The Impact of Social Media Influencers’ Marketing Promotion on the

Purchase Intention of Young Consumers

Yueci Fu

School of Economic and Trade, Guangzhou Xinhua University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518000, China

Keywords: Social Media Influencer, Consumer, Purchase Intention.

Abstract: In today's rapidly developing online world, the impact of social media influencers (SMIs) on the purchase

intention of young consumers has been widely discussed. However, there are still some deficiencies in the

related research on how the nature of SMIs affects consumers' purchase intention. By collecting relevant

sample data of young consumers and conducting correlation analysis, this paper concludes that SMIs'

commodity marketing promotion in the four properties of trust, expertise, entertainment value, and

Homophily has a positive effect on young consumers' purchase intention to a certain extent. Based on this,

this paper suggests that SMIs should focus on improving their trust to increase the expectations of customers;

Strengthen their professional knowledge, and focus on the areas they are good at to improve their

competitiveness; pay more attention to the interest and creativity of content creation, and attempt to maintain

a high degree of similarity with its target audience in terms of interests, hobbies, lifestyles, etc. to make

consumers feel close, to attract more users to believe in their recommendations.

1 INTRODUCTION

For the past few years, with the further development

of social networks, social media has ushered in a new

round of popularity. More and more people are

affected by social media, making it a new and widely

spread marketing method (Ao et al., 2023). As a

result, the number of SMIs surged, and more and

more consumers began to pay attention to SMIs. The

so-called Social media influencers are a new type of

independent third party who use social platforms such

as blogs and Twitter to shape and guide audiences'

opinions and attitudes (Freberg et al., 2010). As social

media software becomes more widely used and the

user base expands, the scope of SMI is also

increasing. So the question of whether SMIs have a

certain impact on consumers' purchase intention has

been raised. In this regard, some social media users

believe that SMIs with profound knowledge in a

specific field are more convincing and authentic than

traditional celebrity endorsements (Borchers & Enke,

2022). Hisashi Masuda et al. Found that after social

media users watched the commodity promotion

videos of SMIs, they had higher purchase intentions

for the commodities recommended by SMIs with high

credibility or greater professionalism (Masuda et al.,

2022). Therefore, more and more brands are aware

that SMIs are a new medium to contact the target

audience. These brands have begun to cooperate with

SMIs, making SMIs rapidly become a significant part

of brand marketing strategy (Qalati et al., 2021;

Qalati et al., 2022).

Recently, the relevant research on SMIs has also

gradually increased. Zhangdandan concluded that

when SMIs use more professional language to

recommend products, users' confidence is stronger

(Zhang, 2019). Liyanni and Renchunyang believe

that when the influencers recommend goods, they can

arouse consumers' desire to buy by describing their

real use experience. They conclude that the personal

disclosure of SMIs has a considerable positive impact

on meaning transfer, and the intimate self-disclosure

of SMIs is an important variable to improve

consumers' perception of the influencers' credibility

and product purchase intention (Li, 2024; Rem.

2023). Ao L and others studied the effect of SMIs on

customer engagement and purchase intention from

eight viewpoints, such as Homophily、expertise, and

so on. Their research found that the attributes of SMIs

have a certain impact on consumers' purchase

intention to a certain extent (Ao et al., 2023).

Through correlation analysis, this study identified

the four basic elements of SMIs: trust, expertise,

entertainment value, and Homophily marketing on

young consumers' purchase intention. Firstly, this

710

Fu, Y.

The Impact of Social Media Inﬂuencers’ Marketing Promotion on the Purchase Intention of Young Consumers.

DOI: 10.5220/0014202900004942

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd Inter national Conference on Applied Psychology and Marketing Management (APMM 2025), pages 710-714

ISBN: 978-989-758-791-7

study reviews the basic definition of SMIs and four

basic determinants. Secondly, the study expounds on

the influence of four factors on consumers' purchase

intention through frequency analysis, reliability and

validity analysis, and correlation analysis. Finally,

this study gives some suggestions on how to promote

the influence of SMIs on consumers' purchase

intention.

