Effect of Key Opinion Leaders and Instagram Posts on Wonderful Indonesia Brand Awareness

. This study examines and analyzes the effects of Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and Instagram posts on domestic tourists' awareness of Wonderful Indonesia, Indonesia's national tourism brand. The Lemeshow approach was used to determine samples from research population with an undetermined size. The study collected reliable data from 114 respondents, all of whom were followers or were familiar with the Wonderful Indonesia Instagram account. Twenty-seven statements were generated on the questionnaires, which were distributed online via WhatsApp, depending on the indicators from the three variables. A Likert scale was used to rate the responses of the respondents. SPSS, specifically multiple regression, was used to analyze the data. The study's findings reveal strong correlations between KOLs and Instagram postings on Wonderful Indonesia brand awareness among respondents. The findings contribute to our understanding of digital marketing, specifically the impact of key opinion leaders (KOLs) and Instagram posts on national tourism branding. In reality, the findings assist policymakers in strengthening Wonderful Indonesia's Instagram marketing for domestic tourists.


Introduction
The advancement of digital technology has revolutionized the way individuals and organizations market their products [1].Within the tourism industry, destination management organizations (DMOs) also have utilized digital technology to market tourist destinations [2].Currently, one of the marketing tools widely employed by DMOs is social media [3].This is due to a variety of reasons, for instance many tourists today consider social media as a new source of information [4].According to Krasniak [5], marketers in various industries hire influencers in communicating their products to the customers through the use of the following social media: Instagram (used by 89% of marketers), Facebook and Twitter (70%), Youtube (59%), Blogs (48%), and Snapchat (45%).
DMOs oftentimes employ Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and use a brand to represent and boost the reputation of the tourism destinations while marketing them to the targeted tourist markets.KOLs, in many instances also motivated by and act for themselves, use social media for the marketing efforts [3].By definition, KOLs are "social media influencers who often offer advice and recommendations to their "followers"" [6].KOLs are differentiated from influencers usually in Corresponding author: tpatria@binus.eduterms of their expertise, knowledge, and experience in one specific field, both online and offline, rather than their influence on a particular social media channel.The tourist destination promoted, be it on a national, regional, or local level, usually is represented by a tourist destination brand, which is often an amalgam of a logo, a name, and a slogan that represent the unique characteristics of the tourist destination.Brand campaigns, which are targeted at the community at large and potential tourists in particular, contribute to the promotion of the positive image of a country [7] or a particular tourist destination.The image generated as a result of a brand campaign is known as a destination image, and it depends on the strength of the brand itself.
The formation of a tourist destination image inside a tourist's mind is a constructive process.According to Leung, et al. [8], tourists interact with social media or other fellow tourists in building a destination image during pre-, during, and post-trip stages of a trip process.In forming a tourist destination through social media, KOLs also play a role.KOLs interact with the community at large on social media in sharing information related to the characteristics of a tourist destination and recommending the tourism services at the destination, such as tourist attractions and activities, accessibilities, amenities, tour packages, and additional services.Such interactions also can effectively help build a tourist destination image, aside from helping DMOs achieve their marketing goals [9,10].
In Tourism studies, there has been a growing interest among Tourism scholars to study the roles of influencers in general and social media posts in building a tourist destination image among social media users.Many of the previous studies examined the relationships between influencers and social media and tourist destination images.Findings generally showed positive effects of influencers and social media on the building of a tourist destination image.They also revealed that tourists receive an idea or gain knowledge about a tourist destination through social media posts, and that tourists keep information on their experiences in a form of stories in their memories.Thus, it can be suggested that social media have strong influences on the building of a destination image [11].
Despite what is already known about the effect of influencers and branding through social media posts on a tourist destination image, little is known specifically about KOLs' influence on a tourist destination image.KOLs, similar to influencers, have important roles in contributing to the success of a tourist destination marketing through branding on social media.KOLs can be considered as a credible agent to raise community's awareness of a brand.Consequently, many online review communities give trusts to KOLS to help improve consumers' purchase behaviour [12] or, within the tourism context, tourists' intention to visit a destination.
This study was conducted to fill the gap in the topic, which is lack of knowledge about KOLs' influence on a tourist destination image.It particularly examined the effects of KOLs and Instagram posts on Indonesia's national tourism brand, Wonderful Indonesia (WI).More specifically, the study examined the effects of KOLs and Instagram posts on public awareness of WI, through its Instagram account, @wonderfulindonesia.Thus, in line with the gap, the goal of the study is to examine if KOLs affect national tourism brand, Wonderful Indonesia (WI).The study was undertaken involving Indonesian citizens as respondents, based on a consideration that domestic travelers were major contributors to the national tourism industry, reaching about 603 million trips in 2021 [13].
Findings of this study generally will contribute to the knowledge about the influences of KOLs and Instagram posts on a national tourism brand among domestic tourist markets.In addition, and within the practical context, findings also will provide an insight into the effectiveness of the Indonesian government's effort to improve the image of Indonesia as a national tourist destination among its own citizens, through the WI branding.A sustainable effort at promoting Indonesia tourism is necessary due to the nation's rich natural and cultural resources, which are potential for tourism development and sustainability that can benefit its people as well as the natural and cultural environments.

