How Social Media Influencers Foster Relationships with Followers: The Roles of Source Credibility and Fairness in Parasocial Relationship and Product Interest
By Shupei Yuan, Chen Lou. 2020
467 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract Via the unprecedented interactivity of social media, social media personae can build strong relationships with followers. Such relationships, which carry great marketing potential, appeal to corporations and brands. Based on the literature of source credibility and communication justice, this study investigated the determinants of the parasocial relationship between social media influencers and their followers, as well as their effects on followers’ interests in the products advertised by influencers. The results of an online survey showed that followers’ perceived attractiveness of influencers, similarity to influencers, procedural fairness, and interpersonal fairness of their interactions with influencers are positively related to the strength of their parasocial relationship with influencers, which further mediates the effect of the aforementioned factors on followers’ interests in influencer-promoted products. The findings of this study explicate the mechanism through which influencers foster relationships with followers and also provide practitioners with insights on orchestrating strategic influencer campaigns.
Subfields: Gender Studies, Literature and Literary Theory, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/73777ba2ffdc433835d91f4723c1ebe1fd6073dd
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Citations in the corpus
- Social Media Influencers and Followers: Theorization of a Trans-Parasocial Relation and Explication of Its Implications for Influencer Advertising (2021, background): “…and also enable these media personalities to disclose their life episodes to followers or personally reply to followers’ comments, which contributes to greater intimacy and enhanced reciprocity as perceived by the followers (e.g., Colliander and Dahl en 2011; Tsai and Men 2013; Yuan and Lou 2020).”
- Keeping up with influencers: exploring the impact of social presence and parasocial interactions on Instagram (2021, background): “…studies have shown that consumers develop trust with influencers through parasocial interaction, which then help enhance brand attitudes and purchase decision (de veirman, Cauberghe, and Hudders 2017; de veirman, and Hudders 2020; djafarova and Rushworth 2017; Lou and Yuan 2019; Yuan and Lou 2020).”