INFLUENCER AS A MODERN INITIATOR OF SOCIAL ACTIONS. CASE OF THE BODY POSITIVE MOVEMENT

Objectives: The authors were inspired by the new phenomenon of socially responsible initiatives, created by pro-socially oriented influencers. Analysis of international reference books has revealed a research gap existing in this field. The area for the conducted studies was a conceptually separate part of the Instagram community, related to pro-social activities. Dichotomous purposes of the paper include: in the epistemological aspect: presentation of the theoretical dimension of the concept of influencer marketing and definition of a new category of social media influencers focusing their interests and activities in social media on social issues, in the empirical aspect: exemplification of the aforementioned phenomenon in pro-social activities of a Polish influencer who represents the international The Body Positive Movement. Material and methods: The studies were carried out primarily in a quality aspect. The Individual In-Depth Interview was conducted with one of the main representatives of the #bodypositive movement in Poland, who owns one of the most popular profiles of this movement on Instagram in Poland, @cialopozytyw_pol-ska. Internet content analysis and desk research were also conducted.


Introduction
The modern world is facing a vast number of social problems, starting from the ones that pertain to the condition of the natural environment in a global dimension and ending with the issues of social aberrations in a local dimension (Kenrick 2017). Despite the dynamic worldwide economy and social development, many social difficulties remain unsolved over the years. For instance, widely understand body acceptance, nowadays represented by The Body Positive Movement has been part of people's lives for years, then again under a different name. In fact, it has its roots, for example, in the fat acceptance movement, also called fat activism. The history of the fat acceptance movement dates back to the 1960's in the US, where some people and events have pioneered the entire movement and subsequent changes (e.g. Saguy and Ward 2011;Cooper 2008). The academic field of the fat movement studies shows that the history of fat activism may be divided into three waves (the First: 1960's, the Second: 1990's, the third: 2000 created in association with the development of feminism because these two phenomena are related (Cooper 2008). Modern feminism is different from what it was back then in 60' but still remains powerful and influential at international and local level, despite the fact that it has been criticized or even stigmatized (e.g. Walby 2011).
Analysis of reference publications has revealed an existing research gap due to the fact that a relatively small number of scientific publications were identified that tackle the issue of influencer marketing in the context of using SMI as a tool of social marketing.
Literature review allowed for identifying a few papers that are thematically linked to the phenomenon described by the authors in a varying degree: the effects of impartiality disclosure and e-commerce landing pages on consumer responses to social media influencer posts (Stubb and Colliander 2019); activities promoting healthy food among teenagers at social networking sites (Folkvord and de Bruijne 2020); analysis of body positive posts on Instagram (Cohen, Irwin, Newton-John, Slater 2019); the body positive image in various aspects as healthy behaviors or concerning beauty perception and emotional well-being (e.g. Tylka, Iannantuono 2016;Paraskeva, Lewis-Smith, Diedrichs 2017;Andrew, Tiggemann, and Clark 2016). None of the above-listed publications focused on the essential research interests of the authors of this publication, namely the role of social media influencers as the modern initiators of social actions.
The premises above induced the authors of the publication to try to fill the research gap mentioned above. The formulated research purposes have a dichotomous nature. The epistemological aspect presents theoretical dimension of the concept of influencer marketing in the context of its application in social marketing (focusing on the feminist perspective and The Body Positive Movement), concluded by defining a new category of SMI active in the area of social marketing (pro-social SMI, non-profit SMI). In the empirical aspect, it is an exemplification of the above phenomenon with the use of pro-social actions of a Polish influencera woman, a feminist representing The Body Positive Movement.

Influencer Marketing
The form in which influencer marketing is functioning nowadays is unique in its form, even though the sole concept can be related to various forms of marketing and proceedings from the past. In reference exclusively to the aspect of an individual's influence on recipients opinion leaders have been studied since the 1940s (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 2021), when the theory of two-level communication was formulated, which stipulates that it is not the media that influence the consumer decisions, but other people who are the opinion leaders in specific communities (Katz and Felix Lazarsfeld 2009).
