Exploring the Similarities of Iranian Influencers with Regards to Content, Relationships and Interactions with Users

Nazanin Sabri, Mohammad Saleh Mahdizadeh, Reyhaneh Akhavan Khantazi, Behnam Bahrak

Abstract: Social media influencers have become an undeniably powerful part of the online world. The huge following behind these people allows them to promote ideas, beliefs and products to a large number of people. Thus, understanding what these accounts publish and how they behave on the platform can be of great value. In this study, we look at Iranian Instagram influencers and compare what they publish on their pages, how users interact with these accounts, and if field of work effects these interactions and the relationships among these accounts. Our results indicate that these accounts can be separated into meaningful groups corresponding with their field of work from the perspective of the interactions users have with them via comments. We also find that the influencer following graph is highly assortative with regards to field of work We further find that a large proportion of comments on all accounts are comments and statements indicating affection towards the user rather than reactions to that specific post’s content.