Beauty Influencer Exposure on Instagram and Tiktok: Vocational Students’ Career Interest

Abstract

This study examined how exposure to beauty influencer content on Instagram and TikTok is associated with the interest of beauty education students in becoming Make-Up Artists (MUA), framed within technical and vocational education and training. A quantitative survey was conducted with 15 students of the Beauty and Makeup concentration at the Indonesia University of Education, selected through total sampling, and the data were analysed using correlation and multiple and simple linear regression in SPSS. The two platforms together were strongly associated with career interest, but in opposite directions. Exposure to beauty influencer content on Instagram had a positive and significant association with career interest, whereas exposure on TikTok had a negative association, a contrast interpreted through the platforms’ differing uses and gratifications and through social cognitive career theory. Because the two predictors were highly intercorrelated, the separate platform analyses were given greater weight than the combined model. These findings suggest that the role of social media in vocational career formation depends on the type of content and platform rather than on overall usage, and that more curated, information-oriented content may be more conducive to career interest than entertainment-oriented content. Given the small, single-programme sample and cross-sectional design, the results are associative rather than causal and should be confirmed in larger and longitudinal studies.