2 METHOD

2.1 Social Media Influencer

Social media influencers are well-known people with

professional knowledge in certain specific industries,

such as music, health, fashion, or tourism. They

operate their accounts with the focus of spreading

messages to other social media users (Ao et al., 2023).

They use a variety of marketing methods, such as

image and video promotion of recommended

products, diversity of promotion content, and

interactive marketing with social media users. More

and more users pay attention to SMIs and

communicate with them to understand the latest

situation in a specific field. Thus influencers will

upload their opinions and lives to social media

software to communicate with followers, which

causes the development of SMIs (Ao et al., 2023).

Today's SMIs differ from traditional celebrities in

that they use social media software to publish original

product marketing content to attract potential

customers. Traditional celebrities win recognition

through traditional ways and then communicate with

fans through social media software to stabilize fans

(Ao et al., 2023). SMIs often share their personal

lives, which makes them more affinity and

homogeneity than traditional celebrities (Breves et al.,

2021).

2.2 Dimension Setting

According to AO.L et al When studying the impact of

SMIs on eight SMIs explain the problem (Ao et al.,

2023). Hisashi et al. Stated the influence of influencer

attributes on purchase intention in social media

influencer marketing from two aspects: personal

attributes and perceptual characteristics. The

characteristics are trustworthiness, qualified

expertise, and parasocial relationship, and personal

attributes are attitude homophily 、 physical

attractiveness, and social attractiveness (Masuda et al.,

2022). Based on this, this paper will discuss the

influence of SMIs on consumers' purchase intention

from four aspects: trust, expertise, entertainment

value, and Homophily.

2.2.1 Trust

Trust is a good quality, which is the basis of

transactions and exchange relationships. So whether

it is for traditional celebrities or SMIs, the degree of

trust of consumers is crucial (Masuda et al., 2022). If

consumers trust SMIs, it means that they think they

will benefit from the commodity marketing

promotion of SMIs. Therefore, this study proposes

the following assumptions:

H1: The trust of SMIs will affect consumers'

purchase intention.

2.2.2 Expertise

Expertise is a crucial factor, it forms the foundation

of knowledge dissemination. Professional knowledge

reflects the knowledge and ability of influencers in

specific fields (Lajnef, 2023). Experts are generally

regarded as knowledgeable people who can provide

accurate and reliable information. Therefore,

consumers tend to consider the products

recommended by SMIs who are regarded as experts

(Ao et al., 2023). Therefore, it can be considered that:

H2: The professional knowledge of SMIs will

affect consumers' purchase intention.

2.2.3 Entertainment Value

Entertainment value is also regarded as one of the

important indicators of whether SMIs are attractive.

Nowadays, more and more young people have social

media accounts, leading to the main audience of

social media software becoming young people. At

present, an important way for young people to spend

time is through social media software with an

entertainment nature. Entertainment includes

emotions such as fun, enjoyment, and appointment.

These emotions make consumers more dependent on

the influencers, thus affecting purchase intention (Ao

et al., 2023). Therefore, it can be assumed that:

H3: The entertainment value of SMIs will affect

consumers' purchase intention.

2.2.4 Homophily

As the saying goes, "Birds of a feather flock together,

and people are grouped", homogeneity means that

people will interact and get acquainted with people

with the same characteristics. People with the same

interests usually have some of the same

characteristics, which are easy to communicate and

The Impact of Social Media Inﬂuencers’ Marketing Promotion on the Purchase Intention of Young Consumers

711

can establish stronger ties. Many studies have studied

various forms of homogeneity and concluded that

homogeneity will affect consumers' purchase

intention (Shen et al., 2024). Therefore, it can be

considered that:

H4: The homogeneity of SMIs will affect

consumers' purchase intention.

2.3 Questionnaire Design and

Distribution

In this study, a questionnaire survey was used to

collect questionnaire data on the Internet. The main

reason for adopting the questionnaire survey method

is that the questionnaire survey has the characteristics

of wide coverage, relatively low cost-effectiveness,

concealment, and easy data analysis. This makes it

possible to quickly start data screening when getting

the real first-hand data, and get effective data for the

next step of analysis.

