Social media celebrities and new world order. What drives purchasing behavior among social media followers?

Abstract

Social media celebrities (SMCs) and social media platforms (SMPs) have become indispensable in today's business and marketing settings. Drawing on the celebrity influence model (CIM), this study examines the impact of SMCs on their followers' purchase intention and the moderating influence of SMP usage on the relationships between (a) SMCs and their followers' purchase intention, (b) para-social relationships (PSR) and purchase intention, and (c) identification and purchase intention. We collected 665 valid responses via an online questionnaire in China and then employed partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to examine the proposed relationships between the variables. The findings revealed that SMCs do not significantly influence their followers' purchase intention directly; however, they do exert such influence through PSR and identification. The results further indicated that SMP usage moderates the effect of PSR and identification on purchase intention. Our study offers both theoretical and managerial contributions. Theoretically, the incorporation of CIM into this study's model augments the PSR and identification literature in the context of SMCs. Again, the moderating effect of SMP usage that we reveal is novel in the social media literature. In practice, marketers in China should consider the credibility and rapport a particular social media celebrity has with his or her followers before contracting that particular celebrity to endorse their products.