Impact of Social Media advertisement and influencers on Compulsive Buying Mediated by Materialism: The Moderating Role of Narcissism

Purpose This paper aims to examine the presence of impulsive and compulsive buying among consumers. It studies the various factors that affect and moderate the impulsiveness and compulsiveness of buying. Design/methodology/approach Literature review resulted in four constructs – social media influence, social media preferences, hedonic motivation and shop in COVID-19. On conducting factor analysis in statistical package for the social sciences, the variables were divided under the influence of social media, social commerce, electronic word of mouth (EWOM) of social commerce, hedonic happiness, hedonic fun and shopping in times of COVID-19. Structural equation modeling is conducted in AMOS (statistical software) for a diagrammatic representation of the relationship between the variables. Regression analysis is used to re-affirm the above relationship. Testing of hypotheses is done with the help of the chi-square test. Findings All six latent variables are significantly related to impulsive and compulsive buying. However, the regression analysis shows social media influence as the strongest predictor for impulse buying and hedonic happiness for compulsive buying. Also, the presence of the pandemic COVID-19 leads to impulsive buying as well as compulsive buying in the apparel and accessory segment. Practical implications Marketers should capitalize on spontaneous buying in both forms – impulsive buying and compulsive buying. Social media influencers, as well as more consumer engagement on social media, can promote impulsive buying. However, compulsive buyers will be more attracted towards great in-store experiences or hedonically driven advertisements, as they do not just shop for buying the product; they shop for the experience of shopping. Originality/value This study uncovers the difference in factors that affect impulsive and compulsive buying. Though both behaviours seem points of the same scale, they are inherently different and can be predicted with social media influence and hedonic happiness.

Consumptive behavior is characterized by an individual's tendency to spend money on shopping, both offline and online, without considering the priority scale. In this case, financial literacy has a role to play in avoiding consumer behavior and encouraging wiser use of social media. The objectives of this research: 1) The influence of financial literacy on adolescent consumer behavior in Kubu Village, Kubu Raya Regency. 2) The Influence of Social Media on Teenage Consumer Behavior in Kubu Village, Kubu Raya Regency. 3) The Simultaneous Influence of Financial Literacy and Social Media on Teenage Consumptive Behavior in Kubu Village, Kubu Raya Regency. The research method is quantitative. The sample consisted of 200 teenagers. Data collection techniques used questionnaires. Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression. The research results show: 1) The influence of financial literacy on adolescent consumer behavior in Kubu Village, Kubu Raya Regency with a sig value of 0.000 < 0.05. 2) The influence of social media on adolescent consumer behavior in Kubu Village, Kubu Raya Regency with a sig value of 0.000 < 0.05. 3) Simultaneous Influence of Financial Literacy and Social Media on Adolescent Consumptive Behavior in Kubu Village, Kubu Raya Regency with a sig value of 0.000 < 0.05.

Background: The growing influence of social media platforms on consumer behavior, particularly in developing countries like Nepal, has been a subject of increasing interest. As social media usage rises, the impact of advertisements on purchasing decisions becomes a critical area of exploration, especially among the youth. This study seeks to understand how demographic factors, including age and gender, affect social media usage patterns and the influence of advertisements on purchasing behaviors. Objective: The primary objective of this research is to examine the relationship between social media usage and consumer purchasing decisions, with a focus on the demographic characteristics of age and gender among Nepalese youth. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 123 respondents from different age groups, ranging from 16 to above 35 years. Descriptive data analysis was employed to assess demographic distributions and social media usage patterns, while a Chi-Square test was used to analyze the influence of gender on purchasing behavior due to social media advertisements. Respondents were asked about their preferred social media platforms, purchasing behaviors, and their views on the influence of social media advertisements. Findings: The results revealed that Instagram is the most popular social media platform across all age groups, with a notable gender difference in platform preferences. Social media advertisements were found to influence purchasing behavior, with a majority of respondents either agreeing or being uncertain about their impact. The Chi-Square test showed no significant relationship between gender and the influence of social media advertisements on purchasing decisions. The majority of participants, particularly those aged 16-25, indicated that they were influenced by social media ads in their purchasing choices. Conclusion: This study highlights the substantial impact of social media advertisements on the purchasing decisions of Nepalese youth, particularly among those aged 16-25. Gender did not appear to significantly influence the effectiveness of these advertisements. The findings suggest that social media platforms, especially Instagram and Facebook, play a crucial role in shaping consumer behavior, and advertisers should focus on these platforms to target younger audiences. Novelty: This study provides valuable insights into the specific impact of social media advertisements on consumer behavior in Nepal, a developing market, and explores the role of demographic factors in shaping these behaviors.

