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E-mail address: barween@hu.edu.jo (B. A. Kurdi)
© 2022 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada.
doi: 10.5267/j.ijdns.2022.7.006
International Journal of Data and Network Science 6 (2022). 1135–1146
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The effect of social media influencers’ characteristics on consumer intention and attitude toward Keto prod-
ucts purchase intention
Barween Al Kurdia*, Muhammad Alshuridehb, c, Iman Akourd, Emad Tariqe, Ahmad AlHamadd and
Haitham M. Alzoubif
aDepartment of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
bDepartment of Marketing, School of Business, The University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan
cDepartment of Management, College of Business, University of Sharjah, Sharjah 27272, United Arab Emirates
dUniversity of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
eDepartment of Marketing, Business School, Liverpool Hope University, United Kingdom
fSkyline University College, United Arab Emirates
C H R O N I C L E A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received: April 15, 2022
Received in revised format: June
27, 2022
Accepted: July 15, 2022
Available online: July 15 2022
Social media influencers have become a more effective modern marketing approach used by busi-
nesses to influence consumers' intention and attitude. This study explores this influence by involving
several factors of influencer’s characteristics on both consumers’ attitude and intention. Also, a mod-
eration role of vloggers as a new emerging marketing tool is also examined in this research. To
conduct this research and achieve its key objective, the study uses a quantitative research method to
collect data from TikTok users which has also become a more worldwide favorable web device for
short videos. PLS-SEM method is conducted in the phase of analysis and the results show a signifi-
cant influence of the hypothesized research model except the influence of source relatability on con-
sumer attitude and the moderating role of vloggers on consumer intention. The research findings
provided unsurprisingly implications and supported the existing related literature in this field but
contribute to cover the research knowledge gap through the integrated new model including numer-
ous variables that have not been examined previously together in a unique framework.
© 2022 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada.
Keywords:
Influencer characteristics
Social media influencers
Consumer intention
Consumer attitude
Moderation
Vloggers
1. Introduction
The new emerging issues in the area of marketing lead to paying some attention to the role of social media influencers.
Influencers marketing mainly emphasize investing in effective influencers to motivate brands marketing to reach out to a
target segment (Smart Insights 2017). As a result of the ubiquitous information technology and internet usage, the social media
influencers have become an additional endorser with an effective dynamic role over individuals’ decision making (Alshurideh
et al., 2019; Freberg et al., 2011). Developing largely on plethora of social media channels and platforms like TikTok, a device
that the viewers can watch on the webs and discover millions of personalized short videos, the social media influencer is
widely used in order to publicize and expand information about services/products as well make marketing promotion cam-
paigns to online buyers or followers (Al Kurdi et al., 2021; Markethub, 2016). Furthermore, the social media influencers
interestingly contact regularly with their followers and update them with new latest information. In the marketing field, the
endorsement has a significant role in terms of achieving a company’s good reputation and goals (Alshurideh, 2022; Alwan &
Alshurideh, 2022). Recently, the social media influencers have become a reliable endorser compared to the traditional mar-
keting methods, and they deem to be cost-efficient and -effective marketing approach (Harrison, 2017).
1136
In addition, the social media influencers can also show compelling outcomes in the field of media coverage as well consumer
purchase persuasion. Nevertheless, the research on the social media influencer area is relatively still scant (Godey et al. 2016).
According to the tenets of influencers marketing role, the current companies generally invite the effective social media influ-
encers like the bloggers with millions of their followers on their own social media accounts as a brand ambassador (Tapinflu-
ence 2017). The messages could be proclaimed by the social media influencers are usually perceived as reliable to the con-
sumers, and they have been evidenced by the majority of followers which the consumers stated they are more likely to follow
the recommendation of their favorite influences (Talaverna 2015). On other hand, the other marketing promotion strategies
compared to modern promotion strategy encourage the companies to assess the outcomes of using the social media influencers
as they are regarded more knowledgeable and trustworthy source due to the amiability of establishing rapport with the key
consumers (Ki & Kim, 2019), particularly for the businesses which target the youth generations.
Social media marketing has claimed around 80% of the online marketers stated that social media influencers are reliable
endorsers who support their businesses into higher levels (Dhanesh & Duthler, 2019). The evidence also validates the effec-
tiveness of the social media influencers in motivating consumers’ purchase intentions. The marketing reports demonstrated
and estimated 50% of the companies hire social media influencers to promote their brands (Forbes 2017). However, the
companies also maintain the blogs community and start building official blogs to directly communicate with the consumers.
The vloggers (video bloggers) through their behaviors and the effect are primarily placed in the recent research to focus on
vloggers’ motivation and role in the businesses (Wang & Chuan, 2011).