In this study, young consumers aged 18-40 were

surveyed by sending out questionnaires in the form of

online answers. Because the experimental object of

this study is young consumers and young consumers

are skilled in using social media, an online

questionnaire survey is the most direct and intuitive

method for data processing and analysis.

The questionnaire is primarily divided into three

sections: the first section contains the fundamental

information about the respondents, through the

investigation of the respondent's age, gender, identity,

and other basic information. The second part is about

the respondents' time using social media software and

their understanding of the concept of social media

influencers, which further excludes the respondents

who do not meet the requirements of this study. The

third part is to use the Likert five-point scale to ask

questions on trust, professional knowledge,

entertainment value, and homogeneity to

comprehensively understand the impact of SMIs on

respondents. A total of 186 valid questionnaires were

collected in the study. The respondents were 18-40

years old, and 93 were 25 years old and below, which

met the requirements of young respondents; There

were 58 male respondents and 128 female

respondents, covering students, office workers,

freelancers, and other groups.

3 RESULT

This study used the spss 27 version to carry out

reliability validity analysis and correlation analysis,

which further improved the conclusions. Among

them: frequency analysis reflects the actual

distribution of the questionnaire data, reliability and

validity analysis shows the rationality of the

questionnaire, while correlation analysis analyzes the

relationship between each variable and the four

factors in detail.

3.1 Reliability and Validity Analysis

Table 1. Four-factor reliability analysis.

Var

iabl

Scale

avera

after

deleti

items

Scale

varian

after

deletin

items

Correc

ted

item

and

total

correla

tion

Clone

Bach

alpha

after

deleti

ng an

ite

Alpha

after

standard

ization

H1 7.07 3.287 0.624 0.787

0.823

H2 6.97 3.053 0.685 0.759

H3 6.85 2.961 0.673 0.765

H4 7.03 3.367 0.608 0.794

According to Table 1, the overall standardized credit

coefficient of the four basic variable questions using

the scale method is 0.823, which is lower than the

overall 0.823 according to the deleted credit

coefficient. Therefore, the current questionnaire topic

does not need to be changed.

The overall standardized reliability coefficient is

0.823, and the value range of the reliability

coefficient is between 0 and 1. The closer to 1, the

higher the reliability. The result of this reliability

analysis is 0.823, which is relatively good.

The result of the KMO coefficient test is 0.771 in

the exploratory factor analysis which means the data

is suitable, and the KMO coefficient ranges from 0 to

1. The closer to 1, the better the validity of the

questionnaire.

Therefore, based on the results of the significance

of the spherical test, the significance of this test is

extremely close to 0, leading to the rejection of the

null hypothesis, thus the questionnaire demonstrates

good validity.

3.2 Correlation Analysis

According to Table 2, the P values of trust,

professional knowledge, entertainment value, and

homogeneity are all less than 0.01, showing a

significant positive correlation. It shows that these

four factors of SMIs will affect consumers' purchase

propensity to a certain extent.

APMM 2025 - International Conference on Applied Psychology and Marketing Management

712

Table 2. Correlation analysis of four elements.

Assu

Basic factors

of SMI

A H1 H2 H3 H4

A 1

H1 Trust

.420*

H2 Expertise

.382*

.567

Entertainment

Value

.341*

.502

.621*

H4 Homophily

.282*

.499

.496*

.539

** At 0.01 level (two-tailed), the correlation was

significant.

In this regard, it can be seen that the higher

consumers' trust in SMIs, the more consumers are

willing to trust their recommended products which

improves their confidence in purchasing decisions.