While social media receive considerable scholarly attention, studies reveal mixed outcomes in relation to its influence on tourists’ destination choices. There is nonetheless a persistent perception that social media has a fundamental influence on destination choice. However, those studies that do find a social media influence are in contexts where tourists are predisposed to be influenced (the contexts were selected due to social media presence or influence). These studies also have limitations in terms of social media types, tourists and destinations. This research responds to the challenges and explores social media influence across diverse destination choice contexts. Through face-to-face interviews conducted with 39 Australian tourist decision-makers, the findings reveal that social media influence is only apparent when specific context-conditions are co-present. Instead, most destination choice contexts are likely to result in low levels of social media influence. The findings advance theory by identifying three contextual dimensions for social media influence: level of social media engagement; destination novelty or familiarity; and complexity of the planning decision. This research importantly demonstrates the need to illuminate context when conceptualising social media influence on tourists’ destination choices. Practically, destinations should utilise social media to demonstrate ease of visit planning.

This study aims to identify how social media influencer’s attributes can be useful to tune the customer purchasing behavior. Since social media influence highly affects the day-to-day life of people, he/she highly impacts on decision making of customers to purchase products in the market. Therefore, it is essential to identify how these significant attributes support him/her to influence customer purchasing behavior. Through the literature, attractiveness, expertise, prestige, follower base, and trustworthiness are identified as major attributes and are considered as independent variables, while customer attitude and customer mimicry desire act as the mediating factors of the relationship between these attributes and customer purchasing behavior. The research is designed as a quantitative study and primary data were collected from a sample of 405 participants through questionnaire. All the Facebook and Instagram users in the country are considered as the population. Reliability and validity of data are ensured through pilot test and data were analyzed through factor analysis, correlation analysis developing multiple regression models and hypothesis testing. Considering the findings, all the attributes show positive correlation, and all the correlations are significant at the point of P = 0.001. The conceptual framework is acceptable since all the hypotheses are supported. The conclusion is that there is a positive and significant impact of social media influencer’s attractiveness, expertise, prestige, follower base, and trustworthiness on customer purchasing behavior while customer attitude and customer mimicry desire act as mediators. Policy implication of the study is to identify the suitable social media influencer and determine the criteria for selecting the social media influencer for social media marketing. The selected influencer will highly support the company by marketing its products and ensuring the customer attraction. He can apply these results and improve his follower base earning more through effective marketing campaigns. Hence, he can ensure high demand for the product, maintain competitiveness, and contribute to profit maximization. Novelty of the study is that it shows the significance of social media influencer’s attributes on social media marketing. By utilizing these attributes, he can attract new customers, retain existing customers, change customer perception towards the brand. Eventually, he will cause the brand to become the market leader. Keywords: Facebook, Instagram, Social media influencer, Social media marketing.

With reasons like increase in paying capacity and higher living standards leading to substantial growth in the automotive sector each year, the automotive OEM's cannot afford to lag behind in social media marketing. The objective of this paper is to identify and investigate the extent of influence of social media in the Indian Automotive Consumers by conducting a thorough primary research. The study looks towards social media's influence on consumers at multiple stages involved during the buying process as well as the impact of consumer activism through social networks on brand loyalty. The need of the hour is for the automotive OEM's to recognize the importance through social networks marketing phenomenon. A simple random sampling technique is adopted in the paper to select the sample respondents. The primary data is collected from the NCR region from 131 respondents. Analytics is used as a statistical tool to infer the results and come to a conclusion. The results reveal a strong influence of social media in influencing the consumer over multiple buying processes parameters. Influence of Social Media on vehicular research, suggestions, connected vehicle technologies, finance calculator and Facebook page marketing showed a significant share in impacting a consumer before buying an automobile.

