MICRO-INFLUENCER CELEBRITY’S COMMUNICATION STRATEGY IN BRAND PROMOTION

The research analyzed the role of Instagram influencers, especially those who fell into the category of microinfluencers, and the impacts they generated through effective communication strategy in promoting local brands in Indonesia. The exploratory study adopted a qualitative research design by collecting primary data through indepth interviews with selected micro-influencers, local brands marketers, and an Influencer marketing strategist. While secondary data was gathered from both offline and online available documented literatures. Results were then categorized using Creswell’s six-stage analysis method in order to produced themes. Findings show that Instagram is a preferred social media platform in Indonesia for local companies to promote their brands by selecting micro-influencers as part of the communication strategy. Four distinctive characteristics outline the themes of Instagram micro-influencer that are seen as primary factors for the brands to utilize in ensuring effective brands’ communication strategy. The research concludes that different methods of delivering a brand’s messages can be utilized to achieve the brand’s communication goals and the high intensity of engagement between the influencer and their followers is the core strength for the success of the communication activity. This is a quality seeks by both brands and influencer agencies to ensure successful brands’ communication strategy.


INTRODUCTION
With an estimated 2,65 billion users in 2018 and projected to increase to almost 3,1 billion in 2021, social media has emerged as the quintessential communication platform worldwide (Statista, 2019). With the emergence of small-sized portable devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones, as well as the proliferate availability of Wi-Fi, it enacts the behavior of users on being constantly connected to exchange and in obtaining information (We are Social, 2019). This finding corresponds with the increasing internet penetration in Indonesia. Its 150 million users religiously spend more than eight hours and 36 minutes connecting, discovering, and shopping online (Wong, 2019), much more than the global average of six hours and 42 minutes. Of the total time spent online, Indonesians actively spend three hours and 26 minutes on social media, namely YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, LINE, and Instagram. These social media latter are the most active chosen platforms by Indonesian millennials aged 20 -35 years old (IDN Research Institute, 2019). As one of the fastest-growing online photo social web (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017), Instagram plays a significant role in influencing shopping behavior, particularly during the holiday season, with 86 percent of consumers in Indonesia using the app for shopping ideas. This is also due to the rise of Instagram Stories, a prominent feature of an Instagram application, allowing users to share a video or a picture with a duration of 60 seconds. The ephemeral nature of this feature permits users to showcase authenticity and realness in communicating their message to their followers (Uy, 2019).
Social media becomes the marketer's choice of marketing a brand due to its cost-effectiveness in reaching more specific and niche market segments (Phua, Jin, & Kim, 2017). This communication strategy channel by using Instagram is famously known as Influencer Marketing that started to take a recognizable place in the market (Audrezet, de Kerviler, & Moulard, 2020). Many companies start to adopt influencer marketing in promoting their brands, and for a good reason, 92 percent of marketers who employ influencer marketing in 2017 find it effective (Linqia, 2017), and it is considered as the second most effective marketing strategy (Harrigan et al., 2021).
Celebrities have always been impactful when it comes to advertising and promoting products and services (Van Norel et al., 2014), and the same goes with online celebrities. In recent years, the rise of online celebrities, also known as social media influencers, has become more prevalent as they present their human brands on various topics, such as beauty, fashion, technology, food, and beverages (Niederhoffer et al., 2007). Contrary to traditional celebrities, these social media influencers, beauty bloggers, food bloggers, fashion gurus are 'regular people' (Lou & Yuan, 2019) that use various digital platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, or personal blogs to showcase their personalities to their followers (Khamis, Ang, & Welling, 2017), whose opinion able to influence attitude, decision, and behavior of their followers (De Veirman, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017;Lyons & Henderson, 2005;Watts & Dodds, 2007). There are few colloquial terms for these social media influencers, such as opinion leaders, content creators, and endorsers, defined by McCracken (1989) as individuals who enjoy public recognition and use this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement. Given these terminologies, Lou and Yuan (2019) have provided a precise definition of social media influencers as a first and foremost content generator. They are the one who has a status of expertise in a specific area, who has cultivated a sizeable number of captive followers by regularly producing valuable content via social media.
