The Influence of Food Blogger Accounts on Consumer Purchase Decisions: An Empirical Study on Instagram in Bahrain

Social media applications have been part of daily life; they may impact on consumers' purchase decisions. This study aims to measure the impact of food blogger's accounts on Instagram in terms of familiarity, fame, personality, promotions, and reliability on the followers' purchase decision in the kingdom of Bahrain. The study used quantitative method and a questionnaire was conducted with a sample of 302followers of Bahraini's food bloggers' accounts on Instagram. The results shows that there is significant difference between food bloggers accounts on social media and Instagram and decision making in the kingdom of Bahrain, also it shows that there is no significant difference between them in terms of gender, age, qualifications, and number of dining out whereas there is significant difference between them in terms of hours spend on social media and number of the food bloggers' account followed on the Instagram. The study suggests that restaurants and companies should specify annual budget for marketing through social media influencers and suggests that influencers must be honest and reliable with their followers, and they should work to increase the numbers of their followers, likes, comments and specify special promotion to their followers.