Trust And Purchase Intention In Influencer Marketing: A Study On Social Media Consumers In Emerging Markets

Abstract

This study examines how social influencers such as YouTube affect customers’ buying intentions. It also seeks to detect and validate the trust and buy-intention factors. Physical attractiveness, social attraction, perceived consumer effectiveness, influencer credibility, and attitude homophily were theorized to determine trust and purchase intention based on existing theories and research. The suggested conceptual framework was validated using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) on 1190 respondents from an online Google form administered to consumers following social media influencers (YouTube et al.) in northern Tamil Nadu. The SEM estimation confirmed the correlation between social attraction (β=0.41, p<0.01), perceived consumer efficacy (β=0.17, p<0.01), and attitude homophily (β=0.15, p<0.01), all of which positively impacted trueness. Research indicates that trust negatively affects purchase intention (β= -0.2, p ≤ 0.01). This study of social media influencer purchase intention is unique. Previous research measured intention as customer happiness, brand loyalty, WOM, and e-WOM. This study measured the relative impact of social media influencers on consumers’ purchase intentions. This study also has important theoretical and managerial implications for enhancing purchase intentions.