Therefore, the improvement of trust can significantly

improve consumers' acceptance of recommended

products by SMIs, thus increasing their purchase

intention. Secondly, when SMIs show strong

professionalism, consumers will think that they are

more authoritative, so they are more willing to accept

their recommendations. Deep professional

knowledge enables consumers to know more about

products, which can prompt them to make purchase

decisions. Therefore, the professional knowledge of

SMIs can eliminate consumers' concerns about

products, enhance their confidence, and firm their

purchase intention. Then, when consumers feel

interested and relaxed about the content published by

SMIs, it is easier for consumers to feel emotional

resonance. Highly entertaining recommended content

can not only attract more consumers but also

indirectly enhance the acceptance of recommended

products. Therefore, the entertainment content of

SMIs can effectively attract consumers' attention and

enhance consumers' purchase intention through

positive emotional experiences. Finally, consumers

tend to trust SMIs with high similarity to themselves,

believing that they can better understand their own

needs. Because homogeneity enhances consumers'

sense of identity, it is more favorable to the

influencers with strong homogeneity. Therefore, the

homogeneity between SMIs and consumers can

promote emotional resonance and make consumers

more inclined to accept the products they

recommend.

From the above points, it can be seen that the most

positive impact on consumers' purchase intention is

consumers' trust in SMIs, followed by expertise, then

entertainment value, and finally homophily. This is

similar to the results of Ao. L et al (Ao et al., 2023).

4 DISCUSSION & SUGGESTION

Based on this study, the following suggestions are put

forward:

First, the data shows that the credibility of social

media influencers helps enterprises increase customer

expectations. Due to the high credibility of

celebrities, consumers have made a positive response

to the received commodity marketing promotion (Ao

et al., 2023). In this regard, SMIs can express

information when sharing content, and try to be

honest and transparent. Maintain the frequency of

publishing high-quality content in the long-term

sharing process and establish a long-term trust

relationship with social media users. SMIs should try

their best to fulfill the above suggestions so that

consumers or social media users can trust them more.

Second, the professional knowledge of SMIs. If

SMIs show expertise in certain specific areas,

consumers are increasingly willing to believe the

recommendations of these influencers (Masuda et al.,

2022). So SMIs should focus on their professional

fields continue to accumulate knowledge and share

more professional use experience to help users solve

problems, to improve their position in the hearts of

users.

The third point is about the value of

entertainment. SMIs should pay attention to the

interest and creativity in content creation so that

social media users can receive commodity

information in a humorous way, to improve the scope

of product promotion of influencers.

The last point is about the homogeneity of SMIs

and consumers. Homogeneity means that the image

of SMIs is highly consistent with the self-ideal image

of consumers (Masuda et al., 2022). Therefore, SMIs

should try their best to maintain a high degree of

similarity with their target audience in terms of

interests, hobbies, lifestyles, etc., so that consumers

can feel close, and make consumers more trust that

the goods recommended by the influencers are useful

to them.

5 CONCLUSION

This study is based on real and effective data from the

network questionnaire. Through the analysis of

reliability and validity, correlation analysis, and other

The Impact of Social Media Inﬂuencers’ Marketing Promotion on the Purchase Intention of Young Consumers

713

methods, it is concluded that social media influencers

have a significant positive correlation with

consumers' purchase intention in the four aspects of

trust, expertise, entertainment value, and homophily.

Based on this, this paper proposes that SMIs should

focus on improving their professional knowledge,

homogeneity, and other characteristics. This research

has certain significance in how social media

practitioners package themselves, improve their

attractiveness, and how marketing practitioners

choose relevant SMIs for commodity promotion.

There is clear evidence that SMIs' credibility,

professional knowledge, entertainment value, and

homogeneity with consumers have a substantial

effect on consumers' purchase intention. Promoting

products through SMIs will further become an

emerging marketing promotion method in the future

consumer market. Enterprises should pay more

attention to how to select SMIs to promote products,

to attract more potential consumers.

At the same time, the limitation of this study is

reflected in the universality of the sample. Future

research can focus on the nature of more SMIs,

collect more extensive and complete sample data of

all ages in various countries, and further discuss the

relationship between SMIs, users, and commodity

companies, to determine the depth of influence of

SMIs on consumers' purchase intention.

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