1. Introduction

1Social media influencers (SMI) are profiles with the power to attract followers, opinions, trends, tastes, and modes that compete for the attention of conventional media audiences, reflecting the values of a society in profound change (Elorriaga Illera & Monge Benito, 2018; Pérez-Escoda & García-Ruiz, 2019). An influencer is a person with a broad community of followers who value the information offered by the latter and with whom he or she shares common interests and concerns. The possibilities can range from purely informative messages, including recommendations or practical advice, to accounts of experiences, lifestyles, or opinions. In essence, the aim is to establish a connection and give the public what they are looking for (Castillo-Abdul et al., 2023; Martínez-Sanz & González Fernández, 2018).

2Influencers differ from conventional celebrities, as their attractiveness is built through their followers on social networks. In this way, the primary users of these platforms — millennials and centennials — see influencers as people who resemble themselves (Allsop et al., 2007; Mangold & Smith, 2012) through a subculture of online celebrity (Hamilton, 2010; Johnstone & Lindh, 2022). Influencers are micro-celebrities with many followers, in general or among a specific segment (Carter, 2016). Previous research evidence that influencer marketing and the use of shareable content can improve audience engagement and the reach of campaigns (e.g., Coates et al., 2019; Gough et al., 2017; Kostygina et al., 2020).

3In this line, a celebrity influencer is any person who enjoys public recognition beyond the universe of social networks and brands due to their large number of followers. On the other hand, there are also mega-influencers (individuals with more than 1,000,000 followers), macro-influencers (those with between 100,000 and 1,000,000 followers), micro-influencers (from 10,000 to 100,000 followers), and nano-influencers (less than 10,000 followers; Campbell & Farrell, 2020).

4Cultural elements endemic to social media platforms, such as influencer marketing and user-generated content, can significantly enhance the visibility of specific campaigns (Ashley & Tuten, 2015; Vallone et al., 2016), but engagement should also be carefully considered when evaluating their effectiveness.

2. Influencers’ Effects on the Audience

5The main reasons why young audiences use influencers as primary sources of information are driven by six principal reasons: search autonomy, virtual storage, instant gratification, visual inspiration, accessible information, and authenticity. Millennials and centennials prefer to get information from bloggers and influencers rather than conventional media, as they feel they are more similar to them and consequently consider them more trustworthy (Jones & Kang, 2019; Romero-Rodríguez et al., 2022).

6This feeling of closeness is favored by the rise of interactive marketing, which echoes the rapid development and innovation of technologies, the revolution of platforms, participatory culture, and the proliferation of social media, promoting a more tailored and personalized approach on social networks, with which customers can enjoy more of the experience (Wang, 2021).

7Most of the academic efforts have focused on the effect of celebrity campaigns on mainstream media, explaining that these public personalities have an enormous influence on audiences’ attitudes, behaviors, and decision-making (e.g., Hoffman & Tan, 2013, 2015; Kata, 2012; Viale, 2014). Celebrity endorsements can enhance a brand’s value and product desirability, giving them social capital (Ohanian, 1990; Till & Shimp, 1998). More recent neuroscience research has shown that brain regions that create positive associations are activated by seeing or hearing celebrity advice (Klucharev et al., 2008; Sung et al., 2018).

8Brands usually employ the services of influencers not only because of the credibility that their microcelebrity profile gives them (Romero-Rodríguez & Castillo-Abdul, 2023) but also because social networks tend to make influencers’ branded content campaigns more visible, while they can “shadowban” those of brands’ profiles (Barquero Cabrero et al., 2023).

9The technological revolution has undoubtedly encouraged and empowered companies to form technological bonds with their consumers through innovative and interactive technologies on social media platforms. Consequently, the combination of social media and interactive marketing serves as a conduit to engage deeper levels of consumer attention and emotion, which ultimately positively impacts the overall consumer experience (Romero-Rodríguez & Castillo-Abdul, 2023; Ryding et al., 2023).

10Brands associated with influencers benefit from their support since many consumers admire the attractiveness, accessibility, and authenticity of celebrities (Campbell & Farrell, 2020).

11However, according to Ryding et al. (2023), consumers do not distinguish between nano, micro, macro, and meso types of influencers but exclusively between “celebrities” and “influencers”. Generally, despite celebrity influencers’ high number of followers, their lack of interaction leads to lower consumer engagement. Nevertheless, companies are less concerned about working with macro-influencers, which have a more significant impact on the industry due to higher engagement and credibility.

12On the other hand, according to Kay et al. (2020), micro-influencers seem to be more effective in improving consumer outcomes. Along these lines, micro-influencers are characterized by their credibility, relevance, and high engagement on social networks through interaction with their followers (Alassani & Göretz, 2019), while larger companies usually employ macro-influencers, as they already have a broad reach and the viral effect is greater than that of micro-influencers. Likewise, marketing managers tend to work more with micro-influencers because they enjoy greater authenticity and trust and are often more connected to the needs and interests of their followers (Wissman, 2018).

