The Influence of Social Media Influencer Attributes on Information Credibility and Purchase Intention

Abstract

Social media influencers are extremely helpful resources when gathering data and information about a product or service. The fact that this particular information originates from a third party that is not under the direct control of the product or service manufacturer makes it particularly valuable. This study investigated attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, homophily, and information quality as the determinants of social media influencer attributes and their influence on information credibility among women who had experience watching beauty product review videos created by beauty influencers on YouTube in Malaysia. In this study, data was gathered through the distribution of an online questionnaire, employing purposive and snowball sampling techniques, resulting in 384 valid responses for analysis. The data was examined using structural equation modeling (SEM) with IBM-SPSS-AMOS version 24.0. The model presented a strong fit to the data. The results support the roles of expertise, homophily, trustworthiness, attractiveness, and information quality in influencing information credibility. In other words, customers will believe that the information posted by a social media influencer is credible so long as the customers view that the influencer is someone knowledgeable, beautiful, and trustworthy; that the influencer is comparable to the customers; and that the information is of high quality.