative interview method is chosen. The aim
of such a method is to “describe and clarify people’s experiential life ‘as it is lived, felt, undergone,
made sense of and accomplished by human beings” (Schwandt, 2001, in Schultze & Avital, 2011, p.
1). In this, open-ended questioning permit personal responses that purvey the respondents’ voice and
a thorough exploration due to the possibility of follow up questions. At the same time, they provide
reliable, comparable qualitative data (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006).
One can differentiate between different forms of (qualitative) interviews by discerning
whether the interviewer is using previously conceived and formulated standardized questions,
sometimes with the questions being in a fixed sequenced order, or whether the interview is conducted
more openly on the basis of few, roughly outlined questions. Such unstructured interviews, in this,
41
are used to gain insight, while they are ill suited for testing hypotheses. When the researcher already
possesses a lot of knowledge on the subject of inquiry and a comprehensive, exhaustive overview
over all, categories and all possible responses are familiar, the structured interview with closed-ended
questions can provide very specific answers to very specific questions. However, there is a middle
ground between these two seemingly polar opposites, which can ”provide detail, depth, and an
insider’s perspective, while at the same time allowing hypothesis testing and the quantitative analys is
of interview responses” (Leech, 2002, p. 665). In general, they are described, with relative flexibility,
as semi-structured interviews.
3.4. Photo diary Interview Method
There are a plethora of derivative variants of semi structured interviews. The photo diary
method is one, that is especially well suited for the requirements of this thesis study. It can be
categorized as form of focused interview method. Early methods of the focused interviews harken
back to the 1940’s, when they were developed in the context of the analysis of communication and
propaganda by, most prominently, Robert Merton and Patricia Kendall (Merton, Fiske, & Kendall,
1956; Merton & Kendall, 1979, Merton, 2008). When designing focused interviews, several aspects
need to be considered in order to obtain high quality information. First, the interviewees need to be
allowed a maximum chance to react to the presented stimulus (e.g. a photo). Second, an elevated level
of specificity needs to be ascertained with the questions. This means, for example, that after being
presented a photo the respondents need to be enabled to express more than a general, global statement.
The goal is to elicit reactions and insights into memories and feelings towards specific aspects of the
photo, or the circumstances surrounding it. Third, the interviewees need to be assisted in providing
information of a proper depth in their description of the meaning that a situation or circumsta nce
bears along affective, cognitive and value based dimensions. Fourth, the personal context, in which
the reactions and statements are obtained, needs to be recorded, in order to properly interpret, for
42
example, non-anticipated reactions. (Merton, et al., 1956) Generally speaking, the photo diary method
primarily aims at eliciting general, global interpretations. Because of this, it is a necessity to conduct
active questioning, ask follow- up questions and further, to cautiously provide own arguments, in
some cases even to bring forth arguments of a „contrarian position” in order to capture a more
thorough understanding and subsequently more rich data from the interviews (Hopf, 2004).
The “photo diary: diary interview” method or photo diary interview method is based on the
framework of Latham (2003) and employs a combination of diaries and photographs as a means of
memory aides for a qualitative interview. These memory aides offer support in elevating the level of
specificity of information generated. As they are on their own account tools to capture and make
explicit experiences, they thereby objectify these experiences for the benefit of later analys is
(Schultze & Avital, 2011). These very concrete illustrations “help ground the answers in the
experiences of the interviewees in ways that provide nuance and precision, context, and evidence all
at the same time.” (Rubin & Rubin, 2005, p. 37 in Schultze & Avital, 2011, p. 11). As for the diaries,
it is noteworthy that the term diary is here used in the sense of an annotated log kept by the research
subject (Zimmerman & Wieder, 1977), rather than its original meaning, defined by the MerriamWebster’s online dictionary as “a book in which you write down your personal experiences and
thoughts each day” (n.d.).
This nuance is of great importance, because the proposed method seeks to utilize the already
existing blog entries composed by the interviewees in the context of their organic blogging activities.
In this situation, the bloggers take on a role of adjunct-ethnographers, who capture and reflect on their
observations in their, de facto, diaries, which, in the context of this study, serve as a sort of field notes
(Zimmermann & Wieder, 1977, in Schutze & Avital, 2011). Blogs, as discussed in the previous
chapter, are in essence online journals, where, for the most part, enriched with photographs, personal
views and feelings regarding experiences or events or opinions, are publicly published. By using the
43
photographs organically provided by the medium itself, we are able to forgo a period of time where
the subjects are supposed to keep a diary and capture photos for the sole purpose of this study.
Moreover, the hope is, that by utilizing the organically produced content, we are able to gather more
intimate, relevant and thus richer data regarding the bloggers perception.
The use of images in this manner offers a fundamental improvement when compared to
methods that do not include them. According to Bagnoli images, in this instance, “images are
evocative and can allow access to different parts of human consciousness” (2009, p. 548). Thus, they
make “tacit knowledge accessible to both the researcher and the interviewee, because they address
the limitations of language as a means of creating and communicating knowledge” in a desired
fashion, productive to generating rich data. (Schultze & Avital, 2011, p. 11).
The combination of photos and diaries as the foundation for interviews serves several
purposes. For the interviewee, they are primarily a memory aid and a way of accessing experiences,
situations and emotions from the past. Since subjective memory is a subject to change over time and
the accuracy of recollection of events and impressions is depending on how often a person has
reproduced the memory to herself or others (Schacter & Loftus, 2013), this is a highly useful
mechanism. Especially when considerable time has elapsed between interview and captured events,
one can assume, that these memory aides will help gain a more accurate picture. For the researcher
or interviewer on the other hand the primary benefit is depending on whether or not suffic ie nt
preparation time was available to get in tune with the interviewees’ world to a sufficient extend. This
entails gaining an empathetic understanding and insight into the interviewees’ life word and
vocabulary (Schultze & Avital, 2011). In the specific instance of interviewing beauty bloggers,
regarding beauty blogging related questions, the researcher can immerse into the life world of the
interviewees by reading their blogs. Thusly, the researcher is enabled to penetrate beyond a superfic ia l
exchange of recollected events and enable a “deeper and more meaningful narrative that provides
44
insight into how the interviewee constructs a coherent world and identity” (Schultze & Avital, 2011,
p. 11).
3.5. Data collection
As demonstrated, qualitative interviews are on the face of it well suited for investigating the
research questions at hand. Specifically, as the bloggers perception on their relationships with their
readers and with corporate interests is central to this study. However, it is of paramount importance
to obtain rich data from the interviews. The hazard here is that the interviewer doesn’t penetrate
deeper than a superficial layer of interviewees’ life world, by essentially asking the wrong questions
and in the wrong manner.
For this reason it is useful to consider the “seven stages of an interview investigation” after
Kvale (1996, p. 88) that are crucial to successfully
providing
the sought after insight:
(1) Thematizing, (2) Designing, (3) Interviewing, (4) Transcribing, (5) Analyzing, (6) Verifying and
(7) Reporting. When applying Kvale’s framework to the specific method at hand, we end up with a
comprehensive overview of the singular steps that need to be taken in order to end up with valuable
insights based on rich data generated from photo diary interviewing method.
Thematizing includes an explicit formulation of the purpose and relevance of the investigatio n
as well as a description of the topic to be investigated (phenomenon), all of which can be found in the
two prior chapters: Introduction and Theory. It is important to note, in this specific study, results of
the thematization and therefore of the prior two chapters, are reflected in the development of the
framework for classifying motive categories of beauty bloggers. The designing of the interview is
described in the method chapter. It is important, that all stages are considered in the study design,
which needs to be completed before any interviews are conducted. Then follows interviewing, which
is conducting the interview itself based on an interview guide. This guide is comprised of the
45
questions outlined in the theory chapter and is customized to the requirements of the photo diary
interview method. The interviews conducted are recorded with a digital audio recording device in
order to subsequently prepare the interview material for analysis. This preparation is referred to as
transcribing, or the transcription of oral speech into written text. For this specific study the materia l
is not transcribed verbatim, the applied method of live coding will be discussed below in the method
for analysis section. The thusly produced written accounts of interviews are then to be analyzed in
the following chapter “Analysis”. Herein, a requirement is to decide on an appropriate method of
analyzing, which is also further discussed in the following chapter. The findings then need to be
verified. Verifying means in this context to determine and discuss the generalizability, reliability, and
validity of the insights based upon the interviews conducted. This can be found in the chapters
“Limitations” and “Outlook”. Lastly, reporting the findings of the study and the method, applied in
a suitable, readable form that is up to par with scientific and ethical standards is the principal functio n
of this masters’ thesis. One of the most important ethical standards in this are informed consent, which
means that the interview subjects need to be informed about the purpose of the study and the main
features of the study design, confidentiality and consequences for the interviewee (Kvale, 1996). To
the point of consequences, it is of note that the interviewee needs to be informed about the explicit
right to withdraw from the interview at any time with no further consequences (King & Horrocks,
2010).
