The Effects of Social Media Influencers on Consumers’ Buying Intentions with the Mediating Role of Consumer Attitude

Abstract

Influencer marketing is a new technique in the marketing field that makes it easy for many businesses to reach potential customers around the world that may not be accessible through traditional marketing techniques. By doing so, companies can gain a broader customer base and, as a result, increase their sales and revenues. In todays’ digital world, the number of individuals’ work as social media influencers on various platforms is constantly increasing. With the help of the social learning theory, four major factors that make a particular influencer an effective source have been identified. This study tries to analyze the effects of these four factors—source credibility, source attractiveness, influencer-product fit, and meaning transfer—on both consumer attitude and consumer buying intention. The results showed that source credibility, influencer-product fit, and meaning transfer positively impact consumer attitude and buying intentions. Source attractiveness has been found to have no effect on either consumer attitude or buying intentions. Consumer attitude has also been identified to mediate the relationships between source credibility, influencer-product fit, meaning transfer, and buying intentions. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.