13All digital influencers have a common denominator: a social media profile from which they share content and reach a specific audience. Del Pino-Romero and CastellóMartínez (2017) distinguish several types of prescribers (Table 1) whose opinions, assessments, and published purchasing decisions unleash streams of influence.

Table 1. Types of influencers

Type of influencer	Description
Citizen advocates	Those who share information and opinions spontaneously through content about their experiences with the brand. Brand advocacy does not involve financial compensation, but these influencersy make genuine recommendations explaining the benefits of products and services. They are the most credible and authentic influencers.
Experts	Refers to those who, due to their profession, experience, knowledge, and specialization, can generate trends in an audience, although they are usually smaller audiences. Positive recommendations could represent an economic benefit for them.
Opinion leaders	Those who can stimulate the opinions of third parties and act as a loudspeaker for a community (as a gatekeeper). A positive message about a brand can be produced from an economic relationship.
Celebrity	Public figures whose popularity generates a large community of followers. Their positive comments on brands are linked to economic retribution, which is generally significant for the reach and awareness that can be achieved. The celebrity usually represents both the tastes, preferences, and inclinations of the target as well as the qualities of the product.
Brand Ambassador	They are usually well-known characters, but not necessarily, as cases of companies that have as brand ambassadors their employees who are close, credible, and reliable for the target, connect the brand with its followers, and want to spread the real commitment that it has with its target clients.

Note. Own elaboration from Del Pino-Romero and Castelló-Martínez (2017).

14Trust is a factor that impacts electronic word-of-mouth on social networks. According to Shen (2021), fashion micro-influencers have the potential to positively influence consumer engagement through electronic word-of-mouth, with eye-catching brand names in the mouths of these actors, transferring a positive attitude toward the brand. The higher the audience’s familiarity with these influencers, the more likely they will search, broadcast, and transmit opinions about products and services (Shu-Chuan & Yoojung, 2011).

15Unlike celebrities in conventional media, in influencer marketing, brand endorsement information is often implicit, and sponsors tend to use tactics different from those employed by advertisers on traditional media platforms to maximize impact and trust with their followers. For example, influencers may use digital native advertising strategies similar to product placement, such as posting selfies with a product, using productbranded backgrounds (Ashley & Tuten, 2015; Campbell et al., 2014), but also doing product experience reviews (called “haul”) or “unboxing” sessions.

16This opinion leadership of certain young people encourages many commercial brands, particularly those linked to fashion and beauty, to find in the profiles of these influencers the ideal space to penetrate, in a non-intrusive way, the imaginary of their target audience and to adhere to the credibility and trust that the prescriber transmits. SMI has become an integral part of brand communication, especially in the fashion industry (Martínez-Sanz & González Fernández, 2018).

17Social network opinion leaders appear to be important starting points on the part of business sense, either because of their involvement in word-of-mouth communication or because of the great potential they have to influence other consumers in the opinion leaders’ network (Akdevelioglu & Kara, 2020; Molitor et al., 2011).

3. Fashion and Eco-Lifestyle Influencers

18The eco-influencer is an opinion leader committed to disseminating environmentally-themed content and is not necessarily a member of social organizations or activists in the conventional sense. These micro-celebrities are dedicated to promoting a sustainable lifestyle through their example, which becomes their communications’ main objective and theme (San Cornelio, Ardèvol, & Martorell, 2021; San Cornelio, Martorell, & Ardèvol, 2021). In the same way, they are committed to an “eco-friendly” lifestyle, recommending readings on healthy living, as well as sustainable brands and products, thus promoting a lifestyle that, through their example, makes their passion for an environmentally friendly life the main objective of their communications (Ardèvol et al., 2021).

19Bloggers have become priority broadcasting channels for the fashion and lifestyle industry and have become a perfect tool for advertising their products. Most fashion blogs are made up of people outside the conventional media world but with great interest and participation in the digital ecosystem, making them prescribers accepted by society (Esteban et al., 2019). From a marketing point of view, it is widely believed that a recommendation from a trusted source, such as an SMI, is a decisive factor in purchasing a product or service (Martínez-Sanz & González Fernández, 2018).

20Fashion brands attract the interest of young people basically because they are linked to the emotional and identity aspects of the brand (Rubio-Romero & Barón-Dulce, 2019). According to Lipovetsky (1983/2000), the current postmodern culture legitimizes the affirmation of personal identity according to the values of a personalized society in which the important thing is to be oneself. In other words, what is being sold is an identity that must be personal and, in the case of eco-influencers, a life model. For all these reasons, SMI manage to capture more attention from younger audiences. In addition, the practices of users and influencers in the digital field are aimed at the need to “look perfect”, often focusing on building these identities through digital manipulation to acquire such an appearance. Society has never appeared more beautiful, more standardized, nor more filtered than it does today (Castillo-Abdul et al., 2021; Lomborg, 2015).

