Influence of parasocial relationship between digital celebrities and their followers on followers' purchase and electronic word-of-mouth intentions, and persuasion knowledge

By Kumju Hwang, Qi Zhang. Computers in Human Behavior, 2018

578 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Marketers recognize digital celebrities' advertising power and effectiveness, making them influential models of social media advertising. The concept of parasocial relationships may elucidate relationships between digital celebrities and their followers and explain the former's persuasion power over the latter. This study explores how parasocial relationships affect followers' purchase and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intentions and investigates the effect of empathy, loneliness, and low social self-esteem on parasocial relationships within Uses and Gratification Theory. Additionally, it examines whether followers' parasocial relationships can reduce their persuasion knowledge. A survey was administered three hundred eighty-nine Chinese SNS users following digital celebrities; valid data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Empathy and low self-esteem positively influenced parasocial relationships; however, loneliness did not. Parasocial relationships positively affected followers' purchase and eWOM intentions. The second model investigated the negative effects of persuasion knowledge on followers' purchase and eWOM intentions. The results indicate that parasocial relationship moderates the paths between followers' persuasion knowledge and purchase intentions and between followers' persuasion knowledge and eWOM intentions. This study sheds light on how digital celebrities have an advertising influence on their SNS followers with the concept of parasocial relationships and is notable given the dearth of empirical studies on digital celebrities’ SNS advertising.

Subfields: Literature and Literary Theory, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/60c2d7ba187a82c8b0cf061ad5b084aa24f73914

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Citations in the corpus

Keeping up with influencers: exploring the impact of social presence and parasocial interactions on Instagram (2021, background): “…serves a mediating role, suggesting that some individuals even develop additive consumption beyond their illusory relationships with influencers (Hwang and Zhang 2018), and influencers can serve a mediating role to create consumer desire for products by enhancing product interest and leading to…”
‘You really are a great big sister’ – parasocial relationships, credibility, and the moderating role of audience comments in influencer marketing (2020, background): “A PSR with an influencer also moderates the role of persuasion knowledge (Hwang & Zhang, 2018), implying that audiences may be less bothered by brand endorsements made by influencers perceived as ‘friends’.”
The impact of the source credibility of Instagram influencers on travel intention: The mediating role of parasocial interaction (2021, background): “When the relevant literature is reviewed, it is seen that source credibility affects PSI (Hwang and Zhang, 2018; Yuan et al., 2016).”
Celebrity influences on consumer decision making: new insights and research directions (2019, background): “Celebrities’ self-disclosure of their personal lives and personal experiences through social media networks (SMNs) lead to stronger PSRs friendships with their followers (Kim & Song, 2016), which can increase brand credibility and purchase intention (Chung & Cho, 2017; Hwang & Zhang, 2018).”
Insights in adolescents’ advertising literacy, perceptions and responses regarding sponsored influencer videos and disclosures (2019, background): “Moreover, adolescents perceive online influencers often as their friends and build parasocial relationships with them (Hwang & Zhang, 2018).”
The YouTube Marketing Communication Effect on Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural Attitudes among Generation Z Consumers (2020, background): “Several studies also recommended that more diverse or different segments of YT users should be examined, especially since university or college student samples diminished the possibility of generalizing the results due to their unique situational context and life phases [22,29,35,40,46,47,54,57,61].”
Social Media Influencers and Followers: Theorization of a Trans-Parasocial Relation and Explication of Its Implications for Influencer Advertising (2021, background): “…on how the influencer–follower relation (mostly examined through the lens of parasocial relation) mitigates the negative effect of advertising literacy/persuasion knowledge— activated by sponsorship disclosure—on advertising outcomes (e.g., Boerman and Van Reijmersdal 2020; Hwang and Zhang 2018).”
Making and breaking relationships on social media: the impacts of brand and influencer betrayals (2021, background): “…relate to their fans and followers (Enke and Borchers, 2019): while mainstream celebrities often strive to keep a distance from audience members (Jerslev, 2016) and value their privacy, the appeal of influencers lies in their openness in terms of sharing their most intimate feelings and life…”
Blind trust? The importance and interplay of parasocial relationships and advertising disclosures in explaining influencers’ persuasive effects on their followers (2021, result): “In contrast to earlier studies that questioned the followers of SMIs using survey designs or included PSRs as a moderator (e.g., Boerman and van Reijmersdal 2020; Hwang and Zhang 2018), in our two studies we used experimental designs to enable us to make claims about causality.”