The 4.0 marketing concept, presented in 2017, referring to the modern digital era, assumes ongoing interaction: off-line and on-line between clients and companies. Furthermore, the growing role of artificial intelligence and interactions between machines, leading to the increased marketing productivity and interpersonal connectivity, is emphasised (Kotler, Kartahaya, Setiawan, 2017). The aspect of smooth movement between the off-line and on-line areas is significant in a situation when consumers not only frequently acquire a product that potentially satisfies their needs, but also participate in designing a comprehensive concept of the product and its promotion. The best example is hiring users and consumers as the so-called brand ambassadors; this phenomenon has grown greatly popular thanks to the cooperation that brands establish with the SMI.
Despite the fact that the term influencer marketing has been used very often for some time in various semantic forms, it is not a phenomenon born a year or two years ago. However, there are many reasons due to which the concept is acquiring new meanings nowadays and relies on slightly different mechanisms (Kotler, Kartajaya, and Setiawan 2017). In reference books, influencer marketing is usually described as a process of engaging, identifying, and supporting selected individuals who create or can potentially create a certain type of field of communication with clients of a given brand. In other words, it is a process where the so-called influencer plays the role of a link between the enterprise and the consumers. Therefore, activities in the area of influencer marketing do not entail classic communication between the enterprise and its recipients. They assume reaching the consumers by purposefully selected influencers who have a well-established position in a given environment with a clear impact on a given community (e.g. Glucksman 2017;Johansen, Sveberg, Supervisor, Hem 2017;Zak and Hasprova 2020;Nadanyiova, Gajanova, Majerova, Lizbetinova 2020;Campbell and Farrell 2020).
The phenomenon of modern influencers is closely related to social media (Haenlein, Anadol, Farnsworth, Hugo, Hunichen, Welte, 2020). The scope of actions of SMI usually encompasses broadly understood promotion of a given product or brand; however, according to some authors, influencer marketing is rather closer to activities in the realm of public relations than a classic advertisement. In order to build a good atmosphere around a brand, it is worth trying to "smuggle" the product through posts or videos rather than overwhelm the observers with advertisements (Ranga and Sharma 2014;De Veirman, Hudders, and Nelson 2019).
This growing industry allowed for creating a number of institutions and applications aimed at finding an influencer for a given brand and facilitating the establishment of contacts and cooperation between the influencer and the company. In 2015, there were approx. 190 agencies and websites engaged in such activities, whereas in 2018, there were already 740 of them (Influencer Marketing Hub, Viral Nation, and NeoReach 2019). The value of the entire sector of influencer marketing in 2016 was estimated at USD 1.7 billion, whereas in 2018, it already reached the level of USD 4.6 billion; this value grew up to USD 6.5 billion in 2019 and around USD 10 billion in 2020. (Influencer Marketing Hub, Viral Nation, and NeoReach 2023). Therefore study results also show a significant potential of influencer marketing from the recipients' perspective.

Social Media Influencer on Instagram
The term influencer derives from the English word "influence", thus, such people must, by assumption, have a strong influence on the recipients of their actions. An influencer should be characterized by being an expert in their respective area, have groups of loyal fans, and create and set trends (Keller and Berry 2003). An influencer is a person who influences the opinions of others, can create a group of trusting recipients who are bound by strong relations and joint interests (Glucksman 2017;Gommans et al. 2017). Reference academic and industrial books feature a theory distinguishing between the so-called traditional influencers (celebrities, actors, musicians usually backed by PR agencies) and social media influencers, also called digital influencers so, people who independently created their position on social media (e.g. Ranga and Sharma 2014; Fabijańczyk and Cupriak 2016; Krywalski Santiago and Moreira Castelo 2020).
Activities of social media influencers are very diversified and do not comprise a uniform group of creators. In reference literature, it is possible to find diverse classifications of social media influencers based on various criteria (e.g. Fabijańczyk and Cupriak 2016; Ruiz-Gomez 2019; Górecka-Butora, Biegun, and Strykowski 2019; Gross and Wangenheim 2018), including the criterion of the general subject matter of the created profile. This criterion allows for distinguishing such groups of influencers as: (1) an idol with an unconventional authority, focusing on diverse subjects; an expert who creates valuable content on a specialist level; (2) a lifestyler who focuses on issues related to daily life; (3) an artist who is intensely engaged in creating original, signature and visually attractive content and (4) an activist who creates an activating message, relying on a specific world view and related to a specific narrowly-defined subject matter.