3.6. Conducting the Interviews
Interviews are conversations between two partners, the subject (interviewee) and the
researcher (interviewer) (Kvale, 1996). When conducting these interviews, it is important to take into
account the role that the interviewer and the role that the circumstances surrounding the intervie w
situation play. As Briggs points out:
46
“By leaving the interview situation itself out of the analysis, we have cleverly circumvented the need
to examine our own role in the research process. A clearer understanding of the interview will
accordingly not only enhance its usefulness as a research tool but will greatly expand out our
consciousness of what studying out fellow humans is all about” (1986, p.4).
Briggs then provides the practical advice that addresses these shortcomings, one of the most
important facets being a heightened awareness of them (1986). Keeping the critique of Briggs in mind
the following preparations have been made to address issues with the interview situation.
Because of this attention has been given to enable the interviewee to feel confident to talk
freely, or in other words, to reduce the respondents’ nervousness (Leech, 2002). For this reason, the
interviews are conducted in a relatively neutral environment, in an attractively furnished conference
room, with comfortable chairs. Otherwise a neutral quiet public location i.e. a quiet café was chosen.
This also provides for a calm and interruption-free space (Leech, 2002). Prior to the interview, the
subjects have been given a short introduction detailing the motivation of the researcher. Further, they
were engaged in small talk and offered snacks and refreshments. All of these efforts are made to put
the respondents at ease based in the assumption that “when the participant is able to see the intervie w
as a conversation, they begin to relax and share and not worry about only giving informatio n”
(Roulston, deMarrais, & Lewis, 2003, p. 653). Similarly, the interview is referred to as a conversatio n
in sentences like “talk with you”, which is less threatening and evokes less nervous reactions than
“interview you” as is suggested by Weinberg (1996, p. 83). Moreover, it is important to build rapport
with the respondents, which, on top of putting them at ease, entails convincing them, that you are
listening and are interested in what they have to say (Leech, 2002).
In contrast to other forms of interviews, such as the investigative journalistic interview (e.g
with policeman), celebrity interview and job interview, the research interview is characterized by its
emphasis on open-ended, non-leading questions and the researcher tasks include to focus on personal
experience and building rapport with the interviewee. It is common for qualitative interviewers to
47
mind a sort of power balance with the subject. Factors in this are age, gender and status of the two
parties which need to be kept in mind and accounted for. As such the interviewee has the explicit
right to withdraw from the interview at any time with no further consequences, as opposed to the
investigative journalistic interview (King & Horrocks, 2010).
Concurring with the photo diary interview method, each interviewee is given a short
introduction into the phenomenon, as it presents itself to the researcher and informed about the
purpose of the investigation (i.e. master’s thesis), why they personally were chosen to be a participant
in the study, that they are anonymized, and that they are going to be recorded with a digital audio
recorder. They are then asked whether they agree to this and made aware that they can at any time
exit the interview without consequence. This is done in order to achieve informed consent (Kvale,
1996). The research questions and hypothesis are withheld from them on the basis that providing
them might bias their statements, but can be provided after the interview.
3.7. Formulation of Interview Questions
Following this pre-interview phase, the actual interview takes place using the interview guide
(see Attachment 1 in Appendix). The research question described in the previous chapter is the basis
for the questions asked in the interview. More specifically, the interview guide was developed to
address the needs that are gratified in the relationships of bloggers with their audience and companies,
i.e. the framework depicted in Table 1 and Table 2.
Because the photo-diary interview is a qualitative research method, the questions are not to
be viewed as strict scripts of the interaction that need to be “checked off”, rather they are a guideline
for the researcher to get to the “heart of the matter” (Geertz, 1983, p. 233). Nevertheless, the order,
in which they are asked, is important. On the most basic level the questions should be ordered
48
beginning with the easiest to the harder ones (Leech, 2002). In other terms, they are to begin with the
nonthreatening moving to threatening (Weinberg, 1996).
When formulating the interview guide, certain questions need to be avoided, such as loaded
questions, double barreled questions, leading questions (Leech, 2002). Less obvious are issues with
phrasing, which also need to be kept in mind, especially assessments and formulations (Roulston et
al., 2003). Assessments in this are statements by speakers (e.g. the interviewer) to claim knowledge
about that which is to being assessed (Pomerantz, 1984). Examples are sentences, where the
interviewer prefixes an expression of opinion with “I bet you are”, or “you must be” (Kelly, 2001 in
Roulston et al., 2003). Formulations on the other hand are statements, in which speakers (e.g. the
interviewer)
paraphrases prior made statements,
by preserving,
deleting,
and transforming
information produced by other speakers (Heritage & Watson, 1979).
Keeping these problematic concepts in mind, the interview guide should consist of openended questions. According to Leech (2002), if at all possible questions should be phrased in the
manner of a grand tour question after Spradley (1979). These questions request the respondents to
verbally give a tour of something they are familiar with. For example, an unspecific “Could you
describe typical day at your school?”, or specific “Could you walk me through what you did yesterday
in school?”, or task related “Could you walk me through how you typically go about doing XY?”
Similarly, example questions ask respondents to give specific examples pertaining to their life world.
For example: “Can you give me an example of a time when something annoyed you about school?”
(Leech, 2002). Further it is important to prompt the respondents in order to keep respondents talking
and to clarify ambiguous statements (McCracken, 1988).
49
3.8. Subject selection
Interview respondents are to be chosen via an internet search query. As described in the theory
section, the specific type of bloggers, which published “recent empties” blog posts, were identified.
This selection of beauty bloggers is specifically relevant, because they are considered to belong to
the same consumer tribe and further contribute to the emerging “recent empties” phenomenon. The
search was therefore limited to such blogs that publish “recent empties” (in German “aufgebrauc ht”)
content. Further only German language blogs were considered. For purpose of generating rich data
from the interviews, these limitations were important, because firstly, the interviews needed to be
conducted in person and, secondly, the interviews needed to be conducted in the bloggers native
language.
Blogs were prioritized, that have a large audience and have been posting “recent empties”
entries for a relatively long time. Further attention in the sampling was paid to whether or not the
concerning blog authors have published about any cooperation with companies in the past (e.g.
product samples), or contain some sort of sponsored content including advertisement. From this, all
blogs that did not provide a contact address were not considered further, as well as those located
further than a maximum of 200 km from Munich, because it was not feasible in the scope of this
masters’ thesis for the researcher to travel a longer distance.
With all of these limitations in place, the total number of selected bloggers amounted to 47
bloggers. These bloggers were contacted via email. These initial request, yielded in one positive reply
and one negative reply which could be converted after offering a 20€ gift card to a drug store chain.
The approach was then altered by utilizing the researchers’ private network and social media
networks, which led to two additional respondents. The resulting selection of 4 bloggers were located
in Munich, Augsburg and Nuremberg. The interviews in Munich were conducted in an office
conference room, while the interviews in Augsburg and Nuremberg were conducted in the public
50
space of relatively quiet cafés. Consequently, the sample can only be characterized as a convenie nce
sampling.
Regarding the reliability of this study, it is important to note, that a differing selection of
beauty bloggers may vary in regards to their answers. As mentioned above, the respondents can only
attest to their personal life worlds. Similarly, the validity of the study would be greater, if the number
of respondents were larger. However, given that the purpose of the interviews is to demonstrate which
motive categories are relevant to beauty bloggers, it is questionable whether a different and larger
sample of higher validity and reliability would yield significantly different results. Further, using a
qualitative method can inherently not be representative.
3.9. Method of Analysis
The interviews were recorded using an audio recording device. The data in the form of audio
files was then prepared for analysis. In
close temporal distance to the interviews (typically
immediately afterwards), the audio files were coded using the categories of the framework depicted
in Table 1 and Table 3 in chapter 2 “Theory” as a basis for codes. In practice, the audio tapes were
listened to once to its entirety and then again in order to paraphrase relevant remarks about the
bloggers motivations. Whenever a relevant remark was made, it was paraphrased and written next to
the appropriate motive category. Further an accurate note was made of the time in the interview the
remark was made, or in other words a timestamp was added to each paraphrase. In order not to lose
relevant information not contained in the audio files, the resulting overviews for each interview was
enriched with notes and comments, which were made during the interview. These notes and
comments reflect impressions of the researcher. This is especially important for the photo diary
interview method employed, where interviewees, in some instances, point to specific areas on the
photos provided to e.g. emphasize a point, or refer to a particular occasion or situation.
51
This approach, in comparison to the verbatim transcription, holds several advantages and
drawbacks. The “live coding” approach enables the researcher to immediately gain an overview of
the topics (i.e. motive category) that were addressed in the interview. Further, the interviews ranged
from 50 minutes to 110 minutes. It was estimated that a verbatim transcription of one-hour intervie w
can produce data in the range of 10.000 words and over 30 pages of text (List, 2007). This amazing
effort while ensuring documentation in the case the audio files are lost, or damaged, in turn requires
the researcher to spend between 10 to 20 hours per interview transcribing the spoken word. In the
case of this study the semi structured interviewing method allowed for the respondents to address the
open questions in their own specific way, as they related to their own life world. This consequently
means, that a lot of the interviews are not related to the topic. This in effect makes a verbatim
transcription of the entire interview not time-effective. Further such “live coding” has been evaluated
to be a theoretically sound alternative to verbatim transcription, in the context of managing verbal
interview data from semi structured interviewees (Halcomb and Davidson, 2006).