Conceptual review 2.1 Tourist destination brand awareness
Brand awareness is related to the functions of brand identities in consumers' memory and can be measured by how well the consumers can identify the brand under various conditions.There are three levels of brand awareness, which include recognition, recall, and perception.Recognition refers to consumers' ability to recognize the logo and the name of the brand, information media, and interaction frequency.Recall refers to consumers' ability to categorize a brand among other brands.Perception includes repetition, novelty, attention, and interest [14].
Tourism branding usually enhances a tourist destination image.Image of a tourist destination is a representation of an individual's perceptions or impressions of a tourist destination after an individual builds experiences in the tourist destination [15][16][17].A tourist destination image can be defined as a psychological representation of a place [18,15].Another definition was offered by Kock, et al. [19], who defined it as an individual's varied cognitive and affective associations with a destination.Such associations allow individuals to characterize a tourist destination without a need to evaluate the destination [19,20].Furthermore, a destination image will affect how tourists behave before and during their visits in the destination [15,16], including intention to visit the destination.
The cognitive component of the destination image illustrates an individual's trust and information on a place.This component is generally a result of an individual's evaluation of a place or events that occurs in the place.Cognition is described as the sum of what is known about a place, either obtained organically or induced [32,33,22].The affective component refers to an evaluation phase involving an individual's feelings that are associated with the place visited [34,16,23,35,30].It can also be described as what individual feels about a place, or an individual likes or dislikes about the place [16,36,37,38].Lastly, the conative component refers to an individual's action, in that an individual's behavior or actual intention to revisit a place and recommend it to other individuals [39,35,24,22,25,26,30].Intention refers to a possibility to purchase a particular brand [22], in this case is to visit a tourist destination.

Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs)
Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) have a role in disseminating a brand to the public through social media.KOLs are individuals or groups that a community considers experts in one particular field, who is able to bring major influences on other individuals' opinions and actions [3,40].KOLs usually are active in social media and share their opinions with the communities and have major impacts or influences on the communities.KOLs' roles have received attention in the marketing field due to their capabilities to shape and direct public opinions [41].KOLs are involved in personal and informal communications, and are aware of their role as a source of information [42].
To maintain their popularity, KOLs are always active on social media and engage with their followers or their social media community members.Examples of KOLs are political figures, columnists, and social media celebrities [43].KOLs are part of influencers who have specific skills.Within the tourism domain, many KOLs are now employed as efficient marketing agents to promote and to build a tourist destination image.Positive online feedback, comments, or reviews from influencers on social media can enhance potential visitors' perceptions of tourism products at a tourist destination.Thus, the recommendations or comments on a tourism product given by influencers can enhance a brand image and have significant influence on improvement of a tourist destination image and visit intention [10].
Indicators of KOLs include long-term engagement, activities, attention, and authority.'Long term engagement' means that KOLs should have long-term experience in the focused field, so that communities perceive them as professionals and their opinions are more likely to be accepted.'Activities' means that KOLs should be more gregarious and talkative and get the sense of self-esteem by affecting others.'Attention' means that KOLs should have a strong appeal among their followers and can get others' attention and responses easily.'Authority' means that KOLs should be accepted and believed by people, especially when they are compared to other influential persons in the same field.A study by Jaya & Prianthara [10] suggested that there is a positive influence between KOLs' influences and a tourist destination image and revisit intention.

Instagram posts
In this era of digital technology -and digital marketing -, DMOs usually promote image of tourist destinations under their management on social media.Social media are internet-based applications, usually using a Web 2.0 platform, which allow their users to share their created contents with other users regardless of the places they live in [44,45].Contents can include ideas, thoughts, experiences, perspectives, and information, and these kinds of contents can be used to maintain a relationship with other users [46].In this digital era, consumersincluding tourists -consider social media as a more trusted source of information on products and services compared to company-sponsored channels of distribution, that traditionally function as media to promote their goods and services [47].One of the most popular social media platforms today is Instagram [48].This app specifically allows its users to share photographs (images) and videos (reels) -along with captions -with other users.Social media platforms have revolutionized marketing and consumption processes.In the academic world, many findings show that social media influence rebuilding of tourist destination images [49].
From the academic point of view, Instagram posts are usually evaluated based on their context, communication, collaboration, and connection.Context refers to content packaging, which includes selected photographs accompanied by captions that explain the message conveyed.Communication refers to interactions between the holder of Instagram account and other Instagram users.Collaboration refers to other users' contributions and engagement through comment and like buttons.Connection refers to use of hashtag to facilitate users in connecting with others' interests quickly and easily.

Method
This study investigated the effects of KOLs and Instagram posts on the community's awareness of the Indonesia's national tourism brand, Wonderful Indonesia (WI).The Indonesian government, through the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, publicizes the brand, one of which is through Instagram, @wonderfulindonesia.For that purpose, the following hypotheses were proposed: To investigate the effects between the two independent variables (X1 or KOLs and X2 or Instagram posts) and dependent variable (Y or WI Brand Awareness), this study employed a quantitative approach, which is used to examine the relationship between at least two variables.E-questionnaire was developed, containing statements that represented each dimension and indicator in each variable (see Tables 1., 3., 4., and 5.).The study population was Indonesian citizens who were familiar with Wonderful Indonesia Instagram account, @wonderfulindonesia, both followers and non-followers.Because the exact number of the population was unknown, the sampling technique used was convenience sampling.In other words, the e-questionnaire was distributed randomly to the community at large through WhatsApp.Only equestionnaires that have been filled out completely were taken into account for analysis.A convenience sample size of as many as 100 was determined for this study.The method used to determine the number of population was Lemeshow, which is: Based on the Lemeshow method, the minimum sample needed in the study was 96, which then rounded to 100 respondents.For every statement, respondents were asked to mark any of the five Likert scales that represented their attitudes toward indicators of each variable.The scales range from One (1) as Highly Disagree, Two (2) as Disagree, Three (3) as Quite Agree, Four (4) as Agree, and to Five (5) as Highly Agree.The data obtained were input accordingly into and processed by an SPSS system.To see if variables X1 (KOLs) and X2 (Instagram posts) affect Variable Y (Brand Awareness), a multiple regression model was used.