The presented SMI classifications important from the point of view of this publication, indicates that the analyses of this phenomenon feature the theme of influencers engaged in the promotion of socially activating content (Górecka-Butora, Biegun, and Strykowski 2019) as well as political engagement and activism (Subramanian 2020). However, categorization of this type usually appears in industry studies that characterize the operation of SMI as focused primarily on Twitter, Tik-Tok, and Facebook, without emphasizing, in any manner, their potential relation to social marketing.
Nowadays, we are witnessing unprecedented integration of social media into people's daily lives, resulting in the actual impact of such media on the formation of stances and behaviour of entire social groups (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010;Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, Silvestre 2011).
Instagram is a photo-themed social networking site and it is interesting to note that Instagram used via a traditional browser is very limited in comparison to the possibilities offered by the mobile app (Hu, Manikonda and Kambhampati 2014). This shows one of the authors' main assumptions, namely a close relation between Instagram and smartphones, through which users can easily and quickly update their status with the use of attractive photos. The effect includes over 2 billion active Instagram users in 2021 on a global scale monthly (Statista 2021).
In reference to the aforementioned issues related to social media influencers' classification, it must be noted that there are also certain most important elements that distinguish the so-called Instagrammers. The distinguishing traits that appear the most frequently in the publications are: professionally prepared photos referring to private life, profession, passion; daily, a regular presence on Instagram and interaction with the followers which is meant to resemble interaction with friends; appeals to followers for help and advice given to the Instagrammer via on-line surveys; hashtags, i.e. key words that are placed under the photos or stories (Jin, Ryu and Muqaddam 2018).

Materials and Methods
The area of studies carried out by the authors comprised a conceptually separate part of the Instagram community related to pro-social activities. A phenomenon that allows for perceiving the modern selfless form of activities and fulfilling the basic premises of social marketing (which means a change in behavior and stances that are socially desired (Tkocz 2016)) was examined using the example of The Body Positive Movement.
The Body Positive concept assumes promoting tolerance of other people, the naturalism of the human body, which is often, a contradiction of the generally acknowledged canons of beauty or size (Cwynar-Horta 2016). This is a movement which, in the form of the #bodypositive hashtag, has evolved on Instagram; however, its roots may be searched for in various phenomena (e.g., feminism and women's empowerment) over a number of years, given that the existence of socially acceptable canons of beauty and criticism of people who do not represent them is not only a problem of the contemporary world (Cohen, Newton-John and Slater 2020;Darwin 2018). The Body Positive organization was set up in 1996 due to the shared passion of its founders, Connie Sobczak and Elizabeth Scott. The movement is also related to the plus size theme which emerged in response to the functioning stereotype of an ideal female body and is aimed at promoting female figures of various sizes and in their natural form (Saguy and Ward 2011;Cwynar-Horta 2016).
The #bodypositive hashtag research on Instagram elicits 15.2 million posts and #bodypositivity shows 7 million posts (Instagram, March 2021). An example of an international influencer acting for the sake this movement is Tess Holiday, who set up her @effyourbeautystandards Instagram account in 2012, reaching many women who added their photos with this hashtag showing that size does not determine the quality of their life or their feeling of self-esteem. On Instagram, Tess Holiday is followed by 2.1 million people, whereas the hashtag created by her, #effyourbeautystandards, was used in over 4.7 million posts (Instagram, March 2021).
Today, The Body Positive is a global movement engaging people who have a mission of introducing changes. Words related to the #bodypositive movement are used in English in a number of countries, yet there are also active Polish translations of these phrases. Instagram features Polish hashtags: #cialopozytywne, #cialopozytywnosc, #ciałopozytywność and the number of uses of these hashtags varies on average from +5000 to 13,000 indications (Instagram, March 2021). This allows for analysis of Polish influencers, activists who devote their energy and time to building a different side of Instagram, the side without fake and harmful perfection elusive in real life, but full of tolerance and love, which may be considered a modern form of a social campaign.
