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Consumers live in a social media environment and naturally form a set of trust mechanism from close circles, internet celebrities, and online articles. However, no sufficient research to examine these relationships with social influence and the effect of trust on social influence. This study integrates these factors and brand image to examines their impact on purchase intention. A questionnaire and SEM were used to test the reliability and validity of the hypothesis. The results support that purchase intention is significantly influenced by social influence and brand image. The outstanding contributions are as follows: first, it expands the research scope of social influence; second, it is found that close circles is the vital dimension of social influence, followed by social media viewership and e-WOM readership. Finally, based on the trust mechanism, marketing suggestions are put forward.
Liang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.