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

Abstract

Aiming to explore the process of social influence in the social media environment, this study addresses consumers' complex psychological processes, attitudes, and behaviors when interacting with social media influencers (SMIs). Our main objective is to explore the impact of follower status on parasocial relations (PSRs) with SMIs considering the moderating role of the involvement with the product the SMI is advertising on Instagram. Furthermore, we investigate how follower status, mediated by PSRs and the SMI's credibility, has an impact on the effectiveness of the persuasive process and contributes to SMIs' social influence in online environments. We worked together with an actual female SMI with 12,000 followers who posts content on Instagram. Contrary to our predictions, our results showed that being a follower on Instagram does not necessarily mean having a PSR with an SMI. Product involvement has a moderating role in the sense that only those followers who report having high involvement have a strong PSR with the SMI. Moreover, a PSR positively impacts the SMI's credibility, leading to positive attitudes toward the brand and increased intentions to purchase the advertised products and spread the content created by the SMI on social media.