One of the main representatives of the movement in Poland is the influencer Kaya Szulczewska who owns one of the most popular profiles of the #bodypositive movement in Poland, @cialopozytyw_polska. Every post of the influencer theoretically focuses on a different theme, yet all of them are guided by a joint, thought-through vision and references to the movement's consistent values and ideas.
Bearing in mind the specific nature of the described subject matter and the adopted research purposes, the authors decided to carry out studies in a qualitative approach with the use of the Internet content analysis method and Individual In-Depth Interviews (IDI) (Maison 2010).
In the first case, the analysed research materials comprised interviews and talks with the pro-social influencer Kaya Szulczewska, who owns the Instagram profile @cialopozytyw_polska, which are posted on various websites. These included, among others, live meetings, carried out in a closed group of people on the Patron website, where the author (using electronic transmission) discusses the previously agreed issues and responds to potential questions of the meeting participants.
Given the limitations of time, finances and geography, the second research method (the individual in-depth interview) was carried out electronically. This allowed for avoiding the adverse pressure of time and offered the researched person an opportunity to think the answers through (Batorski and Olcoń-Kubicka 2006). The influencer (Kaya Szulczewska) received a list of thematically diversified questions. The received answers provided a base for further interpretation of the research material.

Review of Study Results
The performed studies and discussions were aimed at answering the question of whether the influencer's activities may be considered as a modern form of carrying out pro-social activities incorporating definitions of most important features related to the category of socially engaged influencers into the research process and presentation of difficulties and consequences which such categorization of activities entails.
In her Instagram activities, the author of the @cialopozytyw_polska profile emphasizes the necessity of teaching people tolerance and acceptance "both for their own bodies and for the bodies and choices of others. " Furthermore, she stresses not only the display of variety but also "(…) building a subjectively positive relationship with the body and an approach that is full of understanding and openness to how diverse relations other people have with their bodies" which indicates a broad social impact of activities taken by her. In one of the online interviews, the influencer recollects that "the path of @cia-lopozytyw_polska is, in principle, my private journey (…)" which allows for noting her engagement and understanding of the complexity of issues that her work is related to (Miłkowska 2019).
The interviewed influencer makes an attempt at establishing a dialogue with the recipients in her posts. In spite of the computer screen dividing them, she tries to create a comfort zone and a place full of trust and acceptance. Szulczewska not only decides to talk about the problems, but she also indicates the potential modes of handling them. She encourages the recipients to contact her and, in spite of physical limitations, is trying to approach every case individually. She tries not to exclude any social groups, encourages people to break taboos and share their own stories (one of many actions taken by her is posting harrowing stories of people with complexes or traumas who decided to share their experiences in order to expand tolerance and understanding) (Wojciechowska 2018). Based on the data from Instagram @cialopozytyw_polska, it is evident that almost 97% of the account followers are women, and 3% are men (data provided by the account owner). Even if Body Positivity is not about gender but about the body itself, it clearly indicates who searches for this kind of content.
The influencer has set up a profile where there is space not only for her, but also for the recipients, which is not done by influencers who operate in a commercial manner because they receive payment for advertising specific products. Kaya Szulczewska decided to build trust, and thanks to the communication that she applies, she has received much trust from her followers. This also happened because "(…) I daily post my photos on Instagram, and I talk without shame about my life, my body and my own path to self-acceptance. " Thanks to this, the influencer does not distance herself from other followers but just the opposite -she becomes one of them, i.e. a role model, a woman, a person who has similar problems but at the same time has the courage to talk about them. "Apart from it, many people feel the need to share their stories and photos, but they are thwarted by shame and fear of evaluation, so they become encouraged only when they know that they can do it anonymously. " Even though it has been mentioned several times that Internet anonymity is only ostensible and that probably the recipients are aware of it, they believe and trust the influencer's discretion and decide to send her photos of their bodies, their complexes, fears and anxieties in order to be like her, to be beyond these problems. This draws attention to several important aspects: first of all, Kaya offers other people a chance to speak on her profile, she offers them her posts. She is, in a way, giving them the voice that they can use to influence others. This stresses the uniqueness of the communication that the influencer acting pro-socially can create with her followers but on the other hand it is essential to emphasize the responsibility that comes with that relationship.
