Marketing

Influencer marketing

World Wide Web

Creativity

Relationship marketing

Path analysis (statistics)

Psychoanalysis

Communication

Social psychology

Mediation

Originality

Homophily

Computer science

Structural equation modeling

LISREL

Business

Interactivity

Attractiveness

Advertising

Psychology

Marketing management

Social media

Sociology

Persuasion

Affect (linguistics)

Machine learning

Social science

Multimedia

Marketing Intelligence & Planning

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.

Influencer marketing: purchase intention and its antecedents