The coding of the interviews was conducted by the researcher listening to the audio files and
making note of every statement, opinion, or thought relevant to the topic of the study that was
conveyed. The notes were categorized into the applicable motive category, only if any of the motive
categories was appropriate, otherwise it was noted in a comments section. Further a timestamp was
provided for every not for later reference. On the basis of these audio coded interviews, the analys is
focuses on capturing insights from the viewpoint of the interviewees, thus portraying the motivatio ns
for their blogging activities in the context of their personal life-worlds.
Based on the “audio coded” consensus in statements made by bloggers is identified
qualitatively. The statements, which in the opinion of the researcher best captured and reflected these
sentiments, are provided in the form of quotes transcribed from the raw audio files using the
timestamps intended for this purpose. Since the interviews were conducted in German the quotes are
52
provided in their original form and then translated into English. Special attention is paid to the
potential risk of inaccurately portraying the true meaning of the original sentiments. However, the
researcher, who conducted the interviews; also coded the interviews and subsequently transcribed
and translating the appropriate direct quotes. Thus, the translations are assumed to be accurate.
However, in a second step, the quotes and their translations were re-examined by a second person
with high bi-lingual proficiency in both English and German.
The framework is then ultimately tested against the consensus statements described above.
Further, motivation or insights not represented in the framework are also captured and discussed in
the following.
53
4. RESEARCH INSIGHTS
By employing the approach outlined in the previous chapter, the following analysis seeks to
validate the outlined conceptual framework. Given the open-ended questioning employed, the
interviewees were (intentionally) enabled to speak freely of their experiences, needs, and values. The
method employed necessitates that the interviews, in addition, covered topics not directly pertaining
to the framework for classifying bloggers’ motives. In other words, statements, opinions and thoughts
not applicable to the framework were noted in a general comments section, or subordinated into
existing categories, thereby enriching their explanatory power. This way, unique insights into the life worlds, which would otherwise be unattained, are illuminated.
The analysis chapter is structured as follows. First, the interviewees are introduced with a
short description. Due to the nature of the method the identity of the four interviewed bloggers is
anonymized in a basic manner, whereas descriptive attributes pertaining to their blogging activity are
outlined below using the pseudonyms Blogger A,B,C,D. Following this short description of the
respondents, the interviews are discussed in the structure provided by the framework. Hereby the
individual motive categories are matched with statements from the interviews in the case that they
are relevant to the discussed motive category. Since the interviews were semi-structured using the
photo-diary interview method, the resulting conversations are not supposed to be highly structured.
The step of codifying the conversations using the framework depicted in Table 1 and Table 2 then
structures the statements, thoughts and believes of the interviewees in a way that can be analyzed. In
this, the motives for beauty blogging were categorized into intrinsic, extrinsic internalized and
extrinsic motivation, as described in chapter 2 “Theory“.
54
4.1.
Introducing the interviewed bloggers
Blogger A is fulltime employed and blogs as a hobby, she spends about 8-10 hours weekly on
her blogging activities, which encompass fashion and lifestyle topics but focus on make-up and
beauty products. She has been an active blogger for 2 years. She uses several social media channels
for reaching her audience, with the most content being published in the form of YouTube videos and
to a lesser extent stand-alone Blogposts. The videos are filmed and produced by her. She mentio ned,
that in the back of her mind she is following her dream of becoming a television moderator and
journalist. Since she cannot afford to pay tuition for a television journalism program she sees
producing YouTube videos and writing blogposts as a kind of autodidactic substitute approach to
accomplish her dream.
Blogger B has a beauty blog with a rather large audience reach. She, however, sees her
blogging activity as a hobby and a kind of balance to her full time job. As such, blogging is her way
to express herself creatively. She has started her beauty blog over 5 years ago and spends between 510 hours per week working on content for it. The content focuses mainly on decorative cosmetics.
Blogger C was initially a hair and make-up stylist, who later retrained to work in the logistic s
industry. She started blogging about beauty products 3.5 years ago and focusses primarily on
decorative cosmetics. She sees blogging as her hobby, which helps her balance out her work-life. She
spends approximately 10-12 hours per week on blogging and stated, that she spends a lot of money
on her hobby. Her main channel is her traditional blog.
Blogger D is a fulltime student of medicine and blogs infrequently about beauty, fashion and
lifestyle topics. She sees her blogging activities as a leisurely past-time. As such, blogging is not of
great significance to her life-world and identity, especially when compared to the other intervie w
partners of this study. She began posting publicly about two years ago and spends an approximate of
55
one to two hours each week on blogging related activities. More than other respondents, she stressed
her consumption, i.e. reading and watching, of beauty and fashion related social media content.
4.2.
Intrinsic Motivation
As the intrinsic motive categories can by definition not be affected by the relationships with
others and thus unaffected by social-exchange theory, they are to be discussed separately from the
subdivision into the two relationships of recommender and influencer, this study primarily examines.
Intrinsic motivation was subdivided into the motive categories “Intrinsic Playful Task” and
“Curiosity”
4.2.1. Intrinsic Playful Task
Blogging is an intrinsic playful task primarily in the sense, that pleasure is derived from
gratifying the need to be creative and subsequently expressing oneself creatively. As such,
maintaining a beauty blog is an outlet for expressing oneself creatively, firstly in the sense of applying
make-up and combining different beauty products to achieve a favorable look, a desired color (e.g.
make-up) composition, or desired effect.
For Blogger C the attraction of working with make-up and beauty products caused her to train
as a hair stylist and make-up artist, a job that she left in order to go back to school and end up working
in a logistics company. For her, the topic of beauty and cosmetics is inherently interesting and she
derives enjoyment from it. When she was asked why she blogs about beauty she describes specifica lly
the topic itself as being significant to her life.
„Würden Frisöre und Kosmetiker mehr verdienen, würde ich das wahrscheinlich auch weiterhin
machen. Das ist halt irgendwas, was kein Beruf, sondern was auch was schon eine Berufung ist.“
„If hair stylists and make-up artists would earn more money, I would probably still do it. It is
something, that is not a job but that is maybe something like a calling.“
56
This level of identification engagement with the topic matter is likely to spur the pleasure
derived from busying oneself with beauty and care products. Moreover, as a channel for expressing
oneself creatively, beauty blogging extends beyond a mere product level. The possibilities and
possible emotional rewards of creatively involving oneself with the subject matter is reflected in an
emphasis of finding great combinations and new ways to apply make-up. In her interview, Blogger
B put it as follows:
„Ich schau mir Produkte an, aber mein Schwerpunkt war immer der kreative Umgang damit, und
deshalb zeige ich vor allem auch, was man damit machen kann, mit der Kosmetik. Also in welchen
Bereichen man das wie einsetzen, kombinieren und so weiter, kann. Und das ist auch etwas, das sich
immer, seit den Jahren jetzt schon, wie ein roter Faden durchzieht.“
“I do take a look at products, but my focus has always been working with them creatively. This is why
I mainly show, what you can do with cosmetics. I mean, in which areas [of the face] you can use
something and how you can use it, combine it and so on. And that is something, which for years, has
been a central theme.“
The composition of photographs, secondly, is a possible intrinsic playful task. Photographs of
products, but also of different looks, are an almost obligatory element of beauty blogs. Tightly
coupled with this, is the aspect of photography of being a creative outlet for the bloggers.
Accordingly, Blogger C stated:
“Man spielt ja gerne auch mit der Kamera, und schaut aus welchem Winkel sieht das Produkt
farbechter aus, auf den Fotos.“
“One likes to play with the camera, and try out, from which angle the product looks most colorfast
in the picture.”
Blogger D was prompted about what specifically she likes about taking pictures in the context
of her blogging activities to which she replied that it is a possibility for her to play with the aesthetic
components of given sceneries and further from combining elements she finds to be pretty to achieve
an aesthetically pleasing whole, in this instance a photograph:
„Der Sinn für Ästhetik finde ich irgendwie auch… ja der ist vielleicht auch ein Aspekt. […] Wenn
man zum Beispiel ein Foto macht, weil ich mache ja auch viel Fotografie, die ich jetzt nicht hochlade,
57
weil es ja nur Landschaftsbilder sind, da denke ich mir dann, das interessiert doch jetzt niemanden,
aber ich weiß nicht… wenn man gerade fotografiert, muss man halt schon gucken, wie man das Bild
so einteilt, dass es am Ende gut aussieht. Ja genau, also hier[zeigt auf Photo 1 1 ] ist's eher so, was
ich schön find, oder was cool aussah und dann sieht es halt zusammen gut aus.“
„A sense of aesthetics I think is somehow... yes that is probably also an aspect.[…] For example, if
you take a picture, because I do a lot of photography, that I don’t upload, because they are landscapes
and I think that that isn’t interesting for anyone, but I don’t know… when you take pictures you have
to take care to arrange the picture so that it looks good in the end. Yes exactly, you see here it is like
this [motions to Photo 16 ], things I find to be pretty, or something that looked cool and then it looks
good together.”