Results
In this study, a sample size of 114 respondents was considered valid for research analysis.The majority respondents were male, aged between 19 and 25 years old, live in the capital, Jakarta, entrepreneurs, use social media between 30 and 6 minutes or more, and travel for vacation between one and two times a year.The following Table 2. shows respondents' profile:    Statements pertaining to brand awareness are contained in the following Table 5..It shows that the highest score lies in respondents' knowledge of Indonesia's natural beauty and diverse culture.
The validity test showed that the value of each statement, or R-value, is higher than R-table (0.1840), and that the Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient is higher than 0.6.Thus, the data obtained were considered valid and reliable.A multiple linear regression was used to examine the data in this study.The Multiple Regression Coefficient, Analysis of Variance, and Summary Model are presented in the following tables: The summary of data in Table 7. shows that the Fvalue > F-table, which is 38.578 > 3.078, and the significant value 0.000 < 0.05.Thus, H0 is rejected and H1 is accepted.This means KOLs (X1) and Instagram posts (X2) simultaneously and at the same time influence Brand Awareness.
Specifically, for the hypothesis involving X2, because t-value > t-table, which is 4.217 > 1.659, and the significant value 0.000 < 0.05, then H0 is rejected and H1 is accepted.This means that Instagram Posts (X2) partially affects Brand Awareness (Y) significantly.As for the hypothesis involving X1, because the t-value > ttable, which is 2.354 > 1.659, and the significance value is 0.020 < 0.05, then H0 is rejected and H1 is accepted.This means variable X1, KOLs, partially affects significantly Brand Awareness (Y).The findings also suggested that generally the better reputation the KOLs are, and the better quality of Instagram posts regarding WI are, the higher chance of WI brand awareness effectiveness is.Thus, these findings support that of Govers, et al.'s [11], who suggested that KOLs and Instagram posts affect brand awareness, which eventually will also improve a tourist destination's image.This is because KOL's reputation on Instagram accounts for posting an object will affect people's memory of that object [50].
Through the statistical testing, it was shown that the roles of KOLs and Instagram posts were so significant that they were able to predict WI brand awareness.Findings of this study solidifies the importance of KOLs and social media, in this case Instagram, in enhancing the effectiveness of tourism brand awareness, which particularly can be achieved by using KOLs who have a good reputation and by improving the quality of Instagram posts.
As shown in Table 3., respondents found KOLs appealing but still lack of experiences in the Tourism field.It can be assumed that respondents take the fames, reputations, and successes of individual KOLs into account more than these individuals' backgrounds, such as educational and professional, that were not related to tourism.
Table 4. shows that the administrator of Instagram @wonderfulindonesia has done well with Instagram posts but needs improvement in responding to followers' or users' engagements.Engagements are necessary as social media users are emotional human beings that need two-way communications in their social interactions.Lastly, Table 5. suggests that respondents were aware of Indonesia's rich tourism potentials but they consider the number of WI posts were still insufficient.Respondents also showed that, despite knowing the abundant tourist attractions in the country, they still aspire to explore those overseas.It can be assumed that these two indicators that have the lowest scores are not related.Aside from a need to learn more about tourist destinations domestically, respondents also still aspire to explore tourist destinations overseas.This also may be due to the age of most respondents, where 55.3% of whom age between 19 and 25 years old.This young age range can be considered as a group age who are curious about exploring the world, regardless the tourist destinations are located inside or outside the country where they live in.
Findings of this study provide a practical implication for DMOs, particularly the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy that administers Instagram account @wonderfulindonesia.To achieve a more effective and successful result of WI brand campaigns, the WI Instagram administrator needs to pay attention to the indicators with low scores and maintain those with high or sufficient scores.However, in a long run, it is recommended that the administrator of @wonderfulindonesia continuously re-evaluate the goal of the WI brand campaign considering the dynamism of tourist market profiles for Indonesian tourism.