The outcomes are influenced by the network's characteristics but they are challenging for the companies to identify the optimal
influencers to stimulate the distributions of the consumer-generated reviews and stories. It is a complicated process to identify
the appropriate influencer because of many different aspects which will influence these outcomes (Brorsson & Plotnikova,
2017). Furthermore, Schwartz et al. (2013) highlighted that the messages sent by different users on social media are perceived
by individuals in a noticeably distinct way due to the numerous influencers’ attributes. Among such attributes can be presented
like age, gender, and external characteristics. This study pursues to provide a comprehensive understanding of measuring the
social media influencers by using five constructs: source communication, source relatability, source credibility, source respect,
and source attractiveness on consumers’ intention and attitude through moderating role of vloggers that might potentially
provide new valuable insights to the marketers and practitioners to develop effective promotional strategies and shape a pos-
itive and impactful consumers’ decision-making towards the products/services. Despite the relevance of assessing the im-
portant role of social media influencer, the relationship between consumers’ intentions and attitudes with the effects of social
media influencer are not yet validated, so this study aims to address this literature gap.
2. Literature Review & Hypothesis Development
The underpinning theory of Social learning theory conceptualized by Bandura (1963) has been widely discussed and applied
in academic research, mainly in the communication and advertising domain (Rumjaun & Narod, 2020). This theory acts as a
theoretical framework that provides some ideas of the socialization aspects which predict some of consumption behaviors.
Social learning theory states and justifies that the individuals derive motivation and show consequently outstanding positive
attitude from a social agent through direct or indirect social communication (Lu et al., 2018). The marketing studies have
addressed and applied this theory to grasp the consumer consumption behaviors through numerous socialization parties like
celebrities, family members, or friends. Their results also confirmed that the social learning theory explain convincingly the
effects of these social agents on the consumption behaviors and suggest a base to understand the role of social media influ-
encers since they represent a novel marketing agent with an independent endorser that can shape individuals’ attitudes and
decision-making through the social media platforms (Zafar et al., 2021). Therefore, the social learning theory posits that the
consumers’ intention to purchase a product is mainly influenced by a third-party’s attitude and the effectiveness of the social
media influencers (i.e., source credibility, source attractiveness) while promoting a brand.
The diffusion of communication literature proposes that information about products/services can travel via a wide range of
communication sources to different members of the social systems. Further, the extant literature on consumer information
search supports to identify the kinds of consumer communication sources which may be associated to make a certain purchase
decision (Soares & Sousa, 2022). Although several external communication sources were introduced in the literature of con-
sumer behaviors, the emerging societal sources of communication have been considered by the marketers to provide infor-
mation about items that may come from less trusted and unreliable sources. The consumers declare their intentions to buy
something, for example explore the surrounding closely communication sources and information (Schivinski & Dabrowski,
2016). The preferred communication source may also vary over the consumers, and the individual may have different inten-
tions to rely on a particular communication source. Outlining the consumer attitudes by examining how their persuasions will
be determined by the choices of effective communicators and messages is not clearly addressed in the literature. Furthermore,
the review of the situations under which the consumers attitudes appropriately changed through using influential communi-
cators reflect the factors that make the consumers to be more or less resistant to persuasive appeals (Walten & Wiedmann,
2022). Hence, the research would formulate the following hypotheses:
H1: Source communication has a significant influence on consumer intention toward buying Keto products.
H2: Source communication has a significant influence on consumer attitude toward buying Keto products.
B. A. Kurdi et al. / International Journal of Data and Network Science 6 (2022) 1137
The influencer contents appeal to the audiences as they are inherently concerned with a particular market and interests. Even
so, the influencers portray the individuals’ attitude and give a transparent rise to shape the almost implying that the individual
can select their preferred brand and translate their intention to actions (Khamis, Ang, & Welling, 2017). The level of relata-
bility would perpetuate a sense of the trustworthiness towards the social media influencers than the traditional influencers
which can’t produce. So, the reviews of the influencer’s products have weight on the consumers’ purchasing behaviors
(Schouten, Janssen & Verspaget, 2020). Schouten et al. have found in their works that the reviews done by ordinary people
like those of relatable influencers are perceived as more credible than other endorsements e.g celebrities (2020). Relatability
of the sources increases when the sources have the ability to show a passion and sympathize with the viewers. This often
occurs when the influencers look more at ease with the celebrities. Contrary, it can be noted that the consumers may have a
doubt of the celebrity endorsement, dislike the brand, adversely rebound the likelihood of their intentions to purchase a certain
brand (Reinikainen et al., 2020). However, the source relatability through the social media influencer increases the trust with
the brand and decreases skepticism. Therefore, the research would formulate the following hypotheses:
H3: Source relatability has a significant influence on consumer intention toward buying Keto products.
H4: Source relatability has a significant influence on consumer attitude toward buying Keto products.