Many bloggers
use the medium of video to present their messages, looks, and product
reviews. This can occur as a supplement to blog posts in written form or independently. Producing
such videos and thereby writing a script in a sense, is a further way for a blogger to express oneself
creatively. In the case of Blogger A, she started out with producing and publishing videos and later
on decided to start a blog to publish written content. She described the producing videos as an
intrinsically enjoyable task, especially the journey from being without make up to the rewarding
feeling after putting it on. As such, the process itself is fun for her and even more so, when she is
filming herself doing it.
„Ich finde einfach den Unterschied zwischen un-fertig gemacht und fertig gemacht, ich finde das
einfach toll, mir macht das sehr viel Spaß, mich auch vor der Kamera zu schminken, das mag ich zum
Beispiel sehr gerne.“
„I just like the difference between being ‘un-done’ and being ‘done’, I just think it’s great. Also it’s
fun for me to put on make-up in front of the camera, that is something I really like to do.“
The activity of blogging seems to be so enjoyable in itself to the authors, that the interviewed
authors categorize it as a hobby, or an activity pursued for passing time, pleasure or relaxatio n
6
Photo 1, see Attachment 2 in Appendix
58
purposes. It is therefore considered to be, fifth, a hobby that offers a balance to their studies or work
lives. As such, they would depict it as a means to compensate or balance out their work life.
“Für mich war das damals einfach so ein bisschen der Ausgleich im Gegensatz zum Studium, was
eine ganz andere Richtung hat, ähm, einfach ein bisschen der Ausgleich“[…]
“Back then for me it was a little bit something like a balancing to contrast my studies, which is a
completely different subject matter, uhm,. just a little bit of a balance.”
On the subject of what her, blog means to her Blogger C goes so far as to portray it as a
separate world she steps into, in order to wind down and relax:
„dass ich den Mädels[Lesern] zeig, okay, diesen Lippenstift habe ich jetzt gekauft, aber zu Hause
habe ich noch den Lidschatten gefunden, der super zum Lippenstift passt, und schaut euch das an,
vielleicht gefällt‘s euch auch. So als Anregung praktisch, als Komplettlook praktisch. [Was gefällt
dir daran?] Das ist meine eigene Welt dann, ich setz‘ mich in meine eigene Ecke und ähm ja das ist
dann... ich schalt‘ komplett ab. Das ist wie bei meinem Mann zum Beispiel beim [Videospiele] zocken.
Bei mir ist es eben die Schminke.“
„that I show the girls [readers] okay, I bought this lipstick, but at home I also found this eye shadow,
which fits great with the lipstick, and look at it, maybe you also like it. As a kind of suggestion
basically, as a kind of entire look basically. [What do you like about doing this?] It’s my own world,
I sit down in my nook and uhm... I can totally unwind. It’s like with my husband for example and
playing [videogames]. But for me it’s simply make-up.“
The conceivable notion that bloggers would explicitly address an enjoyment from the creative
expression of writing a concise blogpost which reflects ones ideas, thoughts and feeling on a specific
topic, product, trends, etc. was, however, not reflected in the conducted interviews.
For the analysis of intrinsic motivation of bloggers, it is further important to consider the
bloggers’ autonomy in their actions. It was observable, that the authors value their autonomy in the
creation of content. This became clear, as Blogger B puts it when asked about, posts or content that
she doesn’t like to do as much as others:
„Sachen, die mir weniger Spaß machen, die mache ich nicht so oft.“
”Things, which aren’t as much fun for me, I don’t do as frequently.”
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This illustrates the importance bloggers put on being autonomous in their activities. Generally,
the bloggers are not easily moved to do tasks which were not to some extent intrinsically motivated.
Later, during the same interview, in the context of interactions with companies and receiving sample
products Blogger B stated:
“Unverbindlich ist mir grundsätzlich lieber, weil ich eben nicht als Hauptziel Geldverdienen hab[…]
ich würde auch keine sponsored posts annehmen, wo ich sage, damit kann ich nichts anfangen. Und
von dem her, wenn das was ist, was passt, und wenn man sich einigen kann, ist das auch vollkommen
okay, aber da schreibe ich auch immer mit dazu, dass ich das gewissenhaft teste und dass ich da
keine festen terminlichen Zusagen geben kann… mach‘ ich nicht“
„Without-obligations I like the best, this is also because my main goal is not to make money […] I
wouldn’t do sponsored posts for things, where I think they are not good. Therefore, if it’s something,
which is okay and we can agree, then it’s totally okay, but I always tell them that I test conscientiously
and that I can’t promise any fixed due dates... I won’t do that.”
This notion confirms the findings mentioned in the literature review, that the gratification of
the need for competence is impeded, when perceived autonomy is not affirmed. This, in turn, has a
negative effect on the intrinsic motivation of a person. Subsequently, a negative effect on a person’s
motivation is to be expected when she does not feel, that she can act autonomously in the face of
request and demands of companies. In this, the act of rejecting products, she cannot identify with,
and rejecting fixed due dates, can be understood as measures to increase her own autonomy.
4.2.2 Curiosity
For all interview partners, one aspect of blogging was, that it enables them to try out new
things, i.e. personal care and make-up products. This can be an effect of receiving product samples.
In talking about this, Blogger B referred to the screenshots of her blog posts she was presented with
one of her blog post about an especially extravagant eyeliner product:
„In dem Fall [zeigt auf Photo 22 ] mal was, dass aus dem Einheitsbrei herausgestochen ist, indem es
schönere Effekte hatte und einfach mal ein bissle ausgefallener war und deswegen meine
Aufmerksamkeit erregen konnte [Probierst du denn jetzt mehr Sachen aus oder weniger?] Ich würde
schon sagen mehr. Ich kaufe zwar nicht mehr, aber durch die Bemusterung probiert man mehr aus.“
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“In this case [motions at a Photo 27 ] that was something that stood out from the monotony, because
it has nicer effects and was just a little more extravagant, therefore it caught my attention [Do you
try out more or less products than before you started blogging?] I would say more. I don’t buy more
products, but because you get samples you just try more.”
In the case of Blogger B, she sees receiving interesting products, she can experiment with, as
a perk of her Blogging activities. However, she also implies, that a lot of the products she receives
are rather more of the same, so that, when something is specifically interesting or special, there is
more of an impetus to try it out and consequently blog about it. Nevertheless, this does not mean, that
beauty bloggers necessarily depend on product samples sent out by companies entirely.
When prompted about what exactly she particularly liked about her beauty blogging activitie s,
Blogger C replied:
“erstmal die neuen Produkte kennenzulernen, zu schauen, was man alles aus dem Produkt alles
rausziehen kann, weil ich habe gemerkt, dass es sehr große Unterschiede gibt, aber auch Parallelen.
Zum Beispiel, viele denken high end Produkte, also die hochpreisigen Marken, wie Chanel, Dior,
ne…, die wirklich sehr viel Geld kosten, die vergleiche ich gerne mit den Drogerieprodukten und das
fasziniert mich total, dass die Drogerieprodukte manchmal zu hundertprozentigen ‚dupes‘ werden,
also Kopien. […] Lippenstiftfarbe zum Beispiel, also egal ob ich mir einen Lippenstift für 30€ kaufe
oder… ab und zu stößt man in der Drogerie auf dieselbe Farbe, auf dieselbe Textur, fast schon auf
denselben Duft, und das kostet ein Zehntel nicht mal und das ist auch überall verfügbar, also in jedem
DM-Markt oder Rossmann oder Müller.“
“first of all getting to know new products and to find out all that you can get out of them. Because I
realized, that there are big differences and also parallels. As an example, many think that high end
products, like Chanel, Dior, right.., which really cost a lot of money... I like to compare them to
drugstore products, and this is totally fascinating to me, that drugstore products can sometimes be
hundred-percent ‘dupes’, that means duplicates […] For instance Lipstick color, it doesn’t matter,
whether I buy a lipstick for 30€ or… now and then in the drugstore you see the same color, the same
consistency and almost the same smell. And they don’t even cost a tenth and they are available
everywhere. In every DM-Markt or Rossmann or Müller.”
7
Photo 2, see attachment 3 in Appendix
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For her, it is evident, that curiosity plays a major role in her motivation for blogging. She
seems to especially enjoy investigating products in detail and going beneath the surface to gather
new, non-obvious information, which are also not addressed by brands in their marketing materia ls.
As such, comparing relatively cheap and expensive products to identify relevant advantages, or the
lack thereof, in several aesthetic categories is conducted to gratify her curiosity. Later, in the same
interview, when asked which kind of product she likes to review the best, she replies that she enjoys
those products the most, which allow her to find different combinations with things she already owns.
„Die Beiträge von den Produkten, die ich sehr vielseitig umsetzen kann. Meistens sind das
Lidschatten für die Augen, weil ich dann aus meiner Sammlung noch was dazu nehmen kann womit
ich das dann am besten selber kombinieren kann, vielleicht mal meinen Lesern einen Tipp geben
kann.“
„Posts about products that I can use versatilely. Mostly these are eye shadows, because I can then
take other things from my collection and combine them myself, maybe I can give my readers a tip in
doing this.“
From this statement, it is possible to conclude that the more versatile a product is, the more
combinations it allows for a blogger to try it out and combine it with others. This effort of combining
is principally driven by curiosity. Further, the product of her curiosity, the findings of how to
optimally combine different products to achieve certain effects, she wants to share with her audience.
