How do social media influencers create brand evangelists? Evidence from a stimulus–organism–response perspective

The present study integrates the Stimulus–Organism–Response model into influencer marketing. This study examines consumer-brand engagement as a vital link between influencer attributes (credibility, authenticity, and content quality) and followers’ brand evangelism. Moreover, the study represents one of the preliminary enquiries to demonstrate the moderating effect of advertising disclosure on consumer-brand engagement and brand evangelism, thereby addressing a deficiency in this field. Thus, we offer substantial insights for both academia and industry regarding the significance of relationship-building in marketing techniques. A quantitative design was employed to collect survey data from a convenience sample of 296 Egyptian social media users following food micro-influencers. The data was analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings demonstrate that consumer-brand engagement fully mediates the links between influencer credibility, content quality, and brand evangelism. In addition, consumer-brand engagement was identified as a partial mediator in the association between influencer authenticity and brand evangelism. Unexpectedly, advertising disclosure did not substantially influence the relationship between consumer-brand engagement and brand evangelism.