The increased time spent on social media and other digital environments has significantly impacted people’s lives, health, and social interactions. Social media influencers often lead adolescents to focus excessively on perceived beauty ideals and appearance flaws, as they tend to compare their self-image with what they see on social media platforms. This behavior may contribute to the development of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). This research aims to investigate the effects of influencer marketing on BDD among Generation Z and to examine the extent to which they feel pressured to conform to unattainable and unrealistic beauty standards. A review of peer-reviewed articles was conducted using MedLine, PubMed, and Emerald, following the methodology of a systematic literature review. Articles retrieved in the initial search were screened using inclusion and exclusion criteria based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. After applying the CASP tool, six articles were selected for final review. A narrative analysis was conducted to examine the data regarding the impact of social media influencer marketing on BDD. Findings suggest that social media advertisements and influencer marketing lead adolescents to feel dissatisfied with their body image and to negatively assess their physical appearance. They are especially vulnerable to developing BDD, showing symptoms such as frequent mirror checking, exercise obsession, and constant comparison of their bodies with others. This study recommends that adolescents enhance their critical thinking skills and develop greater awareness of social media and influencer marketing content to help prevent the onset of BDD.

This study aims to investigate how consumer behaviour in Malaysia is influenced by the characteristics of social media influencers who shape consumers' perceptions of drone quality and brand awareness. The research framework on brand recognition, brand loyalty and brand image were adopted from the previous literature. The Malaysian Gen-Z population with disposable income and who use social media are the target of this study. They were users of social media such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and email. Convenience sampling was used to deliver online surveys. A total of 230 samples were successfully collected. The findings indicate that brand awareness and perceived quality are positively and significantly impacted by social media influencers while brand image is positively and significantly impacted by perceived quality but not brand awareness. Perceived quality acts as a mediator between social media influencers and brand image. An analysis of prior research frameworks and studies was conducted to assess the relationship between drone brand image and influencers. Drone research has not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, this will address some knowledge gaps. A thorough comprehension of the principles of perceived quality and brand awareness is necessary in order to better comprehend the role that social media influencers can play in marketing consumer drone brands.

Social media has completely altered how businesses engage with their customers. Social media influencers have become an essential marketing tool for many industries. The consumption of conspicuous products is growing in today’s era. Therefore, most people prefer luxury products as a status symbol, ignoring what brands offer. Consequently, brands spend considerable resources on social media to promote their products and reach a wider audience. However, little research is available on how social media affects customer behavior and how to measure social media effectiveness. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the influence of social media influencers on customer attitudes, behaviors, and purchase intentions toward the consumption of conspicuous products in Pakistan. The study also examined the mediating effect of brand image on consumer attitude and purchase intention. The study used Smart PLS 4 for data analysis on a data set of 200 respondents. The results indicate that social medial Influencer positively affects brand image, consumer attitude and purchase intention.The findings also reveal that brand image mediates (i) social media influencer and consumer attitude and (ii) social media influencer and purchase intention. This research contributes to the current reservoir of knowledge by providing insights into the factors that make social media influencer successful in promoting conspicuous products. The study findings can benefit conspicuous/luxury brands in selecting suitable social media influencer and marketing strategies that enhance their brand image

BackgroundThere is growing awareness of the broader health-related harms of social media; yet, research on social media–related injury mortality and morbidity remains limited. Emerging evidence suggests links between excessive social media use and increased risks of self-harm, cyberbullying-related distress, and dangerous viral challenges, but there has been limited research on the link between time spent on social media and environmental risk-taking, such as risky selfies. However, comprehensive epidemiological studies and policy-driven interventions remain scarce, highlighting the need for further investigation into the public health implications of digital engagement.ObjectiveThis research aimed to examine the relationship among self-reported time spent on social media, influencer status, and risk-taking behaviors among Australians, considering implications for injury prevention.MethodsA cross-sectional survey of Australian social media users (N=509) was conducted using stratified quotas to approximate national distributions by age, sex, and geographical location. Participants reported their average daily time spent on social media, whether they identified as a social media influencer, and whether they had ever engaged in risk-taking behavior to create social media content. Associations between categorical variables (eg, influencer status and risk-taking) were examined using Pearson chi-square tests and supplemented with odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs. Independent samples 2-tailed t tests were used to compare mean time spent on social media between risk-takers and non–risk-takers.ResultsAmong participants, 48 (9.4%) self-reported engaging in risk-taking behavior in the outdoors. Influencers were significantly more likely to report risk-taking (28/58, 48.3%) compared to noninfluencers (20/451, 4.4%; χ²1=110.57, P<.001). Risk-takers (n=48) also spent significantly more time on social media (mean=2.05, SD 1.04) compared to non-risk-takers (n=461; mean 1.37, SD 1.04; t57.22=4.31, P<.001). In multivariate analyses, influencers (OR 20.11), males (OR 2.00), and younger age groups (eg, OR 33.06 for 18‐24 vs 55‐64 years) had significantly higher odds of reporting risk-taking.ConclusionsOutdoor risk-taking for content creation is associated with influencer status and greater time spent on social media. These findings suggest that policy makers should prioritize regulations addressing risky social media behaviors and hold platforms accountable for promoting harmful content. Social media platforms should implement real-time alerts, pop-up warnings, and geolocated safety information to discourage risky behaviors. Public health practitioners should engage influencers to promote safer content norms and develop targeted injury prevention strategies.