Therefore, an altruistic motive comes to play, which is considered in detail below.
4.3. Internalized extrinsic motivation
Internalized
extrinsic motivation, in this conceptual framework, include such motive
categories, which are not intrinsic, as they require a relationship in order to gratify the underlying
needs. However, they are distinct from extrinsic motives as they are met with a higher inner
acceptance than e.g. compensation in the form of money.
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4.3.1. Altruism
The motive category of altruism encompasses all activities of bloggers to do something for
others, without expecting a reward in return. This is especially well exemplified in the case of Blogger
C. She possesses a wealth of knowledge, she obtained when training to be a make-up artist and hair
stylist. She started her own blog, when she found YouTube videos, which contained make-up tutoria ls
and reviews, and receive high numbers of views. A principal reason for this decision is, that she
wanted to pass on this knowledge to a less informed audience, which is evidently interested in such
help.
„Irgendwann habe ich mir gedacht, okay, eigentlich habe ich ja auch ein großes Potential an Wissen,
was ich noch aus meiner Berufsschule oder aus eigener Erfahrung habe… Ähm, ich schmink‘ mich
selber gerne und warum soll ich praktisch mein Wissen nicht mit anderen Mädels teilen? Und das
erlebe ich auch immer wieder in den Kommentaren, dass die mir auch danken für die Tipps, auch
wenn es für mich zum Beispiel... ja mittlerweile ist’s mir unbedeutend, oder selbstverständlich sind.“
“At some point I thought, okay, I actually have a lot of knowledge hidden away, that I acquired in
Beauty School or from my own experience… Uhm, I like to put on make-up, and why shouldn’t I share
my know-how with other girls? And that is something I get a lot in the comments, that they thank me
for the tips, even if for me for example... I mean it’s obvious for me by now.”
She optimizes the structure of the blog posts for her readers so she can explain her message
and educate them better. In this she describes how she attempts to maximize the educational efficac y
of her blog:
„Es ist einfach ordentlicher, man kann Sachen besser nachvollziehen [Die Leser jetzt, oder?] Ja, für
die Leser auch, für die Firmen. Ich meine, was würde es mir bringen, dieses Bild hier zum Beispiel
als erstes zu posten? [Für wen schreibst du die Artikel?] Ich denke mal für die Leser. Ja, weil für
mich macht es wenig Sinn, für die Firmen zu schreiben. […] Ich wollte, dass es darum geht, den
anderen mein Wissen weiterzugeben, dass es nicht verloren, nicht auf der Strecke bleibt. Ich habe
auch früher bei meinen Freundinnen gemerkt, dass die mir dankbar für die Tipps waren, die ich noch
aus der Ausbildung... Als Maskenbildnerin kennt man sich schon ein bisschen besser aus als ein
Normalo. Ja, das war dann auch einer der Hauptgründe, ne, wo ich gesagt hab‘ okay, ich mach
Fotos, ich zeig die Produkte, ich teste sie gerne, ich zeig, was man damit machen kann … ja das ist
um… meine Leser zu bilden [lacht]“
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„It is simply more tidy, it is more comprehensible [For the readers?] Yes for the readers, for the
companies. I mean what good would it do to put this picture first? [Who do you write the articles
for?] I guess the readers. Yes, because it makes little sense for me to write for the companies. […] I
wanted it to be about sharing my knowledge, so it isn’t lost, fallen by the wayside. Back then I realized
that my girlfriends were thankful for the tips I gave them, which from my training... As a make-up
artist you know a little bit more than a normal person. Yes that was one of the main reasons, right,
where I said, okay, I take pictures, I show the products, I like to test them, I can show what you can
do with them… yeah, that is for… educating my readers [laughs].“
4.3.2. Make Friends
The need for affiliation is the primary driver in this motive category. Building relations hip s
for the purpose of exchanging ideas and discussions with likeminded individuals, who share similar
consumption values, is the basic premise of so called consumer tribes. A longing to be included in
such a consumer tribe and to be involved in the online discourse about beauty products in this context,
is an important driver for finding people. Such making of friends online, where relationships are borne
out of shared interests, in this case personal care and beauty products and related to this all aspects of
their consumption, is especially applicable for beauty bloggers. In many cases, the publishing content
about this via a blog, is a means to connect to an entire virtual world of discussion on a topic
particularly interesting to the bloggers. To that point Blogger B stated:
“Ich hatte auch dieses Interesse in Richtung Kosmetik, nur niemand, den das auch interessiert hätte
und dann durch Googlen und Forschen im Internet kommt man darauf, es gibt da Leute, die
unterhalten sich auf diesem Wege und dann habe ich das damals angefangen. […] es [sind] ganz
viele persönliche Verknüpfungen mit Menschen, die man kennenlernt, wo sich Kontakte ergeben, wo
man sich immer wieder gerne trifft, sich austauscht und da Freundschaften entstanden sind”
“I had this interest in the area of cosmetics and had nobody, who was also interested in that and then
by googleing and researching on the internet you get it. There are people, who have discussions this
way and that’s when I started. […] there [are] very many personal connections with people that you
get to know, where connections are made, where you meet up time and again, to exchange ideas and
where friendships were made.“
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This notion, that finding friends online is an important motivation for blogging, was confirmed
by Blogger C. She describes building relationships, which are developed to an extent that they involve
daily communication on several channels with her “online friends” as she calls them.
“Ich hab dadurch auch sehr viele, ja, Freunde, ich weiß nicht, ob man dazu Freunde sagen darf, also
schon, Onlinefreunde sage ich mal, dazu gewonnen. Ja, das sind Mädels, mit denen ich auch
weiterhin privat fast tagtäglich schreibe. [Über] Whatsapp, Emails, was auch immer und die ich dann
auch privat treffe.”
“I have made a lot of friends, well, I don’t know if should call it friends, but yeah, online friends
through it. Yes, those are girls that I privately write with almost on a day to day basis. [Through]
Whatsapp, email, whatsoever, and I also meet them privately in person.“
4.3.3. Accomplishment
A contribution to the public discourse online holds various challenges in general. The
interviewed bloggers are partaking and contributing to their section of the blogosphere. In doing this,
the overcoming of challenges specific to this field, are met with a rewarding feeling of
accomplishment. The need for accomplishment is gratified by bloggers in different ways, however,
taking on rather large challenges and mastering them seems to be a common motivator for the
interviewed bloggers. When asked about what kind of content she is most proud of, Blogger A
mentioned fashion videos, which she creates to a lesser extent than other forms of content. They are
particular, as they require much more work than anything else she posts online.
“die Fashionvideos, weil die am meisten Arbeit machen, die kosten richtig Arbeit und richtig Zeit
[…] da hab ich mich in der Kälte auch schon umgezogen oder in der Hitze, hab da geschwitzt oder
gefroren wie Sau […] das sind wirklich die aufwändigsten Videos, und die aber auch am meisten
Spaß machen.”
“the fashion video, because they are the most labor intensive, they really take work and really take
time […] for those I had to change in the cold, or in the heat, for those I did sweat or freeze like hell
[…] those are really the most time-consuming videos, but they are the ones that are the most fun to
do.“
A feeling of accomplishment also arises in the relationship with companies. Here, extra care
and effort goes into presenting an exhaustive and just verdict on the products evaluated. This is
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influenced by a feeling that the company may also be reading the blog posts. This is seen as an
additional reason to put in extra effort.
“Wenn ich zuhause einen Testbericht schreibe, dann schicke ich auch immer den Link an die
Firma […] Ich versuche auch immer, wenn mir etwas nicht gefällt… , dann muss es auch begründet
sein. Das versuche ich dann auch in Fotos festzuhalten. Was ich nicht belegen kann, lass‘ ich. […]
Und die Firmen sehen auch die Beiträge. [Bekommst du denn auch Feedback von den Firmen?] Ja,
definitiv. Und die schreiben auch, dass das an die Produk... ähh Entwicklungsabteilung
weitergegeben wird.“
“When I write a review at home, I always send a link to the company […] And I always try to, if I
don’t like something…, then it has to be backed up. I try to capture it in photos. What I can’t prove I
don’t do […] And the companies see the posts. [Do you receive feedback from the companies?] Yes,
definitely. And they also write that they pass it on to the the produc... uhh research and development
department.”
Her frustration with other bloggers’ lackluster product reviews conversely motivates her even
more to do better. Blogger C describes how she is especially concerned with giving an extensive
review, containing lots of picture documentation, to prove her individual points, because she feels
obliged to achieve a high level of certainty in order to judge a product appropriately. In other words,
she invests a lot of effort in order to accomplish a test result that can and should be taken seriously.
“Ich möchte, dass meine Behauptungen auch begründet sind. […] Egal ob positiv oder
negativ, ich versuche schon immer das auch bildlich zu belegen. […]Mich nervt nichts mehr bei den
anderen Bloggern wie wenn die einfach mal eine Flasche posten. Paar Wörter dazuschreiben und
das war’s dann auch.“
“I want my claims to be substantiated. […] Doesn’t matter if positive or negative, I always
try to prove it with pictures. […] Nothing annoys me more about other bloggers, than when they just
post a bottle. Write a couple of words to that and then that’s it.”