21In the past, fashion brands or magazines were the primary sources of news, trends, and fashion and beauty advice. Nowadays, users have joined these information channels in general, and fashion bloggers in particular, who have become “prosumers”. They not only consume content but also actively request, participate, and shape current trends through a variety of products, initially showing them on their initiative but later collaborating with the advertising brands (Esteban et al., 2019). In this sense, user-generated content is also emerging as an excellent possibility for brands to have unofficial brand ambassadors. According to Duffy and Hund (2015), the success of fashion bloggers and other cultural producers who make their living by sharing their “passions” and connecting with readership demonstrated that this type of work generates a significant (and everincreasing) value and capital.

22Although ecological awareness has been on the rise since the 1980s, the impact of natural catastrophes in recent decades has encouraged even more, if possible, this new type of buyer, one that can be defined as conscientious (Lin & Niu, 2018; Ober & Karwot, 2022). All this has built a new vision of sustainable and ecological consumption, which is very much appreciated in purchasing food but also seems to reach, little by little, the world of fashion (Atik & Ertekin, 2022).

23Nevertheless, even moderate consumers of organic food are concerned about environmental issues, so targeting only highly conscious buyers could be a mistake since the problem faced by many sustainable fashion brands is to expand their market share to potential consumers who are already concerned but do not know where to buy responsibly. However, it is known that the correct labeling of garments and certifications encourages consumption among those interested in this type of consumption (Chang & Chen, 2022). In this sense, companies not only sell products and services but also give meaning to behaviors and experiences related to consuming branded products and services (Kamin & Anker, 2014).

24According to Castillo-Abdul et al. (2020), the promotion of fashion products in social media through influencers is limited exclusively to the aesthetic part, thus ignoring the production processes and the necessary information linked to the social conscience that these clothes bring with them. As a result, there is the phenomenon of eco-influencers, who, according to San Cornelio, Ardèvol, and Martorell (2021), are activists promoting the creation of a social dialogue that questions the division between nature and culture as an element of modernity and, ultimately, propose a reconnection with nature.

25In the current postmodern culture, for example, in mainstream cinema produced since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a thematic repetition of films that show distrust towards companies that sell their products as “eco-friendly”, implying that these brands behave as a showcase of ethical and corporate responsibility, behind which there are monsters at the helm of these companies’ management under greenwashing practices (Fernández-Rodríguez & Romero-Rodríguez, 2021). This seems to explain why younger consumers prefer the proximity of an influencer to mediate between them and companies, as they tend to distrust the advertising narratives designed from corporate spheres but not the storytelling of other users.

4. Methods

4.1. Objective

26This research aims to examine the characteristics of five eco-influencer Instagram accounts from different Western countries whose content is available in English or Spanish and whose common elements are interest in environmentalism and fashion. Likewise, the study seeks to determine what type of content generates the most positive reactions from their audiences. The following research questions (RQ) were used as a guide:

RQ1: are eco-influencers more concerned with advertising products or services or with informing about the sustainability aspect of brands?

RQ2: what type of posts or formats do followers of these eco-influencers prefer?

RQ3: what types of content generate the most positive reactions from your followers?

RQ4: what can give one influencer a greater audience range than another?

27In this sense, the present work seeks to contribute to the theoretical understanding of what type of content on environmental issues generates more significant positive reactions and engagement in the followers of these eco-influencers.

28This research evaluates whether eco-influencers use ecological discourse as a “bait” to promote products or services and whether these eco-influencers’ social capital and interactions are due more to their environmental activism or other facets and roles.

4.2. Sample

29In order to study the behavior of the five eco-influencers in terms of their communication format and content, mixed research combining qualitative and quantitative techniques has been conducted to develop an exploratory and correlational study.

30Following Yin (1994) and Castro Monge (2010), the exploratory scope seeks to familiarize with a phenomenon or situation without a well-defined theoretical framework. To this end, a content analysis was conducted to identify the most interesting topics in these eco-influencers. According to Díaz-Herrera (2018), qualitative content analysis is intended to search for certain contents within a corpus and find the meaning that these contents possess within the context. Similarly, for Arbeláez and Onrubia (2014), content analysis aims to verify the presence of themes, words, or concepts in content and their meaning within a text, considering the context.

31It is worth explaining that this study, being exploratory on the phenomenon of Instagram eco-influencers in the “lifestyle” category, has a non-probabilistic sampling for convenience. On the one hand, the five eco-influencers were chosen based on the selection criteria that will be indicated in the following paragraphs, while the analysis period yielded a sufficient number of posts to reach sample saturation.