These endorsers are very attractive to brands as they are perceived by consumers as individuals who possess good personality, authentic, credible, downto-earth likeability, and accessible who happens to have large followers and audience when advertising a product or service. The accessibility these online celebrities have is due to providing their followers insight into their personal lives and opinion they often share on social media. Unlike traditional celebrities who keep their personal lives as the utmost private, these social media influencers interact with their followers by publically giving access to their day-today lives and thus resulting in commonality among their followers (De Veirman, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017;Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017;Schau & Gilly, 2003). This strategy allows influencers to generate relationships with their grassroots followers using seemingly organic content (Taillon et al., 2020). Influencers apply various communication strategies to engage with their followers to ensure brands' messages are received by their followers as intended. Among these techniques are authenticating selfies (Gannon & Prothero, 2016), posting creative contents (Audrezet, de Kerviler, & Moulard, 2020;Duffy & Wissinger, 2017), and engaging directly with their followers (Marwick, 2013) by using Instagram features, such as comments, direct messages (DM), live, Q&A, polling, and captions continually.
There are different categories applied for the social media influencers by referring to the number of followers they acquire. Micro-influencer has up to 10.000 followers, macro-influencer has between 10.000 and up to a million followers, and megainfluencer often are actors/artists, performers, or singers who have over one million followers. Despite many pieces of research on social media influencers, a major challenge is to identify a suitable endorser for marketers and brands to market their brand (Araujo, Neijens, & Vliegenthart, 2017;De Veirman, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017), and whether megainfluencers exert greater influence on the followers than macro-or micro-influencers (Kay, Mulcahy, Parkinson, 2020;Casaló, Flaviàn, Ibáñez-Sànchez, 2020). Assessing the number of followers often put as the first step to identify which influencers would be chosen to market a brand, following with the personality brand showcased by the chosen influencer. However, if the number of followers does not translate into purchase behavior, the engagement rate cannot be deemed successful. This research seeks to demonstrate key communication strategies used by social media influencers that deem successful in engaging with their followers.
A large number of followers could be advantageous for reaching a larger scale market and exert a greater level of brand awareness. However, it remains uncertain to what extent followers would process the information and assess the influencer's opinion on the product's attractiveness (Kay, Mulcahy, & Parkinson, 2020), translating to purchase behavior. Previously, Johansen and Guldvik (2017) have analyzed key factors that contribute to the use of influencer marketing that parasocial relationships between followers and influencers, influencer credibility, and trust, among other factors by Lou and Yuan (2019) are important factors. Micro-influencers who have followers up to 10.000 typically have a grassroots community where the level of engagement is high and considered a key opinion leader by their followers. Many brands, especially local ones who have the minimum financial ability, start to use microinfluencers as part of their marketing campaign due to the considerably lower cost and have a higher authenticity appearance. Additionally, the relatability and approachability aspects of the influencers among their followers have a greater persuading effect. Followers attain a feeling of personal connection with their chosen influencer due to the 'ordinary people' persona that could be your next-door neighbor that offers suggestions.
The research aims to focus on the identification of key communication strategies used by microinfluencers in engaging with their followers in promoting local Indonesian brands that result in a high engagement rate. Exploratory research is conducted. The manuscript is organized by presenting results from the exploratory research, along with the background and theory used. A general discussion following with managerial implication is presented.
In the research, Attraction, Selection, Attrition (ASA) theory is used. Persuasion is defined as the process by which messages ultimately induce alteration in behaviors, beliefs, or attitudes of the individual. In order for individuals to be persuaded, it is essential that messages be communicated effectively to the audience. Important factors in influencer marketing include brands, consumers, and influencers (Lou & Yuan, 2019). However, McGuire's communicationpersuasion matrix expands the components into source, message, channel, receiver, and destination to ensure effectiveness (McGuire, 2013). Attractiveness is a quality possessed by the communicator, which appeals to an audience, holds significance in steering others' behavior, attitude, or beliefs. Attractiveness may take in different forms, such as physical attractiveness and similarities that could lead to attractiveness. The ASA theory states that individuals with similar characteristics are attracted and selected into a group, while dissimilar people have the tendency to disperse into different groups due to attrition (Danaeefard et al., 2018). Social media influencers' communication method is highly personal as it is interwoven and narrated into their personal lives; thus, it could produce a highly relevant persuasive power (De Veirman, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017). Thus, individuals will be attracted to follow social media influencers that share similarities, while those dissimilar individuals are likely to follow different social media influencers.
