The Effects Of Micro Influencers From Instagram On Mongolian E-commerce Consumers’ Purchasing Intention

With the popularity of e-commerce,consumers often make purchase decisions based on the recommendation of opinion leaders,and their attention begins to shift from stars to people around them.Influencers around consumers can also affect their purchasing decisions,such as friends,Internet celebrities,and consumers who post comments.These are all influencers.Among these influencers,Micro Influencers on social media have begun to receive more attention.The number of Micro Influencers’ fans is not large,but they have better interaction with fans and have higher attraction to fans.If Micro Influencers recommend products,fans are more likely to have purchase intention.Moreover,because they are more cost-effective than celebrity spokespersons,they are beginning to attract the attention of enterprises.Enterprises are looking for low-cost and effective promotion channels,Micro Influencers are a good choice.However,at present,we are not completely clear about how Micro Influencers influence consumers’ purchase intention,and systematic empirical studies are few.If enterprises cannot understand how Micro Influencers influence consumers,they cannot reasonably choose Micro Influencers.When consumers follow opinion leaders,they cannot protect their own interests.For Micro Influencers,it is also unclear how to exert their influence.Therefore,we must find a mechanism for Micro Influencers to influence consumers’ purchase intention.Based on SOR theory,social interaction theory,trust theory and social identity theory,the research model was proposed.This paper argues that Micro Influencers influence consumers’ purchase intention through trust and consumer-micro opinion leader identification.Trust depends on the personality characteristics of Micro Influencers,and identity depends on the identity attraction of Micro Influencers.In order to test the proposed research model,this paper empirically demonstrates the influence of Micro Influencers on e-commerce consumers on Instagram platform in Mongolia.A total of 336 valid online questionnaires were collected.SPSS software was used for statistical and hypothesis testing to verify the main hypotheses in this paper.The final conclusions are as follows:(1)The personality characteristics of Micro Influencers include three dimensions:perceived kindness,perceived ability and perceived integrity,which have a positive impact on trust.The identity attraction of Micro Influencers includes two dimensions:identity similarity and identity particularity,which have a positive influence on consumerMicro Influencer.(2)Trust and consumer-micro opinion leader identification play a mediating role in the relationship between micro opinion leader characteristics and consumers’ purchase intention.(3)Under the combined effect of personality characteristics and identity attraction of Micro Influencers,consumers’ purchase intention is positively influenced by both trust and identity.Therefore,these research conclusions explain how Micro Influencers influence consumers’ purchase intention.