The previous literature discussed different critical factors related to the sources credibility in the social media and consumers’
seeking of information such as celebrity endorsement and credibility (Weismueller et al., 2020). The findings of the various
studies revealed that the information from a credible source influences the consumers’ attitudes and behaviour (Wang and
Scheinbaum, 2018). The concept and model of source credibility proposes a perceived level of the endorsers’ attractiveness
and trustworthiness which have an effect on the endorsement effectiveness. The models of source credibility according to the
results of the studies help further explain the message efficacy (Yoon et al., 1998). Furthermore, the model also suggests
numerous influential sources influence the consumers purchase intention, brand attitude and attitudes towards the advertise-
ment (Phua et al., 2018). The attractiveness of the sources indicates a leading factor of the effect of celebrity endorsement on
the consumers’ buying behaviors as well the how the endorsers are perceived. On other hand, the source trustworthiness
indicates to the extent perceived reliability and dependability of the endorsers (Ismagilova et al., 2020). Thus, it is important
for the marketers to select credible celebrity endorsers with high ranked attributes. The focus concerns how the consumers
perceive the characteristics of the social media influencers and their attractiveness and trustworthiness through their expertise
that has been discussed and increasingly examined among the social media fields. The source credibility was shown to affect
the social media activities value, for example the advertisements from friends on the social media are viewed with more
credibility than the traditional media (Shareef et al., 2019). Hence, the research would formulate the following hypotheses:
H5: Source credibility has a significant influence on consumer intention toward buying Keto products.
H6: Source credibility has a significant influence on consumer attitude toward buying Keto products.
Whether a particular individual is regarded as an ingroup member or as an outgroup member may vary across situational
contexts and over time (Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994; see also Guimond, Dif, & Aupy, 2002). Nevertheless, we predict
that respect afforded by those who are regarded as fellow ingroup members will tend to be particularly impactful as it not only
enhances one’s self-image, but also confirms the validity of the salient self-categorization. By contrast, similar respect from
(those who are perceived as) outgroup members may either seem irrelevant to one’s self-perceptions, or may even be threat-
ening, in the sense that it can be construed as undermining one’s existing group identity or calls into question one’s loyalty to
the ingroup. Thus, our general assumption is that social-evaluative information about the self is more influential to the extent
that the source is more self-relevant. Accordingly, we predict that information from an ingroup is generally more self-relevant
and therefore has more pronounced effects on people’s collective self-esteem than the same information coming from an
outgroup source. Because the source of respect implicates the collective self, responses associated with one’s collective self
(such as collective self-esteem) should be most sensitive to the group-based source of the feedback. In contrast, the source of
respect may be less relevant in determining more general affective and emotional responses to the situation, that is, responses
that less explicitly refer to the (collective) self. This differential prediction allows us to distinguish more generalized affective
reactions to positive and negative feedback from those tied directly to source-relevant social identity.
Whether the social media influencers are regarded in group members or out group members may differ over the situational
context and time. Nevertheless, the literature while predict that the respect aspect in the marketing can be afforded by those
who are regarded influencers in the society and they may tend to have impact not only to improve individual’s self-image, but
also asserts the validity of self-categorization (Kong et al., 2016). The respect from a source which is perceived as an outgroup
factor might either look irrelevant to an individual's self-perceptions or could threaten in a sense which it can be regarded as
undermining an individual's existing group identity and calls attitudes in the group (Zainal, Harun, & Lily, 2017). Thus, the
source respect is a social evaluation of the information about something which is more influential for consumers to make a
purchase decision and thus their attitudes towards a brand. Accordingly, it could predict that respect of a source of information
particularly in the context of social media has become generally more self-relevant thus it has a more pronounced influence
on an individual's self-esteem rather than the information coming from non-respectful source (Hautz et al., 2014). Few studies
addressed this factor in the marketing research, and this didn’t enable to further address the results of the studies to broad the
1138
discussion, and this would be a value added to the current research and can include more additional insights to the literature
of social media influencers and consumers’ intention and attitude. Hence, the research would formulate the following hypoth-
eses:
H7: Source respect has a significant influence on consumer intention toward buying Keto products.
H8: Source respect has a significant influence on consumer attitude toward buying Keto products.
Research on the attractiveness of the information sources, despite not obviously concerned with the attempts to influence
others, it also tends to find out that the greater attractiveness might result with a greater social influence. The factor of attrac-
tiveness versus unattractiveness, the individuals usually look for more cooperation and assistance from others to make a
decision. Even so, the critical issue is the general beliefs with the empirical evidence supported that attractive sources have
higher degrees of trust and are more persuasive than those with lower attractiveness (Rahayu & Arifin, 2020). As a great
implication of selecting attractive sources to persuade the people effectively and make them adopt the target behavior, idea,
products, or services. Using unattractive sources often would support the consumer’s intention and attitudes towards an issue,
since the effectiveness of adopting a particular behavior relies on how attractive they are (Till & Busler, 2000). However, the
efforts, time, and costs for example employing a message source or producing ads while using the attractive sources are
controlled. The companies may lose potential consumers through using unattractive or unpersuasive marketing ways, so these
companies start to engage with hiring social media influencers to make their promotions more attractive. The levels of source
attractiveness include a higher level of persuasiveness in promoting items so the marketers understand the levels of the source
attractiveness to focus and use (Onu et al., 2019). Hence, the research would formulate the following hypotheses:
H9: Source attractiveness has a significant influence on consumer intention toward buying Keto products.
H10: Source attractiveness has a significant influence on consumer attitude toward buying Keto products.
