Evaluation of social media influence marketing with neuroscience in creating brand awareness

Social media has become one of the most popular buzzwords in marketing today. It is hard to imagine the effectiveness of a business's promotional mix without social media. Social media has become a mandatory marketing strategy rather than an arbitrary element of the marketing mix. It is both cheap and easy for businesses to use social media to actively maintain their online presence in digital environments. Social media sites connect different types of individuals and businesses for different purposes. These platforms are growing at an exponential rate across the globe, and this trend is only set to increase. Instagram, one of the social media platforms, is widely used by both individuals and businesses as it offers the opportunity to share photos and video. Instagram is one of the most used platforms by influencers. The fact that Instagram is visual-oriented and enables easy sharing of content with features such as stories and reels makes influencers more active on Instagram. This study examines the brand images that influencers share with themselves as a result of the agreements made between influencers and brands on the Instagram platform. In the study, shampoo and cosmetic product images were included because they are preferred by a more general segment. The study aims to determine the visual impact of influencers' and brands' Instagram posts. In order to reveal the role of these posts in creating brand awareness, the eye-tracking technique was used. The study consisted of 60 volunteer participants, 30 women and 30 men. In line with the data obtained from the participants, the heat map, gaze plot and area of interest (AoI) data were analyzed. In order to determine whether there are differences in the heat map, gaze plot and area of interest data for the visuals of Instagram influencers in the study, volunteer participants were divided according to various demographic characteristics (gender, age, education). Real-time data obtained from volunteer participants were interpreted to reach conclusions.