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Understanding followers’ stickiness to digital influencers: The effect of psychological responses

Hu, Lixia, Min, Qingfei, Han, Shengnan, Liu, Zhiyong·2020·International Journal of Information Management
DOI 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102169
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Abstract

Abstract The ability of digital influencers to convert their followers into paying customers relies heavily on the followers’ “stickiness”, a topic that has not been adequately investigated in the existing literature. From a psychological perspective, this study develops a theoretical model of followers’ stickiness. Two forms of followers’ psychological responses to digital influencers are jointly considered: wishful identification and parasocial relationships. This study also categorizes and examines the moderating effects exerted by the genres of digital influencers’ revenue models, which represent a vital contextual factor for forming followers’ stickiness. A survey was conducted on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, with a sample of 319 followers of real digital influencers that are using different genres of revenue models. The findings indicate that both wishful identification and parasocial relationships have significant but different impacts on followers’ stickiness in different genres of influencers’ revenue models. This paper enriches our understanding of the phenomenon of followers’ stickiness toward digital influencers and provides practical guidance for digital influencers and social commerce/media platform providers.

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Metadata

Authors
Hu, L., Min, Q., Han, S., & Liu, Z.
Venue
International Journal of Information Management
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-10
Volume
54
Pages
102169
ISSN
0268-4012 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102169
OpenAlex
W3034518044
Cited by
260
References
17
FWCI
38.34
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Funders
  • Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (DUT20RW119)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (71431002, 71531002, 71772022)

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Hu, L., Min, Q., Han, S., & Liu, Z. (2020). Understanding followers’ stickiness to digital influencers: The effect of psychological responses. International Journal of Information Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102169

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