Abstract:

Social media influencer marketing is a new phenomenon in the digital world. It has seen a tremendous and exponential growth, reached a critical mass audience and changed from an obscure marketing tactic to a successful marketing strategy. Therefore, social media influencers and their impact on consumers’ purchase decisions have become highly relevant to marketing scholars and professionals. Previous research on influencer marketing mainly concentrates on either source, message or recipient perspectives and elaborates on the effects of influencer marketing on brands and on followers by examining the characteristics of the Social Media Influencers (SMIs) and their posts as well as the motivations and effects experienced by the consumers. However, those studies lack a comprehensive perspective, which combines all these aspects of influencer marketing and considers their influence on consumers’ purchase intention. This research aims to address this gap in the literature and examines the influence of (1) influencer-related factors (authenticity, attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise), (2) content-related factors (consistency, quality and interactivity) and (3) follower-related factors (social, ego and self-actualization needs) on followers’ purchase intentions. Results indicate that an influencer’s authenticity and trustworthiness along with the followers’ ego needs are significantly shaping purchase intentions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed at the end.

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