32The social network Instagram has been selected as the analysis platform because, at the time of the study, and given the visual peculiarities and reach of the platform in the Western world, it was one of the favorites for creators of content related to fashion and lifestyle.

33As for the sample, the posts were selected between November 2021 and January 2022 by five influencers from different geographic regions on Instagram (Table 2), so the sampling strategy was purposive by clusters. The accounts were selected based on the following characteristics: (a) the Instagram account focuses on showing a healthy way of life concerning the fashion and lifestyle world; (b) environmentalist ideas will be represented in some form of advertising or sponsored content; (c) the language used in the posts must be English or Spanish; (d) who had more than 20,000 followers on Instagram; and (e) the geographical diversity of each influencer.

Table 2. Analyzed Instagram profiles

Influencer Instagram user	Number of followers	Description of content
Evanna Lynch @evannalynch (Ireland)	4,000,000	Evanna Lynch focuses on veganism, animal rights, and animal cruelty-free beauty products from a very personal and spiritual point of view.
Marina Testino @marinatestino (Peru and the United States)	52,000	Marina Testino focuses her content on organic beauty products and clothing made sustainably from a personal but discreet approach.
Marta Canga @martacanga (Belgium and the United Kingdom)	22,800	Marta Canga addresses her content to vegan beauty products, clothing, and food from a personal, cheerful, discreet vision.
Lauren Singer @trashisfortossers (United States)	366,000	Lauren Singer explores different pathways to zero-waste living in her content, supporting homemade and secondhand products.
Vanesa Lorenzo @vanesalorenzo_ (Spain)	429,000	Vanesa Lorenzo shares in her posts her love for yoga, nature, motherhood, and some organic products from a personal but somewhat distant point of view.

34On the one hand, it was decided that an adequate amount of time to analyze the Instagrammers would be three months (November 2021 to January 2022) because all the accounts had different periodicities regarding posting. That is, while some profiles, in the selected research time, had more than 70 posts, others had only 21. In this way, a total sample (corpus) of 187 posts was reached. In addition, since this is exploratory research, the intention was to examine a topic or research problem that has not been studied extensively or has not been addressed before, so this sample was sufficient because the intention is not to statistically infer the results to a total population (Hernández Sampieri et al., 2014).

4.3. Instrument

35A content analysis was conducted on the posts mentioned above and their respective Instagram accounts. The variables used in the analysis and observation sheet were as follows:

the number of account followers (applicable to all posts of an account)

the influencer’s presence in other social networks (applicable to all the posts of an account)

date

type of post: photo, video, GIF, reel, or carousel

the presence or absence of sponsors or the promotion of products or services: dichotomous variable, where 1 equaled presence and 0 equaled absence

the theme of the post, which describes in an open-ended way what is shown in the post

the number of likes of the post

the number of positive comments on the post

the number of negative comments on the post

the post’s total number of positive interactions (obtained from the sum of likes and positive comments, provided that information on both is available)

36This analysis sheet was prepared in a Microsoft Excel file, in which two coders manually recorded the abovementioned variables. The coders also participated in the design of the analysis sheet and were fully aware of the meaning of each variable. At the end of data collection, the analysis sheets of both coders were compared to corroborate that all data had been correctly classified. From these measures, the IBM-SPSS program was used to perform descriptive statistical analysis, mainly means and frequency distribution, and inferential statistical analysis, mainly with Pearson bivariate correlations and one-factor ANOVA tests to measure mean differences and crosstabulations.

5. Results

5.1. Descriptive Results

37Beginning with a general review of the posts analyzed, we see that the distribution of posts among Instagrammers is not equal, as their level of posting is different. Thus, in the period studied, 21 posts correspond to @evannalynch, 33 to @marinatestino, 25 to @ martacanga, 71 to @trashisfortossers — which stands out from the rest — and 37 to @ vanesalorenzo.

38Most of these five Instagrammers are active on other social networks, except for @ marinatestino, who is only present on Instagram. Of the other four, all but @vanesalorenzo are on Facebook, and all but @evannalynch are on YouTube. On Twitter are @martacanga and @vanesalorenzo, and @martacanga and @trashisfortossers are on TikTok.

39Photos predominate in the posts analyzed, with 96 of the 187 posts in the sample (51.3%), followed by 46 carousels (24.6%) and 31 reels (16.6%). Finally, we found 13 videos (7.0%) and one GIF (0.5%). More than half of the posts, 56.7% (106 of the 187 studied), include the presence of a sponsor or promoting a product or service. This confirms the great relevance of this type of content within influencers’ activity on Instagram.

