The Influence of Social Media Beauty Influencers’ Evaluation Attributes on Purchase Intention

Abstract

This study attempted to review the evaluation attributes and to analyze empirically the influence of such perceived evaluation attributes on purchase intention among beauty influencers on social media. For this, a preliminary investigation was performed among 30 college women who view beauty content on social media from September 23 to 27, 2019. Also, a survey was conducted among college women in Gwangju and Jeollanam-do from October 7 to 18, 2019. A total of 418 responses were used for final analysis, and the results found the following: First, the perceived evaluation attributes were classified into 6 factors (usefulness, playfulness, social attractiveness, trustworthiness, appearance attractiveness, and empathy) while consumption attitude was divided into two factors (purchase intention, recommendation, and intention). The perceived evaluation attributes had a positive influence on purchase intention with statistical significance (p<.001). Second, when asked what social media channel they usually use to get beauty content, ‘YouTube’ was the most common response, followed by ‘Instagram’, ‘Facebook’ and ‘blogs’. In terms of beauty influencers, respondents prefer ‘RISABAE’ the most, followed by ‘PONY (2nd)’, ‘HOLY (3rd)’, ‘HYOJIN (4th)’ and ‘SSIN (5th)’. Other popular influencers include ‘DIRECTORPI’, ‘CALARY GIRL’, ‘KWAK TORI’, and ‘CHAHONG’.