Given the rise in influencer marketing on social media, this paper explores how homophily between influencers and their audiences affects customer value co-creation behaviour, resulting in increased ...expected brand value and purchase intention. A sample of 910 respondents from the United States completed an online investigation. The results indicate that homophily positively influences customer value co-creation behaviour as well as positively correlates with expected brand value and purchase intention. Customer value co-creation behaviour plays a multi-mediating role. Para-social relationship moderates the relationship between homophily and customer participation behaviour. Overall, this study encourages further research on value co-creation in influencer marketing and can constitute a valuable reference for marketing practitioners and influencers.
•Homophily between influencers and audiences stimulates customer value co-creation behaviour.•Expected brand value and purchase intention occur through customer value co-creation behaviour.•Multiple mediating effects from customer value co-creation behaviour.•Performance of para-social relationship as a moderator.
With social media becoming the primary channel for travelers to acquire travel-related information, tourism service providers are increasingly partnering with social media influencers (SMIs) as part ...of their digital marketing strategy. The present study investigates the effectiveness of SMIs by examining the role that two message factors—argument quality and sponsorship status—have on travelers’ perceptions of a hotel’s commitment to sustainability and their intention to stay at the hotel. Results from four studies show that when eco-friendly hotels sponsor SMIs, an attribute-value message is more effective than a simple recommendation message in influencing travelers’ perceptions and intentions. Given the latest Federal Trade Commission regulations regarding sponsorship disclosure practices, the findings offer valuable insights for tourism providers using SMIs. The study findings suggest that SMIs should create sponsored messages that provide rational and objective information about the hotel’s sustainability practices to stimulate travelers’ related cognitions and persuade them to patronize the hotel.
•Influencer attributes cause customers to form and maintain influencer characterizations.•Characterizations determine purchase intention according to the persuasion theory.•Parasocial relationship ...(PSR) characterization is stronger than expertise or trustworthiness.•In forming PSR, social attractiveness is stronger than physical attractiveness or attitude homophily.•The persuasion theory is empirically validated in the context of social media influencer marketing.
Social media influencer marketing has recently received significant attention. Many studies have explored the parasocial relationship (PSR) formation between influencers and followers. PSR has not often been weighted against other widely used relationship marketing constructs, despite the multitude of PSR studies. This study developed a research model based on the theory of persuasion, which was constructed to investigate the relative weight of the PSR. The study considered three personal attributes (attitude homophily, physical attractiveness, and social attractiveness) and three characterizations (trustworthiness, perceived expertise, and PSR) as antecedents of purchase intention. Data were collected through a survey of respondents who bought products/services after watching YouTube advertisements made by influencers. The study found that PSR had a significantly positive impact on purchase intentions relative to other characterizations and that PSR was significantly related to the three personal attributes. In addition, PSR formation was significantly influenced by consumers’ perceived influencer types. The survey showed that social media influencer marketing strategies need to be fine-tuned based on personal attributes, characterizations, and influencer types. This paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how consumers respond to social media influencers that are created through artificial intelligence (AI) and compares effects to traditional (human) influencers.
...Design/methodology/approach
Across two empirical studies, the authors examine the efficacy of AI social media influencers. With Study 1, the authors establish baseline effects for AI influencers and investigate how social-psychological distance impacts consumer perceptions. The authors also investigate the role of an influencer’s agency – being autonomous or externally managed – to test the boundaries of the results and determine the interactive effects between influencer type and influencer agency. Study 2 acts as an extension and validation of Study 1, whereby the authors provide generalisability and overlay the role of need for uniqueness as a moderated mediator.
Findings
The authors show that there are similarities and differences in the ways in which consumers view AI and human influencers. Importantly, the authors find no difference in terms of intention to follow or personalisation. This suggests that consumers are equally open to follow an AI or human influencer, and they perceive the level of personalisation provided by either influencer type as similar. Furthermore, while an AI influencer is generally perceived as having lower source trust, they are more likely to evoke word-of-mouth intentions. In understanding these effects, the authors show that social distance mediates the relationship between influencer type and the outcomes the authors investigate. Results also show that AI influencers can have a greater effect on consumers who have a high need for uniqueness. Finally, the authors find that a lack of influencer agency has a detrimental effect.
Research limitations/implications
The studies investigate consumers’ general response to AI influencers within the context of Instagram, however, future research might examine consumers’ response to posts promoting specific products across a variety of category contexts and within different social media platforms.
Practical implications
The authors find that in some ways, an AI influencer can be as effective as a human influencer. Indeed, the authors suggest that there may be a spill-over effect from consumer experiences with other AI recommendation systems, meaning that consumers are open to AI influencer recommendations. However, the authors find consistent evidence that AI influencers are trusted less than traditional influencers, hence the authors caution brands from rushing to replace human influencers with their AI counterparts.
Originality/value
This paper offers novel insight into the increasingly prominent phenomenon of the AI influencer. Specifically, it takes initial steps towards developing understanding as to how consumers respond to AI influencers and contrast these effects with human influencers.