40The contents reviewed have an average of 19,422.50 likes (SD = 51,920,606) and 99.60 positive comments (SD = 251.331). Likewise, the mean number of positive interactions is 19,783.03 (SD = 52,452,840). It should be noted that this mean does not coincide because when one of the two values is not available, the value of positive interactions is not taken into account, as it would be incomplete, so there are more cases in the calculation of the mean number of likes and positive comments than of total positive interactions. Finally, the total number of negative comments is nine, with a mean of 0.05 (SD = 0.435), demonstrating the scarcity of this type of interaction.

5.2. Correlations Between Variables

41Focusing on the inferential analyses, it is worth noting that the number of account followers plays a decisive role in achieving positive reactions beyond any other factor specific to the message in question. Thus, the number of followers is strongly and significantly positively related to the number of likes [R(134) = 0.738, p < 0.001] and, although to a lesser extent, to the number of positive comments [R(184) = 0.537, p < 0.001]. With this, the joint positive interaction variable (combining likes and positive comments) also shows a significant positive correlation with the number of followers [R(132)=0.737, p < 0.001]. Thus, we observe that a higher number of followers could explain why the posts have more positive interactions.

42It is also possible to see that the number of likes is positively correlated with the number of positive comments [R(132) = 0.911, p < 0.001], something that also makes sense since a post that generates positive feelings can do so in more than one dimension so that users can like it but also post positive comments. On the other hand, negative comments did not show significant correlations with any of the other variables.

43Neither does the presence of sponsors offer significant correlations, although we could speak of tendentially positive correlations (although weak) between the presence of sponsors in the post and the number of likes [R(134) = 0.156, p = 0.72] and the number of positive interactions [R(132) = 0.157, p = 0.073]. These data should be further explored, as they could suggest that the audience generally responds positively to the presence of sponsors and sponsored content, although this statement should be made with extreme caution given the absence of significant values.

5.3. Differences Between Accounts

44Focusing now on the differences between Instagrammers, one-factor ANOVA tests were performed, which showed no significant differences in the presence of sponsors in the posts among the different influencers. Through Welch’s F statistic, used given that equality of variances could not be assumed, significant differences were observed regarding the number of positive reactions [F(4, 34.725) = 40.869, p < 0.001], the number of positive comments [F(4, 70.720) = 8.325, p < 0.001] and the number of positive interactions [F(4, 34.584) = 39.512, p < 0.001]. Post-hoc tests show differences between @evannalynch’s posts and those of the rest of the accounts, partly thanks to this account’s much higher number of followers. Figure 1 shows the mean of the different accounts in each category.

45It should be noted that negative comments are not reported due to their statistical irrelevance, although it is striking that all of them are concentrated in posts by @vanesalorenzo.

46Concerning the type of post, the Chi-square test indicates some significant differences. Thus, @evannalynch used significantly fewer reels (2.2 > 1.96) and more carousels (2.1 > 1.96). About @marinatestino, she posted significantly more photos (2.7 > 1.96) and GIFs (2.2 > 1.96; having posted the only GIF in the sample studied) and fewer reels (2.3 > 1.96). The account @martacanga posted significantly fewer photos (3.4 > 1.96) and more carousels (4.4 > 1.96). For her part, @trashisfortossers posted significantly more photos (2.0 > 1.96) and reels (2.5 > 1.96) and fewer carousels (4.4 < 1.96). Finally, @vanesalorenzo posted significantly more reels (2.4 > 1.96).

5.4. Differences Between Types of Posts

47In addition to identifying the post patterns of the different accounts studied, the above data are relevant since the degree of interaction generated by each type of post may be different, as shown by the tests of equality of means performed, although with very small effect sizes.

48Thus, given that equality of variances is not assumed in any case, Welch’s F tests were performed to measure the differences between the different types of posts, eliminating the posts with a GIF from the analysis due to their statistical irrelevance. Thus, we see that there are significant differences regarding the number of followers [F(3, 43.414) = 4.293, p < 0.05], the number of likes [F(3, 31.022) = 3.964, p < 0.05], and the number of positive interactions [F(3, 31.417) = 3.979, p < 0.05]. The post-hoc tests performed, however, do not yield significant results, and, given the minimal significance levels and statistic sizes, these data should be interpreted with caution and subject to what future studies with larger sample sizes indicate. Figure 2 shows the different means according to the different post types.

49It should be noted that these differences, especially in terms of the number of followers, are closely related to the posting patterns of the different influencers, primarily due to the effect of @evannalynch, with a much higher number of followers and interactions than the rest of the influencers. That is why reels frequently appear as the types with the lowest number of followers and interactions (significantly less used by @evannalynch), while carousels are at the opposite pole (significantly more used by @evannalynch).

50Regardless of these data and with clearer values, Welch’s F statistic [F(3, 47.898) = 4.274, p < 0.01] indicates significant differences in the proportion of posts with the presence of sponsors among the different types of posts. Post-hoc tests show that the differences are between videos (M = 0.85, SD = 0.376) and reels (M = 0.35, SD = 0.486), so the presence of sponsors is higher in the former. Given that there were no significant differences in the presence of sponsors among the different influencers, it can be assumed that the effects of the type of post are clear so that videos seem to be the preferred format for posting promotions and sponsored content (Figure 3).

