IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v75y2023ics0969698923002540.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Persuasive cues and reciprocal behaviors in influencer-follower relationships: The mediating role of influencer defense

Author

Listed:
  • Wong, Amy
  • Wei, Joicey

Abstract

In today's internet ecosystem, social media influencers serve a central purpose in the creation of a compelling online presence that engages their followers. This study examines the impact of social attractiveness, physical attractiveness, attitude homophily, actual self-congruity, and parasocial interactivity on influencer defense and purchase intention in the context of beauty influencers. A total of 689 respondents were recruited using Sina Weibo, one of the largest social media platforms in China. The results demonstrate that physical attractiveness, attitude homophily, actual self-congruity, and parasocial interactivity are crucial in affecting influencer defense. However, only attitude homophily, actual self-congruity, and parasocial interactivity emerged as significant predictors of purchase intention. The findings afford insights that can further understanding of the influencer-follower relationship in the social media environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Wong, Amy & Wei, Joicey, 2023. "Persuasive cues and reciprocal behaviors in influencer-follower relationships: The mediating role of influencer defense," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:75:y:2023:i:c:s0969698923002540
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698923002540
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103507?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wong, Amy, 2023. "How social capital builds online brand advocacy in luxury social media brand communities," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Hsieh, Jung-Kuei, 2023. "The impact of influencers' multi-SNS use on followers’ behavioral intentions: An integration of cue consistency theory and social identity theory," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Shanahan, Tyler & Tran, Trang P. & Taylor, Erik C., 2019. "Getting to know you: Social media personalization as a means of enhancing brand loyalty and perceived quality," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 57-65.
    4. Ladhari, Riadh & Massa, Elodie & Skandrani, Hamida, 2020. "YouTube vloggers’ popularity and influence: The roles of homophily, emotional attachment, and expertise," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    5. Sirgy, M. Joseph & Lee, Dong-Jin & Johar, J.S. & Tidwell, John, 2008. "Effect of self-congruity with sponsorship on brand loyalty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(10), pages 1091-1097, October.
    6. Sokolova, Karina & Kefi, Hajer, 2020. "Instagram and YouTube bloggers promote it, why should I buy? How credibility and parasocial interaction influence purchase intentions," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    7. Zheng, Xiabing & Men, Jinqi & Xiang, Li & Yang, Feng, 2020. "Role of technology attraction and parasocial interaction in social shopping websites," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    8. Mukherjee, Sourjo & Althuizen, Niek, 2020. "Brand activism: Does courting controversy help or hurt a brand?," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 772-788.
    9. Argyris, Young Anna & Muqaddam, Aziz & Miller, Steven, 2021. "The effects of the visual presentation of an Influencer's Extroversion on perceived credibility and purchase intentions—moderated by personality matching with the audience," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    10. Ren, Shengnan & Karimi, Sahar & Bravo Velázquez, Alberto & Cai, Jianfeng, 2023. "Endorsement effectiveness of different social media influencers: The moderating effect of brand competence and warmth," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    11. Lee, Jung Eun & Watkins, Brandi, 2016. "YouTube vloggers' influence on consumer luxury brand perceptions and intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(12), pages 5753-5760.
    12. Balaji, M.S. & Jiang, Yangyang & Jha, Subhash, 2021. "Nanoinfluencer marketing: How message features affect credibility and behavioral intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 293-304.
    13. (Chloe) Ki, Chung-Wha & Park, Sangsoo & Kim, Youn-Kyung, 2022. "Investigating the mechanism through which consumers are “inspired by” social media influencers and “inspired to” adopt influencers’ exemplars as social defaults," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 264-277.
    14. Sourjo Mukherjee & Niek Althuizen, 2020. "Brand Activism: Does Courting Controversy Help or Hurt a Brand?," Post-Print hal-03095886, HAL.
    15. Hu, Lixia & Min, Qingfei & Han, Shengnan & Liu, Zhiyong, 2020. "Understanding followers’ stickiness to digital influencers: The effect of psychological responses," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    16. Ooi, Keng-Boon & Lee, Voon-Hsien & Hew, Jun-Jie & Leong, Lai-Ying & Tan, Garry Wei-Han & Lim, Ai-Fen, 2023. "Social media influencers: An effective marketing approach?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    17. Fine F. Leung & Flora F. Gu & Robert W. Palmatier, 2022. "Online influencer marketing," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 50(2), pages 226-251, March.