In general, an emphasis on the importance of factors like attitude, behavioral intentions, and individual’s characteristic to
uncover the possible consumer. The recent studies on the consumers purchase intentions toward healthy foods revealed that
some psychosocial variables such as attitude, belief, and subjective norm significantly predict the consumer purchase intention
for a product (Yamoah & Acquaye, 2019). Although many studies report on the factors and consumer profile, still there is a
gap in a clear understanding of the consumer decisions toward the consumption process. Evidence supports that personal
health food has become a global concern and increasing (Nielsen, 2015). The way that the consumers search and respond to
the publicity of the health information through social media platforms and the key influencers in this setting. The lifestyle
choices also tend to reflect the degree of health consciousness and those who pursue a healthy lifestyle increasingly seek out
the opportunities to make healthy food choices when they dine out (Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). In this stream, a trigger of the
unprecedented consumer attitude towards healthy products and increasing numbers of restaurants start embracing healthy
foods menus e.g Keto food (low carb and high fat food). Hence, the objective of this study is to cover the attitude–behavioral
intention relationship for research gap and explore new factors that influence the intention of purchasing and attitude that
could explain consumption patterns and contribute to fulfill the attitude–behavioral intention gap. Hence, the research would
formulate the following hypothesis:
H11: Consumer attitude has a significant influence on consumer intention toward buying Keto products.
Vloggers as social media or brand influencers require understanding their important role among the marketers who struggle
to improve customer marketing relationships by using social media platforms (in this case TikTok). The literature analysed
the impact of the vloggers’ marketing activity which supported the endorsers’ brand/ product on the viewers’ awareness and
in turn their purchase intention (Rybaczewska et al., 2020). The social media ultimately contributes to building customer
relationships and enabling communications among the marketplace. The launch of TikTok promotes the sharing of short
personal videos content to provide impactful opportunities for video-blogging to large numbers of audiences (Wiseman,
2014). Through the activities of social media influencers/followers can engage and motivate the consumers’ attitudes and
behaviours. The effective strong social relationships have been created between influencers/followers through social media
platforms such as TikTok. The vloggers have become credible, attractive and risk-reduced sources of product information by
introducing new ideas to others and hold considerable authority over the consumers’ behaviours (Cleveland & Bartikowski,
2018). Companies can directly contact marketing messages to the influential consumers who will disseminate the information
through frequent communications with consumers who trust their vloggers about buying (Fazli-Salehi et al., 2022). The vlog-
gers role from the perspectives of the consumer behaviours are new academic research issues and the aim purpose in this
work. Addressing the vloggers as social media influencers and the viewers as consumers triggers the current paper to investi-
gate the moderating role of vloggers in the influencing of social media influencers characteristics on consumer intention and
attitude. Hence, the research would postulate the following hypothesis:
H12: Vloggers moderate the effect of social media influencers’ characteristics on consumer intention toward buying Keto
products.
B. A. Kurdi et al. / International Journal of Data and Network Science 6 (2022) 1139
H13: vloggers moderate the effect of social media influencers’ characteristics on consumer attitude toward buying Keto prod-
ucts.
3. Method
The study has adopted a quantitative approach research method to meet the research stated main objectives. The current
research is interesting to examine a theory and investigate the sample perspectives of the social media influencer characteris-
tics towards consumer intention and attitude with moderating role of vloggers, hence this approach is suitable for this paper.
Accordingly, the prior discussions and relevant literature motivate the current study to suggest a conceptual model as presented
in Fig. 1, that illustrated sets of the hypothesized effects. The model also presents the independent construct (social media
influencers characteristics with five sub-variable) which is assumed to have a significant influence and can predict the de-
pendent variable (consumer intention and attitude). Moreover, vloggers are postulated to significantly moderate the influencer
of social media influencers characteristics on consumer intention and attitude. The research sample includes the users of
TikTok web devices which have become favorable worldwide. As a result of the large dissemination of social media commu-
nication over all businesses and the interests of consumers to explore recommendations and suggestions before identifying an
intention to purchase. The study used a convenience sampling approach to collect data which enabled the research to easily
reach out the target sample as well the numbers of sample is infinite (Etikan & Bala, 2017).
The research also involves the appropriate participants in this study that clearly represent different categories of sample which
help obtain diverse perspectives to enrich the research results. The study has used a survey questionnaire method based on the
previous studies and relevant literature e.g. (Yoon, Kim, & Kim, 1998; Wang and Chuan‐Chuan Lin, 2011; Weismueller et
al., 2020) and distributed it to the target participants after the instrument content was validated and screened of the items from
panel of professional and academicians in this area. The research considered the feedback of the reviewers and made some
modifications for some items to make them more understandable. The frame time of data collection was extended for a couple
of weeks, and a total of 437 responses were involved for further analysis.
The measurements of the social media influencers characteristics were measured using five dimensions namely: source com-
munication, source relatability, source credibility, source respect, and source attractiveness. All variables were measured by
adopting and adapting measurements that existed in the related literature. By using a five-point Likert scale which ranked as
(1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree and 5 = strongly agree) the study scaled the instrument measure-
ments, and the sample was asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with the stated measuring items in the
research instrument. On other hand, the research has used the approach of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling
(PLS-SEM) through a software of SmartPLS3 to conduct the key analysis procedures. The justification of using this approach
relies on the benefits provided through utilizing this approach and the important outputs given from this program.
