This study investigates young consumers’ reliance on social media influencers (SMIs) in the context of social commerce. With regard to the four streams of influencer endorsement – influencer credibility, influencer attractiveness, match-up, and meaning transfer – we propose that they can either lead to a direct consumer reliance on SMIs’ suggestions for their purchasing decisions, or that attitudes toward SMIs mediate the relationship. By integrating both directions of partial- and no-attitude mediation, the proposed model explores all associations in order to better understand connections and driving forces between endorsement streams, attitudes, and reliance. We introduce the concept of reliance on SMIs, understood here as the degree to which young individuals base their preferences, lifestyles, and purchasing decisions upon SMIs. A research model was validated by examining 809 young individuals. The results reveal that attitude formation is affected by all four endorsement streams, and fully mediates the relationship between these endorsement streams and young people’s reliance on SMIs. The differentiated reliance levels by gender and age confirm that females and teenagers tend to rely more on SMIs. The current study offers the first evidence for a relationship between the four endorsement streams and reliance on SMIs via attitude formation in the context of social media networking, as well as the association of reliance with sociodemographic characteristics.

中文翻译：

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年轻消费者对社交媒体影响者的依赖接连交织

本研究调查了年轻消费者在社交商务背景下对社交媒体影响者 (SMI) 的依赖。关于影响者认可的四个流——影响者可信度、影响者吸引力、匹配度和意义转移——我们认为它们可以导致消费者直接依赖 SMI 的购买决策建议，或者导致消费者对 SMI 的态度调解关系。通过整合部分态度和无态度调解的两个方向，所提出的模型探索了所有关联，以便更好地理解认可流、态度和依赖之间的联系和驱动力。我们引入了对 SMI 的依赖的概念，在这里理解为年轻人将他们的偏好、生活方式和购买决定基于 SMI 的程度。通过检查 809 名年轻人验证了研究模型。结果表明，态度的形成受到所有四种认可流的影响，并充分调节了这些认可流与年轻人对 SMI 的依赖之间的关系。按性别和年龄划分的不同依赖程度证实，女性和青少年更倾向于依赖 SMI。当前的研究提供了第一个证据，证明四种认可流与在社交媒体网络背景下通过态度形成对 SMI 的依赖之间存在关系，以及依赖与社会人口特征的关联。并充分调节这些认可流与年轻人对 SMI 的依赖之间的关系。按性别和年龄划分的不同依赖程度证实，女性和青少年更倾向于依赖 SMI。当前的研究提供了第一个证据，证明四种认可流与在社交媒体网络背景下通过态度形成对 SMI 的依赖之间存在关系，以及依赖与社会人口特征的关联。并充分调节这些认可流与年轻人对 SMI 的依赖之间的关系。按性别和年龄划分的不同依赖程度证实，女性和青少年更倾向于依赖 SMI。当前的研究提供了第一个证据，证明四种认可流与在社交媒体网络背景下通过态度形成对 SMI 的依赖之间存在关系，以及依赖与社会人口特征的关联。