    18. Alboqami, Hassan, 2023. "Trust me, I'm an influencer! - Causal recipes for customer trust in artificial intelligence influencers in the retail industry," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    19. Lee, Michael T. & Theokary, Carol, 2021. "The superstar social media influencer: Exploiting linguistic style and emotional contagion over content?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 860-871.
    20. Kim, Do Yuon & Kim, Hye-Young, 2021. "Trust me, trust me not: A nuanced view of influencer marketing on social media," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 223-232.
    21. Park, Hyun Jung & Lin, Li Min, 2020. "The effects of match-ups on the consumer attitudes toward internet celebrities and their live streaming contents in the context of product endorsement," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    22. Bu, Yi & Parkinson, Joy & Thaichon, Park, 2022. "Influencer marketing: Homophily, customer value co-creation behaviour and purchase intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    23. Sanz-Blas, Silvia & Buzova, Daniela & Pérez-Ruiz, Pilar, 2021. "Building relational worth in an online social community through virtual structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    24. Neureiter, Michael & Bhattacharya, C.B., 2021. "Why do boycotts sometimes increase sales? Consumer activism in the age of political polarization," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 611-620.
    25. Aw, Eugene Cheng-Xi & Chuah, Stephanie Hui-Wen, 2021. "“Stop the unattainable ideal for an ordinary me!” fostering parasocial relationships with social media influencers: The role of self-discrepancy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 146-157.
    26. Casaló, Luis V. & Flavián, Carlos & Ibáñez-Sánchez, Sergio, 2020. "Influencers on Instagram: Antecedents and consequences of opinion leadership," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 510-519.
    27. Zhou, Shuang & Barnes, Liz & McCormick, Helen & Blazquez Cano, Marta, 2021. "Social media influencers’ narrative strategies to create eWOM: A theoretical contribution," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    28. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226316529 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Sakib, MD Nazmus & Zolfagharian, Mohammadali & Yazdanparast, Atefeh, 2020. "Does parasocial interaction with weight loss vloggers affect compliance? The role of vlogger characteristics, consumer readiness, and health consciousness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    30. Ki, Chung-Wha (Chloe) & Cuevas, Leslie M. & Chong, Sze Man & Lim, Heejin, 2020. "Influencer marketing: Social media influencers as human brands attaching to followers and yielding positive marketing results by fulfilling needs," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    31. Masuda, Hisashi & Han, Spring H. & Lee, Jungwoo, 2022. "Impacts of influencer attributes on purchase intentions in social media influencer marketing: Mediating roles of characterizations," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    32. Vazquez, Delia & Wu, Xiangran & Nguyen, Bang & Kent, Anthony & Gutierrez, Anabel & Chen, Tuo, 2020. "Investigating narrative involvement, parasocial interactions, and impulse buying behaviours within a second screen social commerce context," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    33. Barta, Sergio & Belanche, Daniel & Fernández, Ana & Flavián, Marta, 2023. "Influencer marketing on TikTok: The effectiveness of humor and followers’ hedonic experience," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alcántara-Pilar, Juan Miguel & Rodriguez-López, María Eugenia & Kalinić, Zoran & Liébana-Cabanillas, Francisco, 2024. "From likes to loyalty: Exploring the impact of influencer credibility on purchase intentions in TikTok," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Suhaib Ahmed & Tahir Islam & Abdul Ghaffar, 2024. "Shaping Brand Loyalty through Social Media Influencers: The Mediating Role of Follower Engagement and Social Attractiveness," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, May.
    3. Mukta Garg & Apurva Bakshi, 2024. "Exploring the impact of beauty vloggers’ credible attributes, parasocial interaction, and trust on consumer purchase intention in influencer marketing," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    4. Xin Zhao & Zhiyan Xu & Fei Ding & Zichang Li, 2024. "The Influencers’ Attributes and Customer Purchase Intention: The Mediating Role of Customer Attitude Toward Brand," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, April.