The multistep flow communication model is an advancement of the 'one-step' and 'two-step' flow communication model. The one-step flow communication model is considered as one of the earliest models that focuses on a linear pattern from the original Shannon and Weaver model that is famously designed by Harold Laswell in designing the first basic model of mass communication (Abazari & Mahshid, 2017). The model argues that information is directly influenced by information published by mass media; however, it does not explain influencers' role, which is also a prominent factor of information flow (Bennett & Manheim, 2006). For explaining the nature of influencers in social media, it could be used the two-step flow communication model (Harrigan et al., 2021;Katz & Lazarsfeld, 2017). This model explains that the messages being spread by the mass media are mediated by influencers or opinion leaders (Harrigan et al., 2021;Uzunoǧlu & Kip, 2014) involving filtering and interpreting the content of the message and disseminating the messages to suit the influencers' base of followers (Harrigan et al., 2021;Jiménez-Castillo & Sánchez-Fernández, 2019;Ognyanova, 2017). These influencers are sought by groups of people who have particular interests in topics they specialized in; therefore, they can lead groups' opinions. As the continuous interaction of mass media, technology, and audience evolving, social receptivity is also notable in the development of media and audience relationships (Bennett & Manheim, 2006). Thus, the evolution of the multistep flow of communication suggests a multidirectional flow from the audience to the opinion leaders and mass media, allowing for bottom-up impact media coverage (Brosius & Weimann, 1996;Ognyanova, 2017). It can be seen in Figure 1.
FREDD principles of celebrity endorsement are developed by The Young and Rubicam advertising agency based on surveys of 30.000 individuals and 6.000 brands (Swerdlow & Swerdlow, 2003). The principles suggest five principles in determining influencers for successful endorsement schemes. The five principles are seen in Table 1.
Even though these principles do not guarantee successful endorsements/campaigns; it serves as a guideline for organizations seeking to use influencers in their advertising or marketing campaigns (Leahy, 2012). Organizations may also have differing goals; Figure 1 Early Model of Two-Step and Current Multistep Flow of Communications (Ognyanova, 2017) therefore, FREDD principles should be evaluated to fit organizational goals.

METHODS
To better understand the relationship between a micro-influencer and its followers, an exploratory study is conducted. Data collection obtained for this research is generated by means of the qualitative design of semi-structured interviews by selecting four micro-influencers in different categories who have been collaborated with a minimum of five local brands according to their expertise, three selected local brands marketers, and an influencer marketing strategist to participate. The selected participants are chosen to elaborate on communication strategy in various categories in the Instagram platform. Secondary data is collected to provide additional information pertinent to the finding and Creswell's six-stage analysis method is utilized to categorize the themes generated from the result. Table 2 shows the participants in the research. The exploratory research is centered on the effective communication strategy implemented by Instagram micro-influencer by addressing the questions: (1) Why local brands marketers adopting micro-influencers in promoting their brands? (2) What are the communication strategies used by the micro-influencers in communicating the brands to their followers? (3) How do micro-influencers characteristics influence brand communication?

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Qualitative content analysis is used to analyze the interview discussed. For research question (1), all informants in unison agree that there are main key reasons why local brands involve micro-influencers in their marketing campaigns in recent years. Consistent engagement between micro-influencers and their audience seems to be a central quality of microinfluencer. It tends to go for micro-influencers that are enthusiastic, honest, and authentic. These traits are considered important by both brands and agencies as it invokes audience attraction in brands' marketing campaigns. Personality relevance that is often found between micro-influencers and their audience is also listed as a principle of a successful marketing campaign. Moreover, because most micro-influencers come from diverse backgrounds, brands believe that they can reach specific targets sourced from their respective communities.
