Digital influencers, social power and consumer engagement in social commerce
ISSN: 1066-2243
Article publication date: 5 April 2022
Issue publication date: 28 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Social commerce platforms are prevalent in the explosion of social media and e-commerce, and they enable conversations across a broad range of topics. However, their success depends on consumers' willingness to invest their time, attention and money. Digital influencers have shown prominent effects on consumers in those social commerce platforms. This study, thus, aims to attempt to unravel the role of digital influencers in affecting consumer engagement and purchase behaviour in online social commerce communities.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed approach with a field interview, an online survey and secondary archive data are presented to confirm all the hypotheses.
Findings
Several forms of social power from digital influencers (including expert power, informational power, referent power and legitimate reciprocity power) could influence consumer engagement behaviours (including content participation and content creation). Moreover, the two types of consumer engagement behaviours could further influence consumer purchase likelihood in the social commerce community.
Research limitations/implications
Several forms of social power from digital influencers (including expert power, informational power, referent power and legitimate reciprocity power) could affect consumer engagement behaviours (including content participation and content creation). Moreover, the two types of consumer engagement behaviours could further affect consumer's purchase expenditure in the social commerce community.
Originality/value
This study draws on the theories of social power and social influence and integrates the literature on consumer engagement to explain how digital influencers affect consumer engagement and their purchase behaviour in an online social commerce community. Firstly, this work extends existing studies on the antecedents of consumer engagement in the social commerce communities by considering the role of digital influencers. Secondly, this research advances the theoretical understanding of the influence of digital influencers through a new lens of social power. The findings also contribute to community managers, users who pursue popularity and companies who target business goals.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate Mr. Yu Zhang's help with the data collection and analysis. Yu Zhang is an engineer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his master's degree from the University of Science and Technology of China. The authors also thank the reviewer team for providing insightful feedback on prior versions of this paper.
Funding: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Award Number 71622009).
Citation
Wang, P. and Huang, Q. (2023), "Digital influencers, social power and consumer engagement in social commerce", Internet Research, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 178-207. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-08-2020-0467
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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