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Cited by 8Digital Marketing and Social MediaConsumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and IdentificationMarketing and Advertising Strategies

Influencers’ persuasive power and parasocial relationships in digital consumption: insights from Instagram and TikTok

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Damaj, Abdalfatah, Nofal, Reema·2026·Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research
DOI 10.3390/jtaer21040112
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Abstract

Social media influencers (SMIs) are becoming increasingly powerful in shaping customers’ perceptions and behaviors regarding the products they purchase and the brands within digital marketing environments. This research proposes to assess the extent to which social media platforms, particularly Instagram and TikTok, affect SMIs’ capacity to persuade their followers concerning brand credibility and purchase intention. Using an online survey of 701 active users of both platforms in Palestine, the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) through SmartPLS 4.0 for the simultaneous evaluation of both the measurement models and the structural models. The research findings indicate that follower involvement, interactivity, and emotional attachment positively influence the persuasive outcomes through the creation of parasocial relationships (PSRs) between followers and SMIs, and that these influences are different for each platform. Results show that Instagram had a larger overall influence compared to TikTok, whereas there were no differences between platforms regarding how PSRs shape follower perceptions of brand credibility and emotional attachment to SMIs; both of these perceptions are strongly linked to PSRs. Therefore, these findings underscore the importance of platform-specific engagement mechanisms in shaping PSRs and offer theoretical and practical implications for influencer marketing strategies. The findings further suggest that platform affordances may condition not only overall engagement levels but also the relative strength of persuasion mechanisms underlying PSRs and their behavioral consequences. By situating the analysis within a non-Western digital market, this study provides context-specific insights and highlights avenues for future research in comparable digital consumption environments.

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Authors
Damaj, A., & Nofal, R.
Affiliations
Girne American University (CY)
Corresponding author
  • Damaj, Abdalfatah
  • Nofal, Reema
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2026-04-03
Volume
21
Issue
4
Pages
112
ISSN
0718-1876 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/jtaer21040112
OpenAlex
W7150005194
Cited by
8
References
8
Citations by year
2026: 8
FWCI
56.31
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Marketing and Social Media
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Marketing and Advertising Strategies
Keywords
social media influencers, persuasiveness, parasocial relationships, influencer marketing, Instagram, TikTok, brand credibility, purchase intention, follower engagement, interactivity, emotional attachment, platform affordances, digital consumption, Palestine

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

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