5.5. Differences Between Types of Content

5.5.1. Evanna Lynch

51Evanna Lynch is a celebrity influencer due, in the first place, to her 4,000,000 followers on Instagram and her fame due to her participation in the Harry Potter saga. According to Del Pino-Romero and Castelló-Martínez (2017), Evanna Lynch is a celebrity because she represents the tastes, preferences, and inclinations of the target audience with which companies achieve great reach and notoriety.

52Evanna Lynch is an Irish-born, United Kingdom-based actress and writer. She has an Instagram account with 4,000,000 followers, and in them, she usually promotes her new novel, talks about vegan practices, and claims sustainable lifestyles with the planet and animal welfare. Evanna tends to write very long and personal posts, full of adjectives that show excitement and emotion in an overflowing and energetic way.

53Lynch receives hundreds of comments for each post; almost all of them refer to the character of Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter saga, whom she interpreted in the famous Warner Bros franchise. In this sense, in her posts’ comments, she tends to reference issues related to Harry Potter, so it can be perfectly intuited that much of this saga’s fandom is responsible for her account’s success. In fact, many of her followers do not call her Evanna but Luna.

54On the other hand, in the advertising of her books, Evanna often talks about mental health, and in many posts, she promotes spiritual shaman centers that, according to her, have helped her find her true identity as if the writing of her book had been a kind of therapy.

55She defines herself as weird and a person who does not always fit in society, and, with such discourse, she intends to bring her profile and sponsored products closer to millions of followers who already love her in advance for having starred in Harry Potter movies. On the other hand, Evanna is an entrepreneur, as she is one of the founders, along with Daniella Monet, of Kinder Beauty Box, a vegan and animal cruelty-free beauty product company.

56However, in Evanna Lynch’s profile, there are usually no interactions with consumers by Evanna, as confirmed by the research of Ryding et al. (2023), which stated that the biggest problem of celebrity influencers is their lack of engagement with consumers so that companies could interpret that this type of profile seems appropriate to give visibility to a brand but not to increase credibility or a sense of authenticity in the audience.

5.5.2. Marina Testino

57Marina Testino is a micro-influencer who has 52,000 followers on Instagram. She was born in New York but is of Peruvian descent. However, in some posts, she defines Peru as her native country. Marina is an environmental activist linked to Spanish fashion and a model, influencer, creative director, and entrepreneur. She calls herself an “artivist” (art + activism) as she uses her creativity to raise awareness about the issue of garbage and waste entertainingly.

58Testino often promotes eco-designed beauty products on her Instagram account, from clothing or recycled Christmas wrapping paper to champagne bottles made from reused materials. She also references readings on circular fashion, promotes varieties such as recycled bags, eco-friendly clothing, and sustainable lab-grown diamonds, and makes political claims related to sustainable development. Specifically, she focused on political petitions to save the Amazon rainforest for the duration of this analysis.

59The products she advertises are intended to show a combination of ecological sustainability without sacrificing glamour. In one image, she poses with a sign that reads: “it is time to dress our values in ourselves” (November 23rd, 2021), and it is her second recent post with more positive reactions at the time of this study analysis.

60When she is not advertising or endorsing products, Marina Testino takes selfies showing her leisure activities with friends, relaxing on vacation, or simply posing in front of the camera. The tone she usually uses in her posts is personal but discreet.

61In her profile, Marina Testino gives visibility to brands beyond her own entrepreneurship, making her account appealing to eco-friendly fashion brands. Generally, the brands interested in Marina Testino’s profile are from all types of businesses, such as cosmetics, clothing, and jewelry, dedicated to “sustainable beauty”.

5.5.3. Marta Canga

62Marta Canga is a micro-influencer with 22,800 followers on Instagram. She is an influencer born in Belgium and based in London. Her profile focuses specifically on the advertisement of vegan clothing brands and cruelty-free cosmetics. It is a profile in which capital importance is given to the vegan diet she started in 2015 and an ecological lifestyle in consuming fashion and beauty products.

63Canga uses long posts to describe, in a close but not overly personal way, the reasons that led her to be vegan. For example, she shows fake outtake videos in which she poses to make her Instagrammer videos, with which she intends to show her most natural and funny side behind the cameras.

64The photo of her wedding anniversary is the second of her account to have more positive reactions at the time of this research analysis, suggesting that the followers are significantly more interested in the influencer herself than in what she promotes. On the other hand, with little difference, there is another post (November, 26th, 2021), apart from the anniversary, which has more than 1,000 likes, being the post with more positive reactions in the period studied, and it is a personal post in which Marta criticizes Black Friday brands that, by lowering prices so much on that date, exploit “human and environmental resources”.

