Purpose The growing number of social media influencers (SMIs) and heightened market competition challenge social media marketers to retain followers and attract new ones. While passionate love is essential for building long-term relationships early on, the literature rarely examines how SMIs cultivate followers' passionate love for them. Drawing on the similarity-attraction, self-congruity, and self-categorization theories, this study examines how multidimensional self-congruity influences followers' identity and passionate love for SMIs. Design/methodology/approach Online surveys were administered, data on 440 SMI followers were collected, and structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses. Findings The results showed that followers feel passionate love for SMIs whose traits align with their actual self, ideal self, social self, and ideal social selves. Specifically, when followers see an image of an SMI that aligns with their actual or ideal selves, it strengthens their self-identity. Similarly, when they perceive an image of an SMI that fits their social or ideal social selves, it reinforces their social identity. Additionally, both self-identity and social identity positively influence followers' passionate love for SMIs. Originality/value The findings clarify how self-congruity shapes follower identity and passionate love for SMIs. They also offer valuable insights for SMI marketers by showing how SMI–follower congruity can be strategically leveraged to cultivate follower identity and passionate love. Peer review The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-02-2025-0092.
Edward Shih-Tse Wang (Tue,) studied this question.