4.3.4. Skill Development
The development of skills as a motive category, is to be understood as the urge of a blogger
to become better at their craft, which includes improving on their performance of writing more
effectively, enhancing the design of their website or post structure and becoming better photographers
66
or improving on their video making skills. As such, when confronted with a screenshot of one of her
earliest videos as part of the photo diary method of the interview Blogger A stated:
“Wenn ich das schon wieder sehe, denke ich mir, oh Gott, was hast du da schon wieder
gemacht.[lacht] Wie kann man denn nur die Kamera gegen das Licht stellen zum Beispiel […] und
wie ich da geredet hab, da war ja meine Stimme noch… ich hab mir dann ja auch wirklich Mühe
gegeben, dass ich da nicht so oft ‚ähh‘ und ‚ähm‘ und ‚und‘ und ..diese ganzen Satzfüller dass ich
die wirklich dann auch weglasse, dass ich wirklich mein Gesicht nicht so verkrampf‘… ja, also ich
hab‘ da schon dazugelernt.“
“When I see that again I am thinking oh god, what did you do there.[laughs]. For example why would
anyone place the camera opposite to the light […] and the way I talked, my voice was still…since
then I started really paying attention, that I don’t use ‘uhm’ and ‘ahm’ and ‘and’ so often…all these
filler words, that I leave them out, that I relax my face… yes, I mean I have learned.”
Blogger A is the only respondent that emphasized her blogging activities as a means to
develop skills particular to her desired career plans. In her particular case she sees blogging and
particularly video blogging as a way to self-teach her the skills required for her dream job of being a
TV journalist.
“Ich wollte schon immer in die Moderatoren-, Schauspielrichtung gehen und das ist natürlich ein
sehr sehr teurer Berufswunsch […] und man braucht natürlich auch Connections. Ich habe weder
das Geld dazu, noch die Connections. Und deswegen habe ich so dieses Ersatzding, im Bloggen dann
gesucht. […] Aber es hat mir einfach superviel Spaß gemacht. Und einfach dieser, dieser Ersatz
zwischen meinem Berufswunsch.”
“I always wanted to go into the direction of moderation or acting, and that is of course a very very
expensive career wish […] and of course you also need connections. I have neither the money nor
the connections. That’s why I looked for a substitute-thing in blogging […] But it just was so much
fun to for me to do. And this, this substitute to my career wish.”
Similarly, when Blogger B looked back on her development, she emphasized that skills she
never thought she needed are now in her repertoire, such as HTML knowledge that she had to acquire,
in order to enhance her website. Although she pointed out that she had a background in art,
photography and becoming skilled at photography is something that is directly caused by her
maintaining a beauty blog and trying to become better at it.
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“Und natürlich hat sich das Ganze auch entwickelt aus technischer Sicht. Zum Beispiel hatte ich
vorher überhaupt keine Ahnung von HTML und solchen Geschichten und jetzt kann ich da das, was
meinen Blog betrifft, und was die Fotosachen betrifft, das hat sich alles natürlich auch
weiterentwickelt.“
“And of course the whole thing also developed on a technical level. I had previous to this absolutely
no clue about HTML and things like that and now I can do the things that are relevant to my blog.
And about the photo things, that of course also developed.“
In the interviews no statements were made in regarding skill development in the relations hip
with companies and thus in the role of being an influencer.
4.3.5. Recognition, Visibility
Recognition in this is a motivation, that is clearly self-evident to the interviewed bloggers.
This was apparent from bloggers, stating that they value and enjoy audience feedback, where readers
talk about how they followed a product recommendation. Blogger A proudly mentioned that she is in
this regarded as especially trustworthy by her audience.
“Mir schreiben auch viele [Leser], die sagen, wenn du das empfiehlst, dann glaube ich dir das, weil
du eben ganz, ganz ehrlich bist.”
“A lot of [readers] write to me, who say, if you recommend this, then I believe you, because you are
so honest.“
Moreover, some bloggers made clear, that they feel as experts on decorative cosmetics and,
upon publishing related content, desire to be recognized as such. They feel especially rewarded, if
their recommendations are praised by their readers and peers.
“Viele sind überzeugt und rennen los und kaufen’s. Und, ähm, ich hab einige Leser, die immer wieder
schreiben, dass sie erstmal bei mir gucken, bevor sie was kaufen. Zum Beispiel auch eine
Bloggerin[…] schreibt sie mir, okay, ich wollte das und das kaufen, dann bin ich gleich auf deinen
Blog, um zu gucken, was du dazu sagst. Und dann denke ich mir ‚cool‘ und dann werde ich rot
[lacht].”
“Many are convinced and run off to buy it. And, uhm, I have some readers, who write to me again
and again, that they check my blog before they buy something. Also, for example, there is a blogger
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[…] writes to me, okay, I wanted to buy this thing, then I went to your blog to see, what you wrote
about it. And then am thinking, ‘cool’ and then I blush [laughs].”
The coinciding need for visibility seemingly influences the published content. The underlying
way of thinking for bloggers, is to find content that is interesting to their audience and hence increase
a blogs’ visibility. An evaluation of what kind of content is interesting, is done in two ways. Firstly,
direct feedback via basic social media analytics. An illustration of this is the answer of Blogger A,
when asked about the development of her content. In this, she was presented with a selection of
screengrabs from a selection of her videos in the context of the photo diary method. She then
described the reason for why she predominantly likes to post “recent empties” videos:
“‘Aufgebraucht‘ Videos, das mach ich sehr gerne, ich schau die auch sehr gerne. Man sieht auch an
den Klickzahlen, das sind eigentlich relativ gut geklickte Videos auch. Gerade das hier [zeigt auf
Photo 33 ], das neueste halt. …weil die Leute einfach sehen möchten, was brauchen diese Leute da im
Internet auf, was benutzen die für Produkte und wie finden sie diese Produkte. Da bewerte ich die ja
auch, und sag, okay, das würde ich nochmal kaufen, nein, das würde ich nicht mehr kaufen, weil ich
es einfach nicht gut fand oder wie auch immer.”
“’Recent Empties’ videos, I like to do them. I like to watch them as well. You can see from the clicks
they get, that they are also relatively well clicked videos. Especially this one here [points at Photo
38 ], the newest one. …because people want to see, what these people on the internet use up, which
products do they use, what they think of those products. Here I evaluate them too and say, okay I
would buy it again, no I wouldn’t buy this again, because I simply didn’t like it or something like
that.”
Secondly, content is influenced, because blog authors develop a feeling, close to implic it
knowledge, for what their audience likes to read. This is a noteworthy point, because beauty blogs as
internet pages are by nature freely available to anyone with a computer and do not compete for the
rare goods of broadcasting frequencies or shelf space. However, they seemingly do participate in
competing for the rare good of attention of a specific target audience. The development of such a
8
Photo 3, see Attachment 4 in Appendix
69
feeling or in other words the tacit knowledge of what a beauty blog’s audience likes to read is
described by Blogger B:
“Am Anfang war es viel mehr für sich selber und das wurde dann immer mehr für andere Leute, die
es [Beautythemen] überhaupt interessiert hat. Andere Blogger, Leser, Leute die einen auf
verschiedenen [Social Media] Kanälen verfolgen. Dann ging es auch ein bisschen dazu hin, dass man
sagt, okay, das interessiert die Leute und deswegen schreibe ich darüber und nicht mehr nur, das
interessiert jetzt nur mich. Wobei ich immer noch sag…hmm, muss mich schon interessieren.“
“In the beginning it was more for myself and then it changed more and more to for other people, who
are at least somewhat interested [in beauty topics]. Other bloggers, readers, people who follow you
on different [Social Media] channels. Then it started to go in the direction that you’d say okay this is
interesting for the people and therefore I write about it and not just, this is interesting only to me.
Although I still say…hmm, it has to be interesting to me.
Here, she explicitly goes into the goals behind developing such knowledge, as she concludes,
that her reasoning behind publishing content, that targets her existing audience’s interests better for
the purpose of becoming more attractive to the audience and as a point of differentiation from other
blogs, that compete for the attention of the same target audience.
“Das man so ein bisschen ein Bewusstsein dafür entwickelt, was jemand lesen möchte oder was die
eigene Leserschaft auch lesen möchte[…] Ja, da sind verschiedene Sparten, verschiedene Rubriken
dazugekommen, weil man sich Gedanken gemacht hat, wie man bestimmte Sachen einbinden kann,
…verknüpfen kann. Wie man das attraktiver gestalten kann. Wie man sich auch von anderen Blogs
abheben kann.“
“That you develop an awareness for what somebody wants to read, or what the audience wants to
read […] Yes, so different areas, different sections were added, because one thought about how one
can integrate certain things …connect them. How one can make it more attractive. How one can
differentiate from other blogs”
Recognition as well as visibility are major motives in the relationship to companies. In this,
being noticed and approached by a company is described as a rewarding feeling. This form of
acknowledgement is valued as a positive reinforcement of the bloggers activities. When Blogger A
is asked to describe how she experiences a company approaching her, she remarks, that being
acknowledged in itself motivates her, although she is aware, that she is only one of a large group of
bloggers, who are approached at the same time by a company:
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“Das ist für mich immer ein Kompliment, weil ich mir denke okay, hmm… ich mein, da wird immer
die breite Masse angeschrieben. Die schreiben nie nur mich an. Also das… dessen bin ich mir schon
bewusst... dass ich jetzt nicht so denke ‚ yeeay, ich bin jetzt hier die einzige‘. Ne, aber mich freut das
[…] Die müssen ja tatsächlich irgendwas gut gefunden haben und das motiviert dann schon. Das ist
schon schön.”