    5. Nadroo, Zeeshan Majeed & Lim, Weng Marc & Naqshbandi, Mohd Asif, 2024. "Domino effect of parasocial interaction: Of vicarious expression, electronic word-of-mouth, and bandwagon effect in online shopping," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Cheah, Chee Wei & Koay, Kian Yeik & Lim, Weng Marc, 2024. "Social media influencer over-endorsement: Implications from a moderated-mediation analysis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    7. Sardar, Sainaz & Tata, Sai Vijay & Sarkar, Subhro, 2024. "Examining the influence of source factors and content characteristics of influencers' post on consumer engagement and purchase intention: A moderated analysis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Guo, Rui & Wang, Yuchen, 2024. "Finding the best creation strategy: How influencer's photo-editing behavior affects consumer's engagement intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alcántara-Pilar, Juan Miguel & Rodriguez-López, María Eugenia & Kalinić, Zoran & Liébana-Cabanillas, Francisco, 2024. "From likes to loyalty: Exploring the impact of influencer credibility on purchase intentions in TikTok," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Lu, Hsiao-Han & Chen, Ching-Fu & Tai, Yi-Wen, 2024. "Exploring the roles of vlogger characteristics and video attributes on followers’ value perceptions and behavioral intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Sardar, Sainaz & Tata, Sai Vijay & Sarkar, Subhro, 2024. "Examining the influence of source factors and content characteristics of influencers' post on consumer engagement and purchase intention: A moderated analysis," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    4. Alboqami, Hassan, 2023. "Trust me, I'm an influencer! - Causal recipes for customer trust in artificial intelligence influencers in the retail industry," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. Cheung, Man Lai & Leung, Wilson K.S. & Aw, Eugene Cheng-Xi & Koay, Kian Yeik, 2022. "“I follow what you post!†: The role of social media influencers’ content characteristics in consumers' online brand-related activities (COBRAs)," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Xiao Liu & Xiaoyong Zheng, 2024. "The persuasive power of social media influencers in brand credibility and purchase intention," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    7. Zhou, Qi & Li, Bin & Li, Huajun & Lei, Yueqiu, 2024. "Mere copycat? The effects of human versus human-like virtual influencers on brand endorsement effectiveness: A moderated serial-mediation model," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Aswathi Kanaveedu & Jacob Joseph Kalapurackal, 2024. "Influencer Marketing and Consumer Behaviour: A Systematic Literature Review," Vision, , vol. 28(5), pages 547-566, November.
    9. Hsieh, Jung-Kuei, 2023. "The impact of influencers' multi-SNS use on followers’ behavioral intentions: An integration of cue consistency theory and social identity theory," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    10. Barta, Sergio & Belanche, Daniel & Fernández, Ana & Flavián, Marta, 2023. "Influencer marketing on TikTok: The effectiveness of humor and followers’ hedonic experience," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    11. Andonopoulos, Vasiliki & Lee, Jenny (Jiyeon) & Mathies, Christine, 2023. "Authentic isn't always best: When inauthentic social media influencers induce positive consumer purchase intention through inspiration," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    12. Li, Wenting & Zhao, Fang & Lee, Ji Min & Park, Jiwoon & Septianto, Felix & Seo, Yuri, 2024. "How micro- (vs. mega-) influencers generate word of mouth in the digital economy age: The moderating role of mindset," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    13. Mukta Garg & Apurva Bakshi, 2024. "Exploring the impact of beauty vloggers’ credible attributes, parasocial interaction, and trust on consumer purchase intention in influencer marketing," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    14. Bu, Yi & Parkinson, Joy & Thaichon, Park, 2022. "Influencer marketing: Homophily, customer value co-creation behaviour and purchase intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    15. Ooi, Keng-Boon & Lee, Voon-Hsien & Hew, Jun-Jie & Leong, Lai-Ying & Tan, Garry Wei-Han & Lim, Ai-Fen, 2023. "Social media influencers: An effective marketing approach?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    16. Nadroo, Zeeshan Majeed & Lim, Weng Marc & Naqshbandi, Mohd Asif, 2024. "Domino effect of parasocial interaction: Of vicarious expression, electronic word-of-mouth, and bandwagon effect in online shopping," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Salvatore M. Lombardo, 2024. "The role of Youtube channel characteristics in shaping followers’ purchase intentions and behavioural engagement: the serial mediation of satisfaction and channel loyalty," Italian Journal of Marketing, Springer, vol. 2024(3), pages 247-265, September.
    18. Suhaib Ahmed & Tahir Islam & Abdul Ghaffar, 2024. "Shaping Brand Loyalty through Social Media Influencers: The Mediating Role of Follower Engagement and Social Attractiveness," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, May.
    19. Xu, Zhen & Islam, Tahir & Liang, Xiaobei & Akhtar, Naeem & Shahzad, Mohsin, 2021. "‘I'm like you, and I like what you like’ sustainable food purchase influenced by vloggers: A moderated serial-mediation model," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    20. Sokolova, Karina & Perez, Charles & Vessal, Saeedeh Rezaee, 2024. "Using social media for health: How food influencers shape home-cooking intentions through vicarious experience," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:75:y:2023:i:c:s0969698923002540. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.