65Thus, it is possible to glimpse how the success of this influencer is not only based on the promotion of vegan brands for clothing and food but also focuses on her personal life and political claims about the environment.

66The case of Marta Canga’s profile is that of a micro-influencer who shows more of her personal life than Marina Testino. While Marina Testino hardly chooses to show posts related exclusively to her private life, Marta Canga shows many images with her husband that her followers receive very well. However, it is particularly striking that the two microinfluencers in the study are the ones whose posts with more likes in the duration of the research study are related to political claims (criticism of the multinational Repsol in the case of Marina Testino and criticism of Black Friday in the case of Marta Canga).

5.5.4. Lauren Singer

67Lauren Singer is a macro-influencer with 366,000 followers on Instagram. She is an American influencer, activist, entrepreneur, and blogger focused on showcasing zero-waste living (under the slogan “TrashIsForTossers”). Dubbed by her community as “Zero Waste Woman”, Singer went on to give a Ted Talk bringing the concept of “zero waste” to millions of people. She has claimed to have been living a zero-waste life since 2012. Since then, she has been one of the most recognized faces of the #zerowaste movement. According to the movement’s international alliance, the throwaway culture and the unbridled pace of consumption, especially in developed countries, are causing severe environmental problems (Pont, 2019).

68Singer’s account focuses almost consistently on recipes for making her daily hygiene products for the body and home, as well as food recipes that the influencer considers healthy. Although Lauren does not explicitly state that she is vegan, no recipes on her account include animal derivatives. Her account encourages the consumption of secondhand products and the making of hygiene products such as toothpaste or glass cleaner. Spirituality and The Communist Manifesto are among the books she recommends, demonstrating her interest in combining spirituality and politics.

69Although Singer recommends sustainable products from major brands such as Prada, she has her own store where she sells eco-friendly products for body and home care. She also often supports United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund campaigns, criticizes acts of everyday consumption that lead to environmental hazards, and strives to inform her followers about sustainability mistakes made in everyday life.

70Lauren Singer’s most viewed post is of the influencer posing in a snowy landscape wearing a dress provided by a secondhand clothing store (December 12th, 2021). Therefore, it is clear from this study that the higher the influencer’s position, in terms of the number of followers, the greater the interest in her presence in the post’s image to get likes.

71In addition, Lauren Singer is a representative of an environmentalist political movement (#zerowaste) and recommends political and spiritual books, but, essentially, Lauren is almost exclusively dedicated to recommending eco-friendly stores and brands, or fashion, secondhand and to sharing recipes for personal and domestic hygiene products, as well as healthy food. In this way, Lauren Singer is a macro-influencer whose personal life minimally impacts her representation on Instagram.

5.5.5. Vanesa Lorenzo

72Vanesa Lorenzo is a macro-influencer with 429,000 followers. She is a Spanish influencer who has worked as a model, actress, designer, and writer. In her blog, she explains that she has been a model for major international publications and has published a book about yoga.

73Lorenzo’s Instagram profile is not overly advertising, unlike the other four influencers in the study. This influencer advertises products of large firms such as Nestlé, has written a book about yoga, prioritizes family and motherhood, and describes the beauty of nature whenever she can. On the other hand, her position as a mother of three daughters allows her to collaborate with child psychologists with whom she talks about empowering children and making them grow up with optimism — all this sponsored by Nestlé.

74The images on her profile focus on the spirituality of yoga, which she leverages to promote her book published in 2016, and motherhood, ensuring to present a carefree, calm, and happy image. The account also abounds with images of natural landscapes with the family. Among these images, those featuring her daughters or the former soccer player Carles Puyol, her husband, usually have an average of positive reactions higher than the rest of the account.

75The case of Vanesa Lorenzo is particularly interesting in this study. First of all, this macro-influencer stands out, like Evanna Lynch, for her multifaceted career and for writing spiritual books. In this case, Vanesa Lorenzo also has aspects akin to those of a celebrity influencer since she is known as a model and designer and she is married to a famous ex-soccer player, although, based on her number of followers, she could fit squarely within this category.

76Unlike the rest of the influencers in the study, Vanesa Lorenzo focuses almost all her posts on boasting a luxurious life, photos of her family (husband and children), and invitations to her followers to practice yoga.

6. Discussion and Conclusions

77According to the definition of eco-influencers made by San Cornelio, Ardèvol, and Martorell (2021), similarities are evident in the five accounts analyzed since all Instagrammers have the same inclination to reconnect with nature and to vindicate the incorporation of nature in Western and modern culture as the main discursive element.

