Trust Me or Trust Me Not: An Apocryphal View of InfluencerMarketing

Abstract

In recent years Social Media Influencers (SMIs) have shown unprecedented growth worldwide. They build strong relationships and gain the trust of followers to induce their purchase intentions. Brand managers can take advantage of this relationship by having their products endorsed through them. Based on the two dimensions of source credibility, expertise & authenticity, and knowledge sharing, this research investigated how SMIs can gain followers' trust and whether this trust of followers translates into purchase intentions. For research, purposive sampling was employed. Data was collected from 401 respondents living in Karachi, Pakistan, aged 18 years or older. The result of the study suggested that expertise, authenticity and knowledge sharing have a significant positive influence on fostering followers' trust. Moreover, all three constructs have a significant positive influence on purchase intentions via trust. However, price consciousness does not moderate the influence between trust and purchase intentions. Thus, this research is useful both for academia and industry since it fills many important and stated gaps in the literature and gives recommendations to brand managers on how they can select trusted SMIs for the brands' endorsements which could subsequently result in the enhancement of purchase intentions of followers.