The Impact Of Credibility Of Social Media Celebrities' On Their Followers' Purchase Intentions

Purpose-In recent years social media celebrities play a crucial role in marketing activities,specifically regarding products endorsements on numerous social media platforms to their followers.Prior studies dwelled mostly on the roles traditional celebrities and social media celebrities play in influencing their followers purchase intentions through brand/product endorsements.The present study examines how celebrity identification and para-social relationships mediates the relationship between the credibility of social media celebrities and their followers purchase intentions.Moreover,the study investigates how social media platform effect as a concept moderates the relationship between the following constructs;thus-credibility of social media celebrities and purchase intentions;para-social relationships and purchase intentions;and between identification and purchase intentions.Again,the present study use four famous social media celebrities from PRC and four from Ghana respectively,and also three social media platforms used in PRC and three from Ghana.The researcher however control the results of the social media platforms used in both countries and the names of the social media celebrities used in the study.This present study embraces a perspective at the intersection between celebrity theory,theory of planned behaviour,identification theories(social cognitive theory and theory of opinion change)and certainty reduction theory to deeply understand the impact of social media platforms that enables social media celebrity influence on their followers'purchase intentions.These theories form the basis of the theoretical framework of the research together with the celebrity influence model.Design/Methodology/Approach-In this study,explanatory research design was employed coupled with quantitative research methodology.The sample unit for the study were students and young adults who are gainfully employed from both PRC and Ghana who use social media and follow at least one social media celebrity in either PRC or Ghana.For the data collection method,the study used purposive sampling technique.Again,the present study made use of positivism research paradigm and deductive research approach.Structural equation modeling(SEM)with the help of SmartPls3 was used to analyse the data from both countries.Moreover,Anderson and Gerbing two-step approach was employed.Here,the measurement model was analysed before evaluating the structural model.To ascertain the validity of the constructs at the measurement model stage,confirmatory factor analysis(CFA)was performedFurther,SPSS version 24 was also used to enter the data collected from the field and also to run the hierarchical multiple regression and Common Method Bias for the data from the two countries.Again,Jeremy Dawson's two-way linear interactions effect for moderation template was used to plot the moderating effects of social media platform effect in the relationship between para-social relationships and purchase intentions,and also between identification and purchase intentions for both China and Ghana.Findings-The findings indicated that the para-social relationships and identification are positively related to the followers purchase intentions in both countries,whereas,para-social relationships and identification fully mediate the relationship between social media celebrities and their followers purchase intentions in both countries.Nevertheless,there is a negative relationship between the credibility of social media celebrities and their followers purchase intentions for both countries,and this negative relationship is also manifested in the control variables results(thus,individual social media platforms and the individual social media celebrities).Moreover,most importantly,social media platform effect moderates the relationship between para-social relationships and the followers' purchase intentions,and between identification and the followers' purchase intentions among the PRC respondents.Pertaining to the respondents from Ghana,social media platform effect only moderates the relationship between identification and the followers' purchase intentions.Further,social media platform effect does not moderate the relationship between the credibility of social media celebrities and their followers' purchase intention in both countries.Again,the credibility of social media celebrities positively impact on both para-social relationships and identification.Theoretical/Academic implications-The present study makes several contributions to social media celebrity and social media platforms literature.First,it expands our understanding of para-social relationships and identification in the context of social media celebrities.Again,the incorporation of celebrity influence model into the model of this study augments the knowledge of para-social relationships and identification literature in the context of social media celebrities.In this study,the researcher proposed a direct and positive relationship between the credibility of social media celebrities and identification in the context of social media celebrities'concept which was confirmed positively by the hypothesised result.Moreover,one of the key highlights of the study is that the credibility of social media celebrities do not directly influence their followers purchase decisions but does so through the mediating effects of identification and para-social relationships.Again,the social media platform effect as a moderator in this study is a novel in the literature of social media,and its findings from that contribute to the literature.Further,the findings of this study also contributed to the key opinion leaders(KOL)theory?Like the traditional celebrities,social media celebrities are also regarded as key opinion leaders(KOL)and the celebrities cited in this study satisfied the criteria.That is,possessing positive image,capital utilization and have identity.In this regard,although there is no direct impact of the credibility of social media celebrities on their followers'purchase intention,as key opinion leaders through the para-social relationship and identification the followers have with them.These findings however portrays that the concept of para-social relationship and identification play a vital role in the key opinion leaders(KOL)theory.Practical implications-The findings of this study could benefit marketers and business owners alike to capitalise on the magic of social media celebrities and social media platforms to promote their products and services.Moreover,the present study will help organisations or firms to be mindful of the social media celebrity or social media platform to use to promote their brands.Marketers in both China and Ghana ought to take into consideration the credibility,and rapport a particular social media celebrity has with her/his followers before contracting that particular celebrity to endorse their products.Further,when it comes to social media platforms,firms ought to consider how effective and efficient a particular social media platform is before it is used to promote their brands.In a nutshell,firms must consider the credibility of a social media celebrity and the rapport with their followers on a particular effective and efficient social media platform.Both the celebrity and the social media platform should go hand in hand.Further,modern day firms usually try to instigate customer purchase intention which could lead to purchase decision on numerous social media platforms to help them compete against firms offering similar products.From the results,although the credibility of social media celebrities in the main sample does not influence their followers purchase intention in both China and Ghana,the story is different in the controlled variable results in both China and Ghana.Regarding the results,the credibility of social media celebrities on Weibo and FB significantly impact on their followers purchase intention.Hence,managers of social media platforms ought not to dwell solely on promoting their brands;instead,they could post and share the opinion of celebrities on the firms' pages and websites that could create more awareness about the credibility of the firms and their products.Originality/value-Unlike the previous studies that overlooked the moderating role of social media platform effect in investigating the followers of traditional celebrities or social media celebrities purchase intentions,the significant highlight of this study is the detailed investigation of the moderating role of ease of use of social media platform in this study;thus;in the relationship between para-social relationships and the followers purchase intentions;between celebrity identification and the followers purchase intentions and finally between the credibility of social media celebrities and their followers' purchase intentions.This is so because the strength of moderating effect of ease of use of social media platform lead to stronger relationship between para-social relationship and purchase intentions,and between identification and purchase intentions among the Chinese social media celebrities' followers than among Ghanaian social media celebrities' followers.Moreover,to the best of the researcher's knowledge this is a novel study that uses the concept of celebrity identification in the context of social media celebrities and social media platforms effect as moderator in the relationships stated above.Again,the significant direct relationship of the credibility of social media celebrities on identification is also a novel finding.Last but not least,the present study is the first to carry out a comparative analysis between China and Ghana pertaining to social media celebrities.Research Limitation(s)-The highlight of the limitation is the comparison between PRC and Ghana which was not a fair comparison based on factors such as population size,technological advancement and the kind of social media platforms being used in the two countries.More so,the number of social media users in China far surpasses that of Ghana.So comparing China to a country like the United States of America would have been a fair comparison.Moreover,unlike China where data about the annual earnings of social media celebrities are available,the same cannot be said about the situation in Ghana where data about annual earnings of social media celebrities is lacking.In addition,the study did not include specific products or brands that are being endorsed by the social media celebrities.The inclusion of specific products or brands could have had different impact on the purchase intentions of the followers' of the social media celebrities.Again,despite the sampling of WeChat,Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ as the social media platforms used in this study,because of their rating as top three social media platforms in China,these social media platforms added a limitation to the study because they are mainly for messaging.The inclusion of social media platforms that support video such as;DouYin(TikTok),Tencent Video,IQiYi etc.could have had a different effect to the findings.