Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi / The Journal of International Social Research Cilt: 12 Sayı: 63 Nisan 2019 www.sosyalarastirmalar.com Volume: 12 Issue: 63 April 2019 Issn: 1307-9581 Doi Number: http://dx.doi.org/10.17719/jisr.2019.3297 UTILIZATION OF ONLINE INFLUENCERS AS AN EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING TOOL: A CASE OF INSTAGRAM MICRO-CELEBRITIES Filiz EROĞLU  Elçin BAYRAKTAR KÖSE** Abstract Micro celebrities are a kind of online influencers who have numbers of online followers. Despite the great potential of micro celebrities, influence of micro celebrities through making them feel the brand experience still remains underexplored in the literature. The purpose of this study is to review the concept of micro celebrity in relation to experiential marketing and search the relationship between followers’ perceptions about the micro celebrities and their perceptions about brand experience. Within the context of this exploratory and descriptive research, 14 active Instagram users were asked specific questions about elements of influencer effect and dimensions of experiential in an uncomplicated and simple survey. This research’s most notable finding is that followers see their micro celebrities as trustworthy and attractive, but they don’t feel the experience about brand so much. Conclusion part includes some implications for further research. Keywords Experiential marketing, Instagram, Influencer, Micro-celebrity. 1.Introduction Max Kalehoff, marketing and innovation specialist said, “customer experience is the new advertising department”. It doesn’t seem an exaggerated expression that experience is such an important phenomenon because experiential marketing provides companies a competitive advantage comparing with traditional communication tools (Aronne and Vasconcelos, 2009, 1). As Nigam (2012, 71) stated, experiential marketing provides a basis for producing experiences and emotions for the customers as well as enables customers to be involved with products and brands. Customers are appealed by experiential marketing via in-dept experiences connected to a product or brand (Adeosun and Ganiyu, 2012, 22) and all marketing communication related issues deliver an experience (Schmitt, 1999, 53). On the other hand, the advent of social media has created a new landscape for business world. Social networking sites (SNS) are growingly used by consumers to be informed about brands and interact with other consumers. Instagram, as one of the most important SNS, distinctly has a rapid rise among consumers (Garifova, 2016, 135) - from 90 million monthly active users since 2013 to 700 million monthly active users in 2017 as Casalo, Flavián and Sánchez (2017, 371) said - so that companies are attracted to exist in such a fruitful environment. Social media allows to the emergence of some people who are dubbed as influencers. Youtubers and instagrammers, as the most common influencers who engage with their numbers of followers and they also endorse some products and brands in social media arena. In this context, companies and brand owners are attracted to use these influencers because as Aronne and Vasconselos (2009, 1) notified, companies try to manage the best possible brand experience for their customers. Micro celebrities are important influencers and they seem so favorable for the brand owners (Khamis, Ang and Welling, 2017). They are famous people just around their followers. They share many things, especially visual things, with their followers so they make many things around them visible, consciously or unconsciously. They naturally show, recommend or use products on their selfies / videos / pictures so brand owners intend to benefit this improvised, natural, intimate advertising platform. By this way, brand owners may also aim their products to be experienced by their customers through micro celebrities. This exploratory and descriptive research responds to the call for a comprehensive understand of the effect of Instagram micro celebrities on their followers regarding how the followers perceive brand experience which the micro celebrities endorse. Influence of four structures; trustworthiness, attractiveness,  Asst. Prof. Dr., Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University. ** Res. Asst., Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University.