Student's attitudes towards the Instagram blogger profession

Instagram je jedan od društvenih medija koji je u vrlo kratko vrijeme ostvario veliku popularnost, posebice meĎu mlaĎom populacijom. Krajem 2018. godine brojio je milijardu mjesečno aktivnih korisnika, te njih 500 milijuna dnevno aktivnih (Omnicore, 2019). Navedeno su znali iskoristiti oni njegovi korisnici koji su na navedenoj platformi uspostavili kredibilitet i sakupili mnogobrojnu publiku te time postali zanimljivi manjim ili većim tvrtkama kao posrednici izmeĎu brenda i kupca. Javlja se tako sve veći broj takozvanih influencera, odnosno Instagram blogera, koji fotografije ne objavljuju samo iz zabave, već kao način zarade, a koliko se takav posao razvio govore podaci kako je 86% marketinških tvrtki koristilo marketing pomoću „utjecajnih osoba”od kojih je 92% bilo zadovoljno rezultatima smatrajući takvu vrstu marketinga djelotvornom. Influencer marketing postala je tako „produţena ruka” tradicionalnome marketingu(Linqia, 2017). Uz pomoć Instagram blogera, tvrtke se pribliţavaju prvenstveno mlaĎoj generaciji, s obzirom na to da su oni ti koji platformu najviše koriste (Arbona, 2018). Upravo je zbog toga ovaj rad posvećen istraţivanju stavova mlaĎe populacije. Dakle, njegov je glavni cilj spoznati stavove studenata o zanimanju Instagram blogera. U radu je naglašena metoda mreţne ankete, a osim toga, kao izvor podataka korištena je relevantna literatura, zatim istraţivanja digitalnih agencija i graĎa s popularnih internetskih stranica, dok se analiza sadrţaja koristi kod istraţivanja profila influencera. Istraţivanje je pokazalo kako gotovo svi studenti posjeduju Instagram profil i koriste ga skoro svakodnevno. U interakciji s „utjecajnim osobama” oprezni su, ne povode se uvijek za njihovim savjetima, te ih ne smatraju uvijek vjerodostojnima. Ipak, privlače ih njihove fotografije i u njima uţivaju.Instagram is one of the social media tools which has achieved great popularity in a very short time, especially among the younger population. By the end of 2018, the platform counted billions of monthly active users and 500 million daily active users (Omnicore, 2019). Some Instagram users started to take advantage of this fact by establishing credibility and gathering a large audience, thus becoming interesting to smaller or even bigger companies as intermediaries between the brand and their customer. As a result, the number of so called influencers is increasing. They are not posting pictures just for entertainment, but as a way of earning money. Nevertheless, 86% of marketing companies used influencer marketing in their campaigns and 92% of them were satisfied with the outcome and are considering this kind of marketing effective. Influencer marketing has become the „extended hand” of the traditional one (Linqia, 2017). With the help of Instagram bloggers, companies are approaching mainly the younger generation, since they are the ones using the platform in the first place (Arbona, 2018). That is why this work is devoted to the research of the young population's attitudes towards this new profession. This paper focuses on the survey method. Besides that, the relevant literature is used as a source of data, as well as digital agencies' research and material from popular websites, while content analysis is used in the research of the influencers' profiles. The results showed that almost all of the students have an Instagram account and they are using it daily. When interacting with influential users, they tend to be cautious and do not always take into account the pieces of advice the influencer give them. Students do not consider them credible at all times. Still, they are attracted by the blogger's perfect photographs and enjoy watching them