When asked to indicate the advantages of conducting pro-social activities on-line, the influencer mentioned "high reaches, the ability to communicate with people in various locations, the mode of communication. " This testifies to the fact that she not only notices the advantages of Instagram but also uses the opportunities that are offered by the app, saying: "I try to make the profile interactive and to engage my followers in creating it together with me. " Together, communication and interactivity create the most efficient on-line combination. Instagram's positive side, according to the influencer, is also the possibility of creating a closely-knit and engaged group of recipients. This gives the influencer the opportunity of influencing them, for example by encouraging them to participate in on-line activities by re-directing them to various sub-pages or websites with petitions.
The disadvantage, according to the respondent, are "limitations resulting from censorship, e.g. educational activities related to the body or sex may be limited by shadow bans or blocks that result from Instagram's policies. " This opinion draws attention to the fact that in spite of the ostensibly unlimited activities (the influencer is not related to any superior institution), it has its frames, imposed by the regulations of the social networking site where the influencer is active. The respondent believes that Instagram should support persons conducting pro-social activities more, for example by offering "(…) preferential prices for advertisements or excluding some posts/ accounts from censorship (for example #bodypositive accounts). " To portray the scale of the discussed phenomenon, the interview featured a question about the number of pro-social activists on Instagram: the respondent answered that according to her, they make up a very small portion of all influencers on the platform. It is interesting to note that in a further part of the interview, the respondent emphasised that in her opinion, the influencers (even those who are not involved in strictly pro-social activities) definitely should speak about social problems on their profiles.
Relying on well-known schemes, i.e., the cooperation of influencers promoting products via Instagram campaigns paid for by commercial companies, a question emerged whether the respondent believes that institutions and foundations organizing social campaigns should operate in a similar mode and pay for the influencers' share in social campaigns. The influencer acknowledged that "this is what is missing, but also the influencers' willingness to do it for free or at low costs. " This shows two problems: there are public benefit institutions that may not know how to use the opportunities that are offered by the influencers' reaches and on the other hand, there are influencers who usually cling to highly-paid contracts. There is also the issue of influencers who are active in the area of social problems and who would probably consider cooperation for lesser pay or for free (this would allow for cooperation of both parties), yet due to the fact that they constitute a small part of Instagram, and are usually involved in a strictly defined area of social activities, the representatives of the aforementioned institutions may not be aware of their existence.
In order to elaborate on the potential of the studied phenomenon, the influencer was asked about the direction in which she would like to develop her project in a few years' perspectives. It has to be added that her actions go beyond Instagram even now. She is engaged in a number of activities promoting The Body Positive Movement, for example doing interviews on the radio, offering guided tours at the exhibition devoted to the human body in art (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw), visiting breakfast television programes. With respect to developing her pro-social activities, the influencer has many plans in several stages. She plans to branch out to other social media (for example, YouTube, Twitter, and regular podcasts). More plans refer to the "(…) creation of an alternative medium for conventional social media. " Kaya Szulczewska emphasizes that it is her dream "to go beyond Instagram and to set up a foundation that is going to focus on designing social campaigns in outdoor and mainstream media".
Analysis of the Internet content (and partially also by other advertising media) carried out by the authors, as well as information compiled from the interview with Kaya Szulczewska, offer a basis for drawing conclusions that the conduct of a social campaign with the use of traditional tools of promotion (for example posters referring to social problems distributed in the public space) and through social media are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, well planned activities with the use of all of these tools may permeate, supplement and influence a broader group of recipients.

Discussion and Conclusions
The evaluation of the relationship between the described pro-social influencer and followers seems to confirm the basic premises of the aforementioned Kelman's the Social Influence Theory. In the relationship between Kaya and her followers, one can see mutual compliance of views, which is clearly noticeable in comments that are left on her profile. Furthermore, it is also necessary to mention that the followers are ready to defend the presented views from, for example, haters, moreover they willingly share that body positive, self-acceptance educational content. Identifying Kaya's followers with her views and lifestyle is also clearly noticeable: people who follow her introduce changes to their lives and they willingly recount them in private messages. Internalization is manifested in the fact that the people who follow the influencer struggle with her personal problems about which the influencer talks openly on her profile, which motivates them to engage in the community. It seems that (in comparison to the so-called commercial influencers mentioned before) in the context of difficult and socially sensitive subject matter and often controversial values professed by the influencer -the ties among the influencers and their followers seem to be particularly strong, permanent, and "emotionally charged".
