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Purpose This research explores the path that social media influencers affect target consumers to purchase a certain brand posted in their contents. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 510 Weibo users in China, the conceptual model is tested by structural equation modeling (SEM) in Lisrel 8.8 statistical software. Findings This study examined that influencers' source characteristics stimulate consumers' positive attitudes (image satisfaction and/or advertising trust), in turn affect consumers' purchase intention. The expertise, originality and homophily of influencers positively affect two attitudes of consumers. The attractiveness only positively affects image satisfaction, and the interactivity only positively affects advertising trust. Besides that, this study also verified the mediating role of consumers' self-brand connection between the two attitudes and purchase intentions. Originality/value By distinguishing two different attitudes of consumers and incorporating consumers' self-brand connection, we proposed a complete theoretical framework for the overall mechanism of influence marketing based on communication–persuasion matrix.
Li et al. (Fri,) studied this question.