2. What are the critical factors for determining the right influencer? In Turkey, new moms on Instagram, so- called insta- moms, have an increasing popularity with their mom- and child- related content. They mainly share their daughters and sons in order to attract followers to their story and give information about some products. The process of influencer– brand partnership works as follows: brands reach the influencer agency, the agency gets into contact with the influencers in the portfolio, gives the text and content to them, and the influencer shares the post.

Sometimes brands may directly reach the influencer. Since the content is prespecified and shared by plenty of influencers, the believability and authenticity are questioned by the followers.

In such a growing popularity of influencer marketing, some accounts are dissociated from others. “@hihieved1” is one of them. Hande Birsay, a former media specialist worked for corporations, and started to share her own pregnancy experiences on Instagram as @hiheved with a motivation and need to not feel alone:

During and after my pregnancy, I experienced a lot of strange things that no one had ever told me before. I thought that I cannot be alone getting through all of those.

I had to share them with other people. Then I started to use Instagram and realized that I am not alone.