Conclusion, limitations, and future research
Based on the discussion, it can be concluded that: a.There is a significant influence of indicators of Instagram Posts partially on Brand Awareness b.There is a significant influence of indicators of KOLs partially on Brand Awareness c.There are significant, simultaneous influences of Instagram Posts and KOLs on Brand Awareness Findings of this study contributes to the knowledge about the roles of KOLs and social media, particularly Instagram posts, on public brand awareness of national tourism brand.It fills the gap in the knowledge about KOLs influence on raised public awareness of national tourism brand.This study found a relationship between KOLs influence on public awareness of national tourism brand.
The limitation of the study is the number of respondents, which was 114.This number is considered insufficient as compared to both the numbers of domestic tourists and Instagram users, particularly those that are followers of @wonderfulindonesia account, in Indonesia.Thus, further study should take into account as exact number as possible of IG users who are familiar with @wonderfulindonesia account.These users can be both followers and non-followers.
Based on the mentioned limitation, it is recommended that future research should involve a more representative number of study samples.This also requires sufficient time and budget.Furthermore, it also will be interesting to explore the 59.0% of unknown variables that affect brand awareness of WI.
KOLs and WI Brand Awareness H0 : No effects of KOLs on WI brand awareness H1 : There are effects of KOLs on WI brand awareness Instagram Posts and WI Brand Awareness H0 : No effects of Instagram Posts on WI brand awareness H1 : There are effects of Instagram Posts on WI brand awareness of sample z = standard value = 1.96 p = maximum estimation = 50% = 0.5 d = alpha (01.0) or sampling error = 10% The codes and the corresponding statements are as follows: X1.1 -KOLs have long-standing experiences in Indonesia tourism X1.2 -KOLs are experts in the Tourism field X1.3 -KOLs are popular in the Tourism field among the community X1.4 -KOLs have communication skills in Tourism X1.5 -KOLs are able to influence the public at large when communicating about Tourism X1.6 -KOLs have a strong appeal among the public at large X1.7 -KOLs are charismatic X1.8 -KOLs are accepted and trusted by the public at large in the field of Tourism X1.9 -KOLs are accepted and trusted by other experts in the field of Tourism Meanwhile, both indicators of respondents seeing WI campaigns on Instagram and respondents preferring visiting tourist attractions in Indonesia to those in other countries have the lowest scores: Y.1 -I recognized the WI logo as Indonesia tourism brand Y.2 -I recognized the name WI as Indonesia tourism brand Y.3 -I often saw the WI logo on social media and other information media Y.4 -I know Indonesia has natural beauty and a diverse culture Y.5 -I know the natural beauty and a diverse culture of Indonesia from WI campaign on IG Y.6 -I know and want to visit tourist destinations in Indonesia after seeing the WI campaign on IG Y.7 -There are a variety of tourist activities in one tourist destination in Indonesia Y.8 -I often saw WI campaigns on IG Y.9 -WI's photos/reels are able to attract IG users Y.10 -I prefer visiting tourist attractions in Indonesia than those overseas

Table 1 .
Variables, dimensions, and indicators of KOLs and Instagram posts and brand awareness.

Table 3 .
consists of statements, which are represented by codes, representing indicators of KOLs.It shows that the highest average score falls on KOLs' strong appeal to the respondents, while the lowest on KOLs' long standing experience in Indonesia tourism.

Table 3 .
KOLs.Use of hashtags on WI IG that fit with the contents X2.8 -Hashtags on WI IG make it easy for users to seek additional information on the tourist destination needed

Table 7 .
Analysis of variance.

Table 8 .
Summary model.This study tests the hypothèses regarding the influences of KOLs and Instagram posts on Brand Awareness.Findings showed there are stong correlations between both KOLs and Instagram posts and WI brand awareness.It can also be suggested that both KOLs and Instagram posts significantly influence respondents' brand awareness of WI.Despite the strong correlations, only 41% of WI brand awareness is affected by both KOLs and Instagram posts.The remaining 59% is unknown, and is open for further exploration study.