This technique also provides sets of benefits which enable the researcher to analyze different major variables at once as well
as manage the complicated models within many main and sub-constructs. The empirical studies mostly recommend involving
this analysis particularly in the social studies due to the validity types and reliability tests provided by this program. The
evidence has supported the trends of social media marketing research avenues while comparing this analysis with the tradi-
tional basic analytical procedure which mainly depend on the single-variable research model and less effective ways in the
analysis procedures (Hair et al., 2019). Furthermore, the PLS-SEM approach provides unique validity and reliability tests that
would help the research to examine the essential aspects of the constructs which indicate the ability of the measurements to
gauge the variables. However, the research provided and examined two types of models called measurement model and struc-
tural model, the measurement model was used to validate the model and test the reliability through the convergent and discri-
minant validity, meanwhile the structural model was mainly used to test the hypothesized research framework ( Hair et al.,
2017).
Vlogge
r
Source communication
Source reliability Consumer attitude
Source credibility
Consumer intention
Source respect
Source attractiveness
Fig. 1. Research Conceptual Framework
4. Results
The presented study results have been provided through the program of Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) which is largely
recommended in the recent empirical studies, as it provides many important critical statistical outputs that help the research
1140
to show a clear perspective about the research results. Therefore, the researchers have suggested this analysis because of its
ability to offer good views of the data analysis and processing as well as measurements validation (Sarstedt et al., 2016).
Further, the research selected this approach to examine also the moderation role of vloggers that can be tested in this analysis
to make a decision whether to support or not support the hypothesized statements. Applying the PLS-SEM in this study also
would enable great handling of the complicated issues regarding analyzing the conceptual suggested framework with many
different variables (Hair et al., 2017). As well, the reason for this application is associated with the capacity to test the research
model with various options for instance using the method of bootstrapping to support the studies objectives. Generally, this
approach has two kinds of models ultimately utilized in the analysis namely measurement and structural model which are
discussed in the next sections.
4.1 Measurement model assessment
The evaluation process of the model measurements is firstly required to analyze the major requirements that concern indicators
validation of the measurements in order to ensure their ability to measure the respective constructs. The major tests of this
evaluation include conducting some important procedures as suggested by (Hair et al., 2017). For example, the indicators
factor loadings of the involved variables which indicate the degree of indicators to measure the respective factors. Moreover,
the indicators also need to be examined by checking their reliability which is calculated by a common approach widely used
in this analysis called Average Variance Extracted AVE and Composite Reliability CR and Cronbach’s Alpha. This process
also enables the researchers to present the key procedures needed to check how the indicators are reliable (Afthanorhan et al.,
2020). Presenting the variables reliability also considers an essential aspect of the analysis the model validity which is also
called internal consistency. To conduct this test, the researcher ran this type of analysis to check the reliability issues by PLS-
SEM outputs of Average Variance Extracted AVE and Composite Reliability (CR). Table 1 offers these results which mostly
meet a satisfactory level and exceed the cut-offs. For example, a type of the convergent validity was calculated by both AVE
and CR and showed great results of the measurement model. Mostly, the results got the acceptable ranges of >0.50 and >0.60
according to the convergent validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Thus, the findings of the measurement model of this research
have completely supported the suggested assumptions and confirmed the constructs’ reliability and validity. The first run of
the measurement model showed no poor indicators with lower factor loadings (<0.70) which influence the results, hence the
study accepts all indicators as they achieved greater factor loadings (>0.70).