It would have been difficult to establish such a deep relationship requiring daily and diverse interactions with a broad group of recipients using traditional ways of promotion, without even mentioning the possibility of presenting their profiles and personalities on a public scale and Kaya Szulczewska can do that via her account. This is in line with Cohen, Irwin, Newton-John and Slater's study that aimed high diversity showed at body positivity accounts on Instagram (Cohen et al. 2019). Moreover, research on consumers' opinions about airbrushed media images indicated a negative impact on consumers' physical and psychological health including body image (Paraskeva et al. 2017). It is also reflected on the Kaya profile, where her followers expect real photos of bodies with imperfections and without falseness to work on their self-esteem and body positive attitude. On the other hand, another study result indicated that body appreciation was negatively related to weight-loss behavior and positively related to skin screening and seeking medical attention (Andrew et al. 2016). This is visible in educational content provided by Kaya Szulczewska, there is no space for fat-shaming or dietary advice, but guidance on the proper body treatment.
Based on the review of literature and quality studies carried out by the authors, the remarks presented in the paper show that influencing may form a modern way of initiating and carrying out social activities. Many of its features indicate that it may become an efficient social marketing tool and an integral part of many social campaigns. However, this does not change the fact that social campaigns' success still relies on a proper understanding of the principles of constructing efficient campaigns, adequate recognition of stances of their recipients and purposeful use of the portfolio of available marketing tools. Without that social media influencer involvement may be ineffective as in a case presented by Folkvord and Bruijne (Folkvord et al. 2020) Nonetheless, at some point, the detailed observation and analysis of such Instagram community which effectively focuses on spreading some ideas (as body positivity, women empowerment, and self-esteem in that case), can become an entry point for researchers who want to understand a dimension of a social problem.
It seems that in the face of emerging social initiatives created by pro-social influencers, the phenomenon of social media influencers should not be understood narrowly, only in reference to commercial, popular profiles relying their content on the sale of a large number of products. Even though the aforementioned commercial variant is perceived most often nowadays, these studies were aimed at offering a closer look at a slightly different direction of development of influencer marketing which may include overcoming the broadly understood social problems. The presented studies indicate the existence of niche initiatives among social media influencers who create typical pro-social profiles on Instagram. This suggests the separation of the social media influencers into two separate categories: the category of traditionally understood SMI, focused on commercial activities and the category of non-commercial SMI whose areas of interest and social media activities encompass the broadly understood social issues. The content presented by some non-commercial SMI, offers an introduction to dialogue and interaction among them and their followers. The content prepared by them is not only aimed at informing people about the existence of specific phenomena, but also creating online space of mutual support for the recipients to whom such problems refer to.
This category of social media influencers, described and conceptually distinguished, can be called pro-social influencers, whereas its exemplification may be the person of the Polish influencer of The Body Positive Movement, Kaya Szulczewska.

Practical Implications, Limitations and Future Studies
The current problems pertaining to the social media include the fact that the scientific studies referring to them rapidly cease to be valid. This results from the dynamic of the media, unlimited potential of the social media authors and creativity of recipients who are using the possibilities of specific platforms in an innovative manner. Thus, the passage of time, development of the phenomenon and subsequent studies may verify the justness of conclusions formulated in the publication.
Nevertheless, it seems that non-profit organizations should take a more careful look at the possibilities offered by cooperation with social media influencers, particularly pro-social influencers. Conclusions from the studies presented by the authors may offer inspiration for further in-depth discussions about the direction of state-run pro-social activities.
The study results and conclusions presented by the authors cannot be fully satisfactory due to the limited scope of data received from quality studies. Nevertheless, they may offer an incentive for further in-depth studies focused on influencers as the modern initiators of social activities.
Performance of a comprehensive study of the phenomenon in question, also encompassing a diagnosis of the community focused on pro-social influencer would be, according to the authors, desired from the point of its cognitive value and possibility of expanding knowledge in this respect.