78The selected profiles demonstrate, throughout the period analyzed, a commitment to fostering a sense of love for the environment, coupled with a spirit of appreciation for beauty and entrepreneurial culture. This is environmental activism related to people outside the realm of environmentalism, that is, activists in the traditional sense. For example, Evanna Lynch is an actress and writer, Vanesa Lorenzo is a model, and Lauren Singer is a businesswoman.

79The profile of @evannalynch has the highest number of followers, the highest average number of positive reactions and comments, and, overall, the best average number of interactions with the approval of its followers. Thus, although this is not always the case, this exploratory sample demonstrates that a higher number of followers provides a higher number of positive interactions and, consequently, engagement. This may be due to the celebrity profile of the influencer, being an actress in the Harry Potter saga, attracting many fans. Thus, it is observed that the higher the number of followers, the higher the number of likes and positive comments since the follower expresses happy feelings in more than one dimension. The high number of positive comments and the small and insignificant number of negative comments in the five accounts are also relevant, which suggests that most followers comment or react to the posts from their trust towards the influencer.

80In response to RQ1, the themes that these eco-influencers deal with the most are the promotion of veganism as the most environmentally friendly diet (specifically in the case of Evanna Lynch and Marta Canga), spirituality (Evanna Lynch, Lauren Singer, and Vanesa Lorenzo), political vindication (Marina Testino and Marta Canga), advertising of their articles (Evanna Lynch and Lauren Singer), promotion of products not related to the influencer, in all the accounts, and personal life (all influencers except Lauren Singer). On the other hand, the influencers who most inform their followers about sustainable development are Lauren Singer, Marta Canga, and Marina Testino. Meanwhile, Evanna Lynch and Vanesa Lorenzo are two public figures better known for their roles as actresses and models, respectively. In summary, the most common posts are about personal life and related to spirituality. However, the posts with more likes are related to political claims and personal life.

81On the other hand, in response to RQ2, in the five accounts analyzed, the carousel is the type of post with the most positive reactions and interactions, although video (followed by the carousel and photos) is the preferred method for the presence of sponsors. In addition, sponsored content and sponsors are generally well-received by the audience of the analyzed influencers. Not surprisingly, more than half of the posts include a sponsor or promote a product or service, confirming the relevance of this type of content within the activity of eco-influencers on Instagram.

82In response to RQ3, the posts that generate the most interest are those related to personal life, as seen in Evanna Lynch and Vanesa Lorenzo; political vindication, as seen in Marta Canga and Marina Testino; and responsible publicity, as seen in Lauren Singer. This variety may be due to the personal interest each one shows more on her profile. For example, although they all show ecological consumption habits and a sense of respect and reconnection with nature, each one focuses more on one aspect. While Evanna Lynch and Vanesa Lorenzo seem more focused on their fandom and “spiritual” life (yoga, writing, or admiration for the beauty of nature), Lauren Singer, Marta Canga, and Marina Testino focus on making eco-fashion attractive, combining intimacy and marketing, advertising and authenticity and, ultimately, beauty and sustainability.

83In response to RQ4, what makes an influencer have greater reach than another is the recognition by followers of their work beyond activism itself, in short, being a famous person. On the one hand, Evanna Lynch’s Instagram audience clearly recognizes her as the character Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter film saga. This is evident from the fact that many of the comments on her posts refer to her as Luna rather than Ivanna.

84In the same way, Evanna Lynch leverages her fame to promote a spiritual new age book, with which she promotes a mystical, optimistic, and creative vision that aligns closely and gives her a certain resemblance to the character she plays in the school of magicians’ films. In essence, she presents herself as an authentic, sensitive, and original person, in short, committed.

85On the other hand, Vanesa Lorenzo’s many followers seem to stem from her love of yoga, a subject she has written a book about, the world of modeling, and her marriage to another famous person. Vanesa Lorenzo’s case highlights the appeal of an image of the natural applied to the spiritual, that is, the more serene and less vindictive image of environmental problems.

86In this sense, the two influencers with the most followers in this study do not show as much interest in environmentalism as in themselves. However, the other three influencers analyzed do not consider nature solely from a spiritual, new age, or mystical point of view but from material and physical, that is, political and economic, awareness, which, in our opinion, is more critical since the consumer is guided towards valuable and truthful information about the environment and the brands that advocate it.

87Our research contributes to the exploration of the behavior, in terms of marketing, of celebrities who, stemming from the world of cinema, modeling, or born in social networks or new video platforms, pursue the phenomenon of ecological and sustainable awareness for the respect, conservation, and protection of the environment. Thus, respect for the environment is an issue that most individuals are aware of in today’s world, although, ironically, a more “ethical” consumption is not practiced in the world of clothing as it happens, more broadly, in the world of organic food. Therefore, this research provides insights into the crucial phenomenon of environmental awareness amid the environmental challenges our planet is currently facing, which, by the same token, concern both the public and the environment.