“That is always a compliment for me, because I think, okay, hmm… I mean, with those thing
they write to a mass [of bloggers]. They never write only to me. I mean… I am aware of that… that I
don’t think, ‘yeeay, I am the only one’. No, but it is nice[…] They must have actually liked something
and that motivates me. That is nice.”
Moreover, as a different kind of interaction, all of the interviewed bloggers were keen to be
invited to so-called blogger events. These events can be regularly occurring or as part of a product
launch. It is not uncommon for some companies to invite bloggers to such events publicly or via a
mailing list. It is somewhat clandestine what the criteria are to become part of certain companies
mailing lists. However if invited the companies cover travel and lodge and offer a program. Talking
about such events Blogger A stated that:
„Die geben sich ja immer wirklich sehr viel Mühe, diese Firmen, bei solchen Events. […] Klar, wir
sind ihre Werbung sozusagen, aber da steckt auch immer sehr, sehr viel Mühe dahinter und man
bekommt nicht mhh das Gefühl, dass man irgendwie ein günstiges Werbemittel ist, wirklich gar
nicht.“
“They always really put in such an effort for such events, these companies. […] Sure, we are their
advertisement so to say, but there is also always so, so much effort behind it and you don’t get the
mhh feeling, that you are some cheap advertising medium, really not at all.“
As is evident from this comment, this heightened sense of validation is achieved by companies
inviting bloggers to their events. Further, at these event the bloggers freely give input and feedback
on their wishes and how they think products should be advanced. This kind of willingness to engage
in co-creation activities was echoed by all the respondents.
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4.4. Extrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic motivation is in the context of the study contingent on compensation, which can only
occur in the relationship with companies, as bloggers typically do not gain any pecuniary rewards
from their audience. Indirect rewards, such as from advertising, are explicitly not considered, as they
do not originate directly from the audience.
4.4.1. Compensation
The topic of compensation is prevalent in the considerations of bloggers. Compensation from
companies in any form is, especially for smaller blogs, regarded as a form of appreciation. By
receiving product samples or pecuniary advantages, they feel valuated.
It is to mention at this point that all of the interviewed bloggers receive product samples. At
least three receive sample products on a regular basis. Nevertheless, a major concern of bloggers is
to lose authenticity and status of trustworthiness in the eyes of their audience. Pronounced similarities
were discovered in the way the bloggers addressed this topic. For sample products the bloggers stated
that they would not review a product positively, if they really did not like it. Blogger A describes,
that she reviews products, which she does not purchase herself more critically than others.
“Gerade mit zugeschickten Sachen bin ich noch kritischer als wenn ich es mir selber gekauft habe
[…] Das schätzen aber auch meine Zuschauer. Die vertrauen mir dann auch, wenn ich dann sag, ich
finde das gut, dann sagen auch ganz viele, okay, wenn du das sagst, dann kaufe ich dir das nach, weil
du bist schon so hart mit anderen Produkten ins Gericht gegangen, ne. Das ist genau das, worauf ich
persönlich auch hinaus will, also ich möchte gerne ernstgenommen werden und authentisch wirken.”
“Especially with sent [sample] items, I am even more strict, than when I buy my own. […] But my
viewers appreciate that. They also trust me, when I say, I like something. A lot say, okay, if you say
that, then I will buy it too, because you have been so hard on other products, right. That is exactly,
what I want to get to personally, I mean I want to be taken seriously and appear trustworthy.“
However, products, that would receive a negative review, are in many cases not reviewed in
blog posts at all. This is often the case if sample products are sent to a blogger without any other
72
interaction with the company. Moreover, a direct conflict between the need for autonomy and possible
commitments for the rewards in form of compensation arises frequently. In this context, Blogger B
replied to the question of whether she sometime has the feeling that she is obliged to write certain
posts:
Ne, weil ich das dann eigentlich ausklammer‘. Also, am Anfang war es sicherlich so, als das losging
mit der Bemusterung, dass ich das Gefühl hatte: Oh, da muss ich ja irgendwas drüber schreiben. Das
lag mir das schon ein bisschen im Magen […] aber das legt man dann irgendwann ab […] Ich
verdien‘ da nicht so viel Geld damit, dass ich Sachen machen muss und deswegen mache ich nur die
Sachen, die mir Spaß machen.“
No, I usually do don’t write those. I mean, in the beginning it was like that, when I started to receive
samples, that I had the feeling: ‘Oh, I have to write something about this.’ That was weighing on me
a little […] but that is something you leave behind at some point.[…] I don’t make so much money
with this, that I would have to do things, and therefore I only do those things that are fun for me.“
Further, to address a possible conflict of interest between receiving a form of compensatio n
and their trustworthiness, some bloggers use a strategy of transparency. As such, information about
where tested products come from and whether or not they purchased them with their own money,
were named. Blogger B describes a reoccurring graphic element she uses under every blogpost, which
is supposed to keep the readers informed. In doing this, she was met with positive feedback from her
readers.
“Das ist mir immer ganz wichtig, dass ich da immer transparent bleib‘. Ich mag da kein Gemauschel
haben. […] Ja, das ist auch etwas, um zu zeigen, ja, ich bin ehrlich und authentisch und man kann
der Meinung dann auch vertrauen, dann kommen die Leser auch wieder und interessieren sich
weiterhin für den Inhalt.[…] Als ich den [Transparenzbanner] eingeführt hab, gab‘s dazu Feedback,
dass das ne super Sache is‘.”
„It is always very important for me, that I always stay transparent. I don’t like to have any murmurs.
[…] Yes, that is also something to show, yes, I am honest and authentic and you can trust that opinion,
also then the readers will come back and stay interested in the content.[…] When I implemented it
[the transparency banner], there was feedback, that it is a great thing.“
Keeping up this status of trustworthiness is a factor for retaining the audience in the opinion
of the bloggers. This is not to say that the bloggers do not, possibly inadvertently, help companies
73
exploit that trust. For example when bloggers are staying relatively true to the original branding
messages which are coupled with products and replicate that message almost verbatim. Moreover
when asked about other bloggers motivations in multiple interviews it was mentioned that receiving
sample products and earning money is a major motivation for them. As Blogger D mentioned:
“Also, wenn ich das immer seh’… dann denkst du dir ja immer schon, das ist jetzt unterstützt
durch Produktplatzierung.”
“So, I always see that… then you’d always think- that it is supported by product placement.“
There are recent examples of especially video bloggers in the beauty sector, who earn millio ns
of euros through affiliate marketing and sponsoring deals. In contrast to this none of the interviewees
earned a lot of money from their blogging activities. This may be explained by their audience size.
None of the interviewed bloggers reach more than 5000 readers. It is within the scope of this study
not possible to rule out that authors of larger blogs have greater incentive to focus on compensatio n
than the interviewed, being that their reach enables them to earn considerably larger amounts money.
74
5. CONCLUSION
5.1. Insights and Implications for Research and Practice
Beauty
blogs increasingly
gain
importance
as a source for consumers,
to find
recommendations about a broad range of products from sources they deem trustworthy. At the same
time, companies and brands are focusing more and more marketing activities on utilizing this still
emerging medium for communicating to their customers. At the center of this interplay of motives
are the beauty bloggers. Why bloggers take on a considerable effort of publishing large amounts of
online content, thereby incidentally fulfilling these requirements, remains, to a large extent unclear.
Consequently, the focal point of this study is to identify relevant motives for bloggers to get involved
and maintain relationships with readers in the role of recommenders and with companies in the role
of influencers.
In order to address this question, in a first step, a conceptual framework was construed on the
basis of a literature review. For this, the relationships of bloggers to their audience and companies
were outlined using social exchange theory (see Figure 3). From there on, by leaning on need based
motivation, motive categories, which theoretically apply to the life worlds of bloggers, were deduced.
Broadly, these motive categories can be subdivided, in that they contain intrinsic, internalized
extrinsic, and extrinsic motives. The framework is depicted in Table 1 and Table 2. The qualitative
photo diary interview method was, in a second step, used to contrast the theoretical framework with
the reality, as perceived by bloggers. This qualitative interview method is particularly well suited for
this study, because the theoretical framework needed to be grounded in the bloggers reality. By
employing the photo diary interview method in this it was possible to utilize use of the format of
blogs itself.
75
In conclusion, this study finds the framework to be robust on a qualitative level, as it reflects
the major motives of beauty bloggers to engage and maintain the relationships with audience and
companies.