For research question (2), the wealth of Instagram's features, including comment section, DM, Instastory, IGTV, and many more, have eased influencers, local brands, and agencies to interact with their target markets followers. Furthermore, it seems that Instagram serves as the starting point for brand and audience interaction and that Instagram is equipped with tools to amplify the interaction throughout different platforms. Moreover, for the research request (3), the influencers who are enthusiastic, authentic, honest, and able to think critically are preferred by brands as they are key traits that boost engagement between the brand and their followers.
The findings have also mentioned recurring communal agreements on the efficacy of microinfluencer marketing strategy, which develops into the following themes: strong engagement, authenticity, personality relevance with the brand they endorsed, and strong ties with the community. The research has also found that Instagram is the most practical and insightful platform for running various influencer marketing activities.
Micro-influencer has the best engagement in their social media compared to other types of influencers such as mega and macro-influencers. Most microinfluencers are still able to interact with their followers diligently using Instagram features; comments and direct message (DM), product give away, question and answer (Q&A), and posting content through Instagram Story. Because the scope and number of followers are comparatively smaller than mega and macro, they still can notice feedback, thus interacting with their followers. One prominent feature and most favored of Instagram is Instagram Story as it is only available for 24 hours after being posted, increased the likelihood of followers viewing. It also easily links their stories to brands' websites or other digital platforms, increasing direct engagement with the brand. This resonates with the term parasocial relationships once identified by De Veirman, Cauberghe, and Hudders (2017) that describe the illusion of a face-to-face interaction a social media influencer gives to their followers that creates a susceptibility of their opinions and product attractiveness (Colliander & Dahlén, 2011). Dhanik (2016) has also proposed that micro-influencers can be a better option for brands and marketers as they have a stronger personal connection with their followers that translates to higher engagement rates and purchase behavior.
By consciously selecting the number of brands to collaborate with, micro-influencer able to endorse brands objectively. They provide reviews of the brand with more enthusiasm, critical thinking, and honesty. These traits could result in a higher rate of attractiveness from their followers and influence by their review and endorsement contents. Also, the followers perceive the content as non-commercialized and non-template, thus increasing the influencer's authenticity. Halvorsen et al. (2013) have mentioned trust is a value that acts as a strong determinant of the influential effect a particular influencer has on his or her followers; thus, compatibility engagement between the brands and micro-influencer play a crucial role in the effectiveness of communicating brand messages strategies. This factor is also strengthened by research that suggests the followers perceive a social media influencer's accord in the same level of trust as they hold for their friends (Swant, 2016). Lou and Yan (2019) have suggested that trustworthiness is one of the most significant attributes of influencers.
It is essential for marketers to collaborate with influencers who share the same values and embody the brand's personalities they are promoting subsequent to the effective delivery of the brand's message. Moreover, micro-influencers personify dual personalities in the eyes of their followers: as a celebrity (individuals who inspired) and at the same time as an ordinary personality (next-door neighbor or a family member) (Taillon et al., 2020) they can relate to. According to FREDD principles seen in Figure 2, both relevance and familiarity are listed as two principles of a successful marketing campaign (Swerdlow & Swerdlow, 2003). As a result, personal relevancy with the endorsed brand is prominent in promoting the brand. On the other hand, recognition from brands motivates micro-influencers to review or endorse the brands with more enthusiasm and honesty (S. Noerhadi, personal communication, May 18 th , 2019).
Community is a vital source for microinfluencers. While macro and mega influencers consist of celebrities or public figures, micro-influencers are deemed as the ordinary celebrity who involves students, employees, housewives, and other mundane professions their followers could relate to. Their followers are usually a small circle of friends, groups of people within the influencers' communities, and people with similar interests. With this commonality, micro-influencers have a strong sense of community and being together with other individuals from various backgrounds. The community becomes the source of empowerment and help center where each individual would help other individuals in endorsement, collaboration projects, as well as keep them grounded. This finding is supported by Kamboj et al. (2018) that have suggested the stronger brand communities as the conduit of information, the stronger the participation Figure 2 Insights on Audience Reach Figure 3 Insights on Audience Locations and social connection of the members. This enhances brand loyalty and generates trust in the brand's attractiveness.