Social media offers a myriad of opportunities for entrepreneurial marketing strategies that leverage the power of communities, especially when they are combined with traditional approaches such as ...celebrity endorsement. The reach, frequency, and speed of communication on social media offer the ideal leverage for the drivers of entrepreneurial marketing. However, the rapid rate of change may threaten the effects of investments in entrepreneurial marketing on social media and they might become only short-lived. Employing structural equation modeling, we test the long-term effect of Facebook-based celebrity endorsement on purchase intention among 234 members of a Facebook fan community in a two-wave longitudinal design. We argue that this relationship is mediated by a sponsor's brand image and moderated by brand differentiation. This study is the first to investigate the long-term effects of entrepreneurial marketing on social media. We present the contributions and implications of our findings as they affect research and practice.
Over the past few years, the popularity of social media influencers (SMIs) has been growing exponentially, making influencer marketing (IM) prevalent in firm strategies. Despite the mounting interest ...of researchers and practitioners, the resulting scholarly work remains divergent, partial and fragmented. In light of the pivotal role of SMIs on the consumer decision journey and as this research domain is still developing, a comprehensive and critical overview of extant research on this topic is sorely needed. In response, this paper is the first to consolidate the present state of research on IM within social media settings. More specifically, a systematic review of relevant studies published in peer‐reviewed academic journals across diverse fields was conducted in order to identify key themes and dominant concepts. The analysis of 68 articles from 29 Chartered Association of Business Schools‐ranked journals forges a robust understanding of this phenomenon, shedding light on the mechanisms underlying the appeal of SMIs and their influential power in shaping consumer attitudes and behaviour. Based on the analysis, an integrative multidimensional framework is presented that considers antecedents, mediators and moderators of potential outcomes, as well as contextual factors that translate into consumer behaviour. In so doing, various research gaps are identified and avenues for future research are proposed that reflect important emerging areas and unexplored realms with reference to theory, context and methodology. Conclusively, implications of this study for theory and practice are discussed.
We explore the mechanism through which social media influencers (SMIs) persuade consumers to adopt brands. Guided by the influence framework, we propose and test empirically SMIs’ influence ...mechanism, which occurs in four principal stages: (a) a SMI's influence attempts (showcasing H1: attractive; H2: prestigious; H3 and H4: expert; H5: informative; and H6: interactive Instagram contents); (b) target consumers’ attitudinal response to the influence exercised (evaluating the SMI as a H7: taste and H8: opinion leader); which, in turn, affects (c) the targets’ desire to comply (the desire to mimic); and ultimately (d) their favorable behavioral outcomes (H9: social media word‐of‐mouth and H10: purchase intentions). On the basis of the survey data from 395 respondents, we used structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses and proposed model. We verified the robustness of our results using an ordered probit regression model and analyzed the mediating role of consumers’ desire to mimic SMIs in the influence mechanism. Our results confirm that the five aspects of influencing posts affect consumers’ attitudes positively and significantly, which in turn leads to positive behavioral outcomes through their desire to mimic SMIs. We discuss the results’ important implications for both scholars and practitioners.
•Mobile convenience and influencer credibility are crucial for influencer marketing.•Interactivity has negative direct and indirect roles in influencer marketing.•Influencer marketing and its ...outcomes are unlikely to be gender-invariant.
Drawing upon the source credibility theory, interactivity theory, gratification-opportunities, with the overarching theory of belief-attitude-behavioral chain, this study investigates the antecedents (i.e., mobile convenience, interactivity, and influencer credibility) that shape one’s attitudes toward social media influencer and advertised product or service, as well as how these attitudinal outcomes lead to actual purchase. Additionally, the moderating role of gender is examined. Interestingly, the results indicate that interactivity is playing negative direct and indirect roles in attitudinal outcomes. Furthermore, the attitude towards product or service is fully mediating the direct effect of attitude towards the social media influencer on purchase behavior. Besides, the association between influencer credibility and attitude towards product or service is strongly moderated by gender, in which the path is stronger for males. The integrated framework complements existing Information Technology/Information System models. Additionally, the study also renders contributions to the influencer marketing literature.
The advertising and marketing literature have established that celebrity endorsements constitute an effective way to enhance attitudes toward brands and increase purchase intents. However, there are ...no relevant studies on digital influencers. This study addresses the research gap by examining the effect of digital influencers' attractiveness and the effect of the congruence between a digital influencer and a brand on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. By applying structural equation modeling to a sample of 307 followers of digital influencers, a model was tested and group analysis was performed for two categories (“entertainment & video games” and “fashion & beauty”). The results show that both brand attitudes and purchase intentions are influenced by the digital influencer's attractiveness (which includes both likeability and familiarity) and by the congruence between the digital influencer and the brand. This study makes several contributions to both theory and practice, which are highlighted in this paper.
Digital marketing is a new form of marketing that uses several digital media to spread a message. Influencer marketing is a promising acquisition channel for companies to explore. Engaging with ...influencers can help a company improve its brand image and stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. However, these opinion leaders can influence the purchasing behavior of the target audience. These are individuals with skills in a particular field, using them to create quality content, they are recognized as experts in their field. The content they publish is often in the form of a personalized story incorporating their opinion on a situation, a product or a service. Success lies in establishing a genuine, preferably long-term, relationship between the brand and its influencers. The objective is to rigorously analyze the links and elements that give meaning to this “Influencer marketing authenticity” interaction. As part of this research, we presented a detailed literature review of authenticity and influence marketing.
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