The actual influence of influencers - In what ways can influencers be beneficial to Dutch art museums’ marketing strategies?

Online marketing through social media platforms has been widely studied in the for-profit sector. However, research on this topic was needed for the non-profit museum sector as well, since consumer behaviour works differently for experience goods than information goods. Therefore, the current research has tried to fill the literature gap by examining a currently popular online marketing strategy: influencer marketing. The research question is as follows: how can influencer marketing be beneficial to Dutch art museums’ marketing strategies? In order to provide an answer to the research question, there has first been looked at the respondents’ socio-demographical information to sketch an image of the audience reached. Second, the respondents’ motivations to follow the influencers have been illustrated. Lastly, the research has clarified in what ways the followers are influenced. A survey has been conducted, which was distributed via fourteen influencers’ Instagram accounts focusing on culture, in order for their followers to fill in the survey. The data has shown that the audience reached by culture influencers is much like the traditional art museum visitor: highly educated, white, and female. In addition, most of the followers already had an interest in the arts or even followed an art-related study program prior to following the influencers. However, the influencers’ followers are younger than the average traditional visitor; most of them are aged 18 to 29. Besides, the data has shown that influencer marketing reaches out to two different audiences: those who prefer to follow the influencers, and those who favour the art museums’ accounts. The main motivational factors to follow either of these groups on Instagram are the content of the posts and the notion of authenticity. The influencers mainly have an influence on the former group. It can be concluded that this group is likely to be inspired but also to actually visit art museums more often. In addition, the followers gain knowledge in the arts due to the influencers’ posts. Furthermore, influencer marketing can make the followers look more often and with different perspectives at art, as well as train their eyes in perceiving aesthetics in daily life.