Purpose – This study aims to explore the impact of social media influencers (SMIs) intimate self-influencer congruence on consumers’ electronic word of mouth (e-WOM), with a focus on the role of parasocial relationships and congruence among the influencer, product and consumer. The study finds its theoretical foundation in parasocial theory and self- congruency theory. Design/methodology/approach – This study employs a quantitative approach, utilizing a sample of 170 collected survey responses. The proposed hypotheses are evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings – This study reveals the sequential mediating effect of parasocial relationships and credibility on the link between self-influencer congruence and electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) on TikTok. Credibility plays a significant role in converting parasocial connections into consumer purchase intent. These findings highlight the importance of selecting credible influencers who align with brand values and audience interests to utilize social media marketing. Originality/value – This study brings new perspectives by identifying a limiting factor that shapes the impact of self-influencer congruence on electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) via sequential mediating effect of parasocial relationships and credibility. In doing so, this study provides a novel perspective in understanding the dynamics between SMIs and consumers in the rapidly evolving marketing landscape

Understanding GI Twitter and Its Major Contributors

The success of (social media) influencers hinges on their popularity. We investigated how critical perceptual (warmth, competence) and behavioural (engagement, electronic word of mouth) indicators of influencers’ potential to gain popularity are shaped by emotional expressions in their posts. An initial correlational study tapping participants’ actual experiences with real-world influencers revealed that influencers’ emotional styles are effectively characterised by positivity and negativity. Three follow-up experiments varied influencers’ emotional styles. We found that popularity indicators were shaped by the perceived authenticity and appropriateness of influencers’ emotional expressions, rather than by valence per se. Whereas positive emotional expressions were generally more appropriate than negative expressions, favourable consequences were sometimes counteracted by opposing effects on perceived authenticity, which were more varied and context-dependent. We conclude that influencers successfully navigating multiple demands (appropriateness, authenticity) on their emotional behaviour gain popularity, thereby extending research on the interpersonal effects of emotions to the social media context.

Parasocial relations and social media influencers' persuasive power. Exploring the moderating role of product involvement

This exploratory study aimed to discern and comprehend the social media usage patterns and their perceived impact on mental health among Generation Z students at a Colombian university. Employing a mixed methods approach, data were collected from 361 Colombian Gen Z individuals. A focus group guide and a self-reported questionnaire, informed by focus group results, were utilized to evaluate diverse constructs. Qualitative data underwent iterative categorization (IC), while quantitative data underwent statistical analysis using SPSS software. Participants predominantly utilized social media for communication and entertainment, with indications of a link between social media use and anxiety. However, participants did not perceive social media as significantly influential in their decision-making processes or relationships. Notably, female participants reported higher anxiety levels. This study of Colombian Gen Z freshmen unveiled social media's notable influence on body image, mental health, and social rewards. It underscores the necessity for tailored interventions to foster positive online experiences, address gender-specific challenges, and reassess brand engagement strategies within this demographic. Additionally, it highlights the need for further research within the Colombian university context. Though the employed instrument exhibited acceptable validity and reliability levels, future research could benefit from enhancements. This paper represents the initial endeavor to analyze social media consumption among Generation Z in Colombia through a mixed methods approach. Examining social media consumption patterns and their impact on mental health contributes to academic discourse on this relationship, informing the design of appropriate pedagogic strategies while considering reported gender differences. This study contributes valuable insights into the intricate interplay between social media use and mental health among Colombian Gen Z students. Addressing these dynamics is pivotal in formulating targeted interventions and strategies to support the mental well-being of this demographic within university settings. Future investigations should focus on refining measurement tools and delving deeper into nuanced aspects of social media's influence on mental health within educational environments.