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics, Validity, & Reliability
Constructs Items Mean SD FL VIF CR Alpha AVE
Source communication Q1 3.98 1.09 0.80 2.31
0.89
0.85
0.69
Q2 3.86 1.07 0.81 1.82
Q3 3.85 1.15 0.82 1.93
Q4 3.98 1.11 0.81 2.78
Source relatability Q5 3.88 1.20 0.83 1.99
0.89
0.85
0.68
Q6 4.12 1.01 0.81 1.21
Q7 4.01 1.04 0.83 1.36
Q8 3.94 1.10 0.83 1.23
Source credibility Q9 3.89 1.14 0.85 1.19
0.90
0.86
0.70
Q10 3.94 1.13 0.85 2.02
Q11 3.83 1.16 0.84 2.15
Q12 3.80 1.15 0.81 2.09
Source respect Q13 3.86 1.09 0.84 2.08
0.91
0.87
0.73
Q14 3.93 1.06 0.86 2.71
Q15 3.91 1.13 0.84 2.35
Q16 3.91 1.17 0.86 2.35
Source attractiveness Q17 3.85 1.14 0.85 2.48
0.92
0.89
0.76
Q18 3.93 1.13 0.88 2.14
Q19 3.93 1.10 0.87 2.33
Q20 3.80 1.18 0.88 2.75
Consumer attitude Q21 3.94 1.20 0.89 3.34
0.93
0.91
0.74
Q22 3.87 1.19 0.80 2.16
Q23 3.81 1.16 0.87 3.07
Q24 3.85 1.09 0.85 2.57
Q25 3.90 1.17 0.87 2.57
Consumer intention Q26 3.97 1.13 0.80 3.02
0.92
0.89
0.71
Q27 3.94 1.20 0.88 1.89
Q28 3.87 1.19 0.81 3.04
Q29 3.81 1.16 0.84 2.16
Q30 3.85 1.09 0.86 2.68
Vloggers Q31 3.90 1.17 0.83 2.67
0.89
0.83
0.67
Q32 3.97 1.13 0.82 1.78
Q33 4.12 1.01 0.79 1.81
Q34 4.01 1.04 0.82 1.88
FL: Factor loading; SD: Standard deviation; VIF: Variance inflation factor
B. A. Kurdi et al. / International Journal of Data and Network Science 6 (2022) 1141
The current study has also checked different types of key validity of the discriminant validity that generally assesses the
interrelationship between the latent constructs. (Henseler et al., 2015) proposed that a process be used to evaluate this validity
by using the cross-loadings. Moreover, this work has presented the outputs of this analysis such as Fornell-Larcker and Het-
erotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) that they mostly indicate the variables correlation as given in Table 2 and Table 3. The obtained
findings were calculated by using the square root the AVE and they mostly represented in the bold off-diagonal cells and they
showed more than the variables correlations itself (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Thus, the measurement model confirmed great
results of discriminant validity, also the research has engaged with another required analysis process in order to check the
discriminant validity through using the HTMT approach. The results given in Table 3 revealed that the HTMT got a good
threshold of (≤ 0.90). This meets the analysis of HTMT ≤ 0.90 (Kline, 2015), with satisfactory indications of the discriminant
validity for all research variables.
Table 2
Fornell-Larcker Criterion
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Consumer attitude 0.862
2 Consumer intention 0.801 0.843
3 Social media influencer characteristics 0.821 0.819 0.774
4 Source attractiveness 0.800 0.807 0.672 0.875
5 Source communication 0.771 0.782 0.574 0.633 0.831
6 Source credibility 0.819 0.832 0.583 0.523 0.785 0.842
7 Source relatability 0.779 0.701 0.343 0.523 0.539 0.809 0.830
8 Source respect 0.820 0.721 0.435 0.523 0.748 0.648 0.785 0.854
9 Vloggers 0.828 0.736 0.366 0.523 0.692 0.815 0.743 0.820 0.821
Table 3
Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) Ratio
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Consumer attitude 0.852
2 Consumer intention 0.831 0.843
3 Social media influencer characteristics 0.771 0.519 0.774
4 Source attractiveness 0.550 0.707 0.542 0.875
5 Source communication 0.731 0.582 0.554 0.533 0.831
6 Source credibility 0.759 0.732 0.533 0.453 0.355 0.842
7 Source relatability 0.359 0.751 0.573 0.363 0.459 0.759 0.830
8 Source respect 0.650 0.751 0.457 0.373 0.658 0.668 0.675 0.854
9 Vloggers 0.548 0.546 0.367 0.753 0.472 0.575 0.543 0.720 0.821
4.2 Structural model assessment
The next phase of the analysis using PLS-SEM is examining the structural model after evaluating the overall measurement
model. The process of structural model evaluation is mostly suggested and recommended in the scholarly research to test the
research hypotheses. Hair et al. (2017) stated that there are many critical analytical processes utilized to get key results and
evaluate the goodness of the research model. The research has also depended on the major gained outputs used in this analysis
to provide a clear picture about this analysis that include for example path estimates, corresponding t-value and p-value which
they widely represented in the most research works using an approach called bootstrapping as illustrated in Fig. 1.
Table 4
Hypotheses Testing
H
y
potheses Βeta T-value P-value Result
H1 Source communication→ consumer intention 0.138 2.372 0.018 Supported
H2 Source communication→ consumer attitude 0.144 2.499 0.013 Supported
H3 Source relatability→ consumer intention 0.146 2.062 0.040 Supported
H4 Source relatability→ consumer attitude 0.130 1.882 0.060 Not supported
H5 Source credibility→ consumer intention 0.278 4.618 0.000 Supported
H6 Source credibility→ consumer attitude 0.265 4.081 0.000 Supported
H7 Source respect→ consumer intention 0.237 3.452 0.001 Supported
H8 Source respect→ consumer attitude 0.226 3.088 0.002 Supported
H9 Source attractiveness→ consumer intention 0.171 3.343 0.001 Supported
H10 Source attractiveness→ consumer attitude 0.190 3.311 0.001 Supported
H11 Consumer attitude→ consumer intention 0.983 80.925 0.000 Supported
H12 Moderating effect of vloggers on consumer intention 0.036 1.877 0.061 Not supported
H13 Moderating effect of vloggers on consumer attitude 0.048 2.208 0.028 Supported
R2 for consumer intention 0.844
R2 for consumer attitude 0.815
Q2 for consumer intention 0.59
Q2 for consumer attitude 0.59
1142
The results provided in Table 4 showed that all social media influencer characteristics (source communication, source relata-
bility, source credibility, source respect, and source attractiveness) had a significant influence on consumer intention and
attitude except source relatability on consumer attitude H 4 was not supported (p > 0.05), hence the given research results
supported the most of study hypotheses except H12 (p < 0.05). On other hand, the results of the moderation effect of vloggers
on the influence of social media influencer characteristics on consumer intention showed a non-significant role of the vloggers
as a moderator, so H12 was not supported (p > 0.05), meanwhile the other moderation hypothesis of the influence of social
media influencer characteristics on consumer attitude showed a significant role of the vloggers as a moderator, so H13 was
supported (p > 0.05).
