Dr. Chen and colleagues explored the role that social media influencers played an important role in driving positive outcomes of corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns.
A survey of 967 participants was conducted in June 2019.
Key findings include:
1.) Social media influencers exert influence on the target consumers’ decisions to support the CSR initiative which they have endorsed when they are perceived as opinion and taste leaders by the consumers.
— Social media influencers’ taste leadership had a greater impact on CSR supportive behavior than their opinion leadership did.
2.) Social media influencer leadership over customers is formed by perceived trustworthiness, expertise, uniqueness, and congruity.
— Congruity, directly and indirectly, affected consumers’ CSR-supportive behavior.
3.) Visually appealing content that displays good taste or establishes a style congruent with the social platform’s norms draws the public’s attention and triggers their heuristics of “realism,” “urgency,” or “coolness,” thereby increasing their cognitive and affective engagement with the content and the social media influencers in general.
Find the original journal article here.