On a qualitative level, thorough consensus was found on the importance of intrins ic
motivation and the internalized extrinsic motivation of being recognized. However, an individ ua l
bloggers’ motivation is inherently idiosyncratic. Nevertheless, in practice, the framework is useful
for categorizing bloggers by their most eminent motives. Consequently, it is possible to target
marketing efforts on specifically motivated types of bloggers (e.g. blogger personas), thus allowing
for a more sophisticated approach, which is likely to result in more effective use of bloggers roles as
influencers.
Further, the analysis of the interviews revealed several useful qualitative insights. It was
anticipated, that the bloggers are not consciously aware of the entirety of their motivations, nor that
they think of them in such categorization. However, as the analysis of the interviews shows, all of the
construed motive categories possess explanatory power, when applied to the life world of beauty
bloggers. Although this finding is yet to be quantified, some motive categories were discussed in both
greater length and depth by the interviewees and are assumed to be more relevant than others.
As such, intrinsic motivation is a highly important driver for the interviewed bloggers. From
the analysis, it is apparent, that they would neither have started, nor maintained their time-consuming
blogging activities, approximately averaging 8-10 hours per week, if they did not perceive blogging
about beauty and personal care topics as an intrinsic playful task and, to a lesser extent, as a means
to satisfy their curiosity.
Regarding extrinsic internalized motive categories, the respondents’ overall emphasis was
noticeably on their role as a recommender in their relationship with their readers. Especially in the
76
motive categories of Make friends, Accomplishment, and Skill development, little to no consideratio n
on the side of the blog authors is put on their role as influencers, in the relationship with companies.
A likely explanation for this is that their own motivations pertaining to these categories are less selfevident to the bloggers than others. In contrast, ample differentiation between those two roles
pertaining to the relatively obvious motive category Recognition, Visibility are reflected in the
statements of the bloggers. The differentiation here is more tangible due to the different nature of
interaction with audience and companies.
Compensation as an impulse of extrinsic motivation occurs for the considered bloggers
predominantly in the form of sample products and to a lesser extent in the form of sponsored content.
The receiving
of sample products was unanimously
regarded positively
as a form of
acknowledgement. However, it is more important for the bloggers to be perceived as trustworthy by
their audience. Widespread use of self-disclosure tactics, in order to form a deeper bond to and retain
their audience, confirms this notion. Moreover, in all forms of cooperation with companies, it is
valued as important to retain a high level of perceived autonomy and perceived integrity. This finding
is surprising in the face of the abundance of affiliate marketing links and sample products, which can
be found throughout the general population of beauty blogs.
The herein arising conflict of interest of receiving pecuniary advantages and, for a lack of a
better word, journalistic integrity is not necessarily obvious to the bloggers. On the basis of the
analysis, this can be explained in three ways. First, it is possible, that the bloggers do not perceive
this dynamic as a conflict of interest, because they are not aware of the influence they possess on their
audience. Second, bloggers are unaware of the effect that cost free sample products may have on their
judgement. Third, in some cases, posts include remarks, signifying if the post contains e.g. sample
products or affiliate links. This is perceived as a measure of transparency and yields in positive
feedback from the readers. However, this oftentimes formulated mechanism may cause the same
77
problems associated with native advertising in journalistic online media outlets. Sample products, in
this circumstance, can be regarded as a pecuniary advantage, as none of the interviewed bloggers are
in a position to earn considerable amounts of money from affiliate marketing or sponsored content.
5.2. Outlook
The provided conceptual framework is based on the widely published social exchange theory
and the need based motivation theory. Because it was found to reflect the relevant motivatio na l
dimensions of beauty bloggers accurately, it effectively offers a substantiated foundation for future
analytical work examining their motivations. As such, quantitative research may provide insight into
relative importance of specific motives and tradeoffs between different motive categories.
The conflicting relationship of companies to influence consumers and beauty bloggers to be
a trustworthy source of information for their audience poses several interesting questions regarding
the company-blogger relationship: Is there a tradeoff between blog size and the impact of extrins ic
motivation on the one, and intrinsic motivation on the other hand? Should companies spend more
resources convincing bloggers to review their products? What are the condiciones sine quibus non
for bloggers to engage in relationships with companies?
Additionally, it is likely that the framework possesses explanatory power when analyzing
motivations of bloggers that are active in other topics areas. Hereby, topic specific characteristics
need to be accounted for.
5.3. Limitations
This thesis study must be interpreted within the limitations imposed by the research design
and the scope of a master’s thesis study in general. Clearly, more research is needed to test reliability
and proof validity of the framework in a quantitative fashion. However, the qualitative nature of the
method was aimed at capturing data in the context of the respondents’ reality, which in turn restricts
78
the generalizability of the results. Further limitations on the validity of results are caused by the
limited number of interviews, which were possible to be conducted. Bloggers relationships to their
peers as well as the dynamic between bloggers and advertising were not considered.
79
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techniques. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Zimmerman, D. H., & Wieder, D. L. (1977). The diary: Diary-interview method. Urban Life, 5(4).
87
7. APPENDIX
Attachment 1 - Interview Guide – Photo diary interview method
Generelle Motivation
Erinnere dich doch bitte zurück an diesen Post, beschreib doch mal, wie du typischerweise an so
etwas herangehst?
1. Was hat dich zum Beautybloggen gebracht? (Warum schreibst du einen Beautyblog?)
2. Seit wann schreibst du deinen Blogs?
3. Beschreibe doch mal, wie sich dein Blog und dein Stil zu schreiben verändert hat.
a. Wie haben sich Inhalte entwickelt?
b. Gab es bestimmte Meilensteine bspw. Eine bestimmte Anzahl von Lesern, die deine
Einstellung zum Bloggen verändert haben? (Weiterentwicklung)
c. Wie beurteilst du deine persönliche Entwicklung (deiner Fähigkeiten) als Bloggerin?
(achievement & competence)
4. Was denkst du bringt persönlich das Schreiben des Blogs?
a. Wie viel Zeit Verbringst du mit dem Schreiben von Beiträgen für deinen Beauty Blog?
Fragen zum Phänomen „aufgebraucht“
1. Erzähl doch mal, wie du typischerweise vorgehst, wenn du einen „Aufgebraucht“ Blog Post
schreibst.
a. Gibt es eine Bestimmte Struktur, die du verfolgst?
b. Wie bist du auf diese Struktur gekommen?
c. Hat diese Struktur einen bestimmten Grund?
2. Wie bewertest du das Phänomen „aufgebraucht“?
a. Warum glaubst du dass, so viele Beauty Blogger „aufgebraucht“ Beiträge auf ihren
Blogs veröffentlichen?
Anstoss: Autonomie
Gibt es Blog Posts, die du nicht aus eigenem Antrieb schreibst, sondern, weil du denkst, dass du sie
schreiben musst?
Erzähl doch mal von solchen Beiträgen. Wie gehst du typischerweise an solche Beiträge heran?
Anstoss: self-disclosure
Wenn du so, wie in Beitrag XY Informationen über dich selbst preisgibst, was ist deiner Meinung
nach der Zweck?
Mir ist aufgefallen, dass du häufig persönliche Erfahrungswerte beschreibst, hängt das mit deinem
Schreibstil zusammen?
88
Beziehungen zu Lesern
1. Beschreibe doch mal deine Beziehung zu deinen Lesern!
a. Feedback
b. Wie intensiv ist die Beziehung zu deinen Lesern?
2. Was glaubst du, welche Wirkung hat das, was du schreibst auf deine Leser?
3. Inwiefern bekommst du mit, ob Leser Produkte kaufen, die du empfiehlst?
a. Interessiert dich das?
b. Beschreibe doch mal, wie so ein Feedback aussieht!
4. Warum glaubst du empfiehlst du deinen Lesern Produkte?
Beziehung zu Firmen
1. Warum glaubst du möchten Firmen generell mit Bloggern zusammenarbeiten?
2. Haben Firmen sich schon mal in irgendeiner Form bei dir gemeldet um mit dir
zusammenzuarbeiten?
a. Erzähl doch mal von deinen Erfahrungen mit Firmen, die mit die Zusammenarbeiten
wollten.
3. Wie findest du Bloggerevents, die von (Kosmetik-) Firmen veranstaltet werden?
a. Hast du schon mal an so etwas Teilgenommen?
4. Welchen Einfluss haben Firmen auf Beautyblogger?
a. Direkte Kompensation?
5. Wie glaubst du wirken sich Zuwendungen von Firmen auf Blogs aus?
a. Glaubwürdigkeit
b. Art der Beiträge
6. Gab es zu so etwas schon mal Feedback von Lesern?
Möchtest du zum Abschluss vielleicht noch etwas hinzufügen?
Gibt es vielleicht befreundete oder bekannte Blogger, von denen du glaubst, dass sie daran interessier t
wären ein Interview zu führen.
89
Attachment 2 – Photo 1
Photo 1 – Exemplary photograph as provided by Blogger D
Photo 2 – Exemplary photograph as provided by Blogger B
90
Photo 3 – Exemplary photograph as provided by Blogger A
91

Copenhagen Business School 2015 Why do beauty bloggers

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