Fig. 1. Structural Research Model
Hair et al. (2017) indicated that an important test should be presented in the study associated with the variance explained at
the endogenous called coefficient of determination and symbol (R2) also the cross-validated redundancy (Q2) importantly to
be evaluated and stated to assess the quality of model of prediction. The findings of the structural model explained 84.4% and
81.5% of the variance in consumer intention and attitude respectively. Because the results had ranged from 0 to 1, the structural
model data confirmed a good explanatory power (Shmueli et al., 2019). Additionally, to assert that the model goodness for
predictability, the study examined predictive value of Q2 for the dependent (endogenous) variable which should be more than
zero to confirm this analysis, the result confirmed this test as represented in Table 4, so the value of Q2 of the current study
supported this assumption with a level with more than zero.
5. Discussion
With a focus on the characteristics of the social media influencers, this research tested a research model based on a theory of
persuasion the influencer perceived characteristics influence both of the behavioral intentions and attitudes of the consumers
after reviewing TikTok web videos. The findings showed that the consumers’ intention induced by the social media influenc-
ers by video advertising are affected by trustworthiness and perceived communication and respect. Particularly, the significant
influence exerted by source attractiveness and source relatability also confirmed the significance role of the social media
influencers characteristics on the intention meanwhile the latter source was not significantly influenced by the consumer
attitude. In addition, the vloggers were moderated to influence the social media influencers characteristics on only consumer
attitude with no moderating role on the intention. A comparison based on the previous similar studies findings, the current
study findings were in line with these findings and confirmed the positive effect of this issue and increased the concerns of
the marketers to engage with new modern marketing tools and approach. However, the provided results also support the results
of the literature and consistent with the general discussion about the growing effect of the social media on consumer behavior
and attitude (e.g. Zafar et al., 2021; Rahayu, & Arifin, 2020). A critical important finding is the vloggers non-significantly
influences consumer purchase intentions via their posted videos on TikTok and this indicates a hidden and not clearly dis-
cussed influencing factors on this aspect. Hence, the study through its results asserted the general examination of the social
B. A. Kurdi et al. / International Journal of Data and Network Science 6 (2022) 1143
media bloggers and revealed that influencers’ characteristics supported the discussion about the behaviors which accompanied
the social relationships of these influencers. These results indicate that the attributes of the social media influencers might
play an essential important role in shaping their followers’ behavioral intentions like purchase intentions and attitude for a
variety range of influencers marketing targets than the previous findings. In terms of another important finding, the compo-
nents of the social media influencer characteristics have been examined with a unique model that has not examined all these
factors in a single research framework.
This is a novel study particularly in the area of digital marketing and emerging methods and ways to replace the traditional
marketing ways. The information value was significantly influenced, and the antecedents which have the strongest influence
on consumer intention and attitude. By contrast, the study found that attitude was not significantly moderated by the vloggers
in the effect of social media influencer characteristics on TikTok which encourages further exploration. Other factors would
have outstanding impact and mainly shape the people's behavior rather than this moderator. These results proposed that the
identified aspects of influencers’ attributes and characteristics contribute with greater levels of the consideration issue in the
digital marketing domain and the emerging changed perception towards the tools and methods should be recognized for better
understanding the new emerged phenomena and being addressed to provide further implication in the theory and practice
applications would expand the current limitations in this setting.
Bloggers’ proliferation provides the managers greater marketing opportunities to select experienced with trusted products
alternatives compared to the traditional marketing campaigns through the usage of the paid advertisements as a method of
interacting with the current as well as the potential consumers. The findings broaden the significance of the emerging devel-
oped communication means and channels, and the cost of the marketing communication using the bloggers will continue to
expand (Miller et al., 2009). Furthermore, the discovering, involving and utilizing the products by the influential bloggers
could give the organizations a better capacity to target their audience as well provide them with a unique opportunity in order
to increase sales volume and reduce cost-related advertisements. The challenges then become linked to identify the more
influential and credible bloggers (Li et al., 2011). Another critical consideration should be recognized, a lower cost paid blog
advertisement of the marketing campaigns while assessing the marketing influential alternative and the value of blogging
marketing managers.