Instagram is the preferred social media platform for influencers. Amongst various social media marketing tools, Instagram seems to be preferred by influencers, marketers, and marketing strategists due to the platform's layout, which is dominated by visual content. Thus, it is more practical and effective to deliver brand messages. Moreover, Instagram is preferred due to its many added features should an influencer use Instagram's business account profile that provides insightful information such as followers' demographic profiles and engagement with contents posted by the account, as seen in Figures 2 and 3. This insight is crucial for influencers to understand their followers and to measure the effectiveness of their communication strategies.
Different brands might have varied preferences in partnering with influencers. However, marketers would choose micro-influencers that could create high engagement among their followers, resulting in higher brand awareness and likeability.

CONCLUSIONS
Influencers, marketers, and marketing strategists might have different goals in implementing influencer marketing. The research has gained new insights on the usage of micro-influencer in marketing local brands by emphasizing the importance of followers' engagement. Based on the findings of the research, it can be concluded that marketers adopt microinfluencer marketing due to four central reasons. First, it is believed there is a strong engagement between micro-influencers and their followers that seem to be the central quality. Micro-influencers who are deemed enthusiastic, honest, able to think critically, and authentic are considered important by both marketers and marketing strategist as it invokes followers' attraction in the brands' marketing campaigns. Personality relevance is also considered as one of the key traits of effective communication strategy. Moreover, because most micro-influencers come from diverse backgrounds, marketers believe that they can reach specific targets sourced from their respective communities. For influencers, high followers' engagement is deemed as a goal of promoting brands on Instagram. Thus, they consider an inquiry or comment from their followers or direct message (DM) regarding the content they posted as a validated response that a message is reached the followers.
To gain engagement from their followers, influencers often use a variety of methods. Frequent methods are used by an influencer in doing marketing activities on Instagram include conducting product give away, question and answer (Q&A), and posting content through Instagram Story. The Q&A and polling are very useful in building engagement as the interaction between influencers, and their followers are encouraged throughout the session. The product giveaway can encourage engagement as well because, for a captive time frame, followers would actively involve in the marketing activities (answering quizzes, comments, tagging their friends, and reposting posts) to stand a chance of winning a giveaway. The Instagram story also deems as very effective in improving engagement due to its simplicity. It takes less effort for the influencer to create Instagram story contents compared to feed contents. Followers of the Instagram story can also easily send DMs to the influencer to respond. Authentic, smart, and knowledgeable microinfluencers are highly appreciated by marketers as they result in the brand being promoted to the highest value and accountability. Additionally, marketers state that influencers with decent English language ability are also favored. The ability to communicate and pronounce words in English amply will broaden influencers' reach to English-speaking followers and appear more elegant and well-educated. English language skills also will avoid influencers mispronouncing English brand names. Lastly, the decorum principle is also listed as one of the crucial principles to be fulfilled to ensure a successful marketing campaign. Marketers also state that a good reputation also the main factor for the brand in selecting influencers to collaborate with. In conclusion, micro-influencers use as part of the local brand communication strategy is reshaping the relationships between consumers and brands is becoming more personal in an engaging and dynamic approach.
The research explores micro-influencers communication strategy that is not without limitations, however, the findings provide additional opportunities for future research. First, the type of industries that use micro-influencers are varied in their communication strategies; thus, broadening micro-influencers' scope in future studies would strengthen the contribution. Second, the influencers in the research, interestingly, are all female. It intrigues the questions for future contribution should the communication strategy implemented by male influencers would be the same as the current research. Past research has had examined the impact of influencers in the Western Hemisphere; however, not many international journals discuss the diverse and growing influencers in the Indonesian market. This would be a fascinating landscape of research since Indonesia's social media penetration is one of the highest in the world. The last notable consideration is the use of a quantitative approach in analyzing the result to complement the qualitative findings.