It can infer also the value of network-based contents of the bloggers focus on the capabilities of the bloggers to target the
audience with a perceived credibility of bloggers communication (Duffy et al., 2017). This method will sufficiently identify
a trustworthy blogger with marketing-related values which can enable the marketers and advertisers to promote products/
services with the least efforts and cost. Moreover, this study provided some key influential factors of consumers’ intention to
purchase and attitude. The blogs advertisements and the contents for example should be entertaining and interesting with a
pleasure for the viewers. Also with attractive blogs design, information flow and clarity are important factors for favorable
outcomes. The attractiveness of the sources and credibility with blogs honest are still paramount to attract the consumers’
involvement with the websites, bloggers and social media communication. The study results showed that the consumers’
willingness to respect and accept a message from a marketing source (TikTok blogger) mainly relies on the extent of this
source’s credibility. Thus, the companies may engage within numerous criteria to address the vloggers’ credibility of a blog
before placing the advertisements on their blogs.
It would state some of these criteria which may include the blogger’s information and knowledge about the brand, their
presence with quick and clear contact information, the professional blog’s website and appearance lead to a reliable source of
information (Dulcinea, 2017). The research model proposed that the characteristics of the social media influencer act as power
that likely to influence the consumers’ attitudes toward a brand/product when the influencers at the social media channels are
perceived honest and credible source of information. Additionally, the model proposed that the key characteristics of the
social media influencer through the source credibility depend on the competency and experience of the social media influenc-
ers to provide adequate branding trustworthiness. Since the model also proposed vloggers moderate the relationship between
characteristics of the social media influencer and consumer attitudes, the power of vloggers’ characteristics to impact the
behavioral-related attitudes of the viewers will increase the opportunities to change their (viewers) purchasing attitudes.
6. Implications
Theoretical perspective, the research has conceptualized many different factors of social media influencers characteristics
within an integrated new research model in a unique context to address the social learning theory and application in the setting
of social media marketing. The discussed this theory and provides further discussion of this theory in terms of marketing
changes and approach with incorporating the advanced technological tools. The modern marketers through the current study
findings would gain new perception and concern with the importance of diversifying influencer characteristics as a marketing
tool to target larger numbers of consumers. However, the study supported the theory discussion linked to this topic which
highlighted the influencing factors on consumer attitude and intention. This paper also has further supported a significant
influence of the digital marketing tools on consumer buying intention in TikTok users as well supported the role of vloggers
in this issue. At the practical level, the research findings provided a buying intention and attitude support model for the social
media influencers in the area of digital marketing, the significant consumers intention would support some critical issues that
1144
require to be handled since the modern marketing ways. The study thought the classification model assists the practitioners
as well marketers to grasp the attitude and intention of the individuals and the requirements to utilize different novel marketing
tools. For instance, the products with high customization in general require comprehensive perception and apply for the ad-
vanced marketing tools to target the key consumers. An effective tracking method also needs to adapt with the emerging
changes in the consumers’ preferences to sufficiently maintain greater outcomes of social media marketing. The companies
should perceive the significant role of influencers’ characteristics and engage within this way for greater marketing outcomes.
7. Conclusion
The research has generally achieved the stated aims and identified the role of social media influencer characteristics on both
consumer buying intention and attitude with moderating effect of vloggers. The main results showed all aspects of social
media influencer characteristics had a significant influence with consumer buying intention and attitude. A subsequent mod-
erating analysis also revealed that vloggers moderated only the influence of influencers’ characteristics on consumer intention.
However, the relevance of vloggers had also a non-significant value of the beta coefficient on consumers' attitude. Based on
research results, it is essential for the marketing managers and marketers to consider and give more attention to their consumer
attitude and the factors through social media communication can influence this aspect. The companies can also hire the vlog-
gers to largely influence their consumers’ intention since they (vloggers) have super capacity to shape the people's orientation
and their attitude. The expanding understanding of this topic would support the current organizational marketing policies and
plans to involve nontraditional business approach and ways lead to greater business outcomes. Moreover, during the conduct-
ing of this work, the study pursues to stand with the previous findings and boost their results through similarity discussion
and assumptions.
The study implications for marketing practice for this research suggest perceiving the buyers’ profiles on the social media
channels and the ways that the consumers shape their attitudes and behavior. Today’s social media influencers have different
attributes, and their influencing capabilities increasingly change the others’ behaviors. Through the posted short videos of the
vloggers, the followers and reviewers can change their attitudes after watching these videos and establish a particular attitude
resulting from the extent of the social media influencer can impact their followers at social media webs. The recommendation
for marketers and managers is associated mainly with the variety of the methods that would influence the consumer behaviors
by using the new device webs like TikTok. The future research recommendations assume the potential researchers may con-
duct and take into consideration newly emerged marketing ways and factors in the field of digital marketing. Also, they might
contrast this analysis results with their unexpected findings and identify possible variations. A future analysis would be con-
ducted with diverse scopes and customers. The study limitations also restrict the aspect of research generalizability of the
results to different context and sample, and this limit the suggested variables being analyzed in this study and the tested the
interrelationships between them over the examined scope.
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