Influence of parasocial relationship between digital celebrities and their followers on followers' purchase and electronic word-of-mouth intentions, and persuasion knowledge

Abstract Marketers recognize digital celebrities' advertising power and effectiveness, making them influential models of social media advertising. The concept of parasocial relationships may elucidate relationships between digital celebrities and their followers and explain the former's persuasion power over the latter. This study explores how parasocial relationships affect followers' purchase and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intentions and investigates the effect of empathy, loneliness, and low social self-esteem on parasocial relationships within Uses and Gratification Theory. Additionally, it examines whether followers' parasocial relationships can reduce their persuasion knowledge. A survey was administered three hundred eighty-nine Chinese SNS users following digital celebrities; valid data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Empathy and low self-esteem positively influenced parasocial relationships; however, loneliness did not. Parasocial relationships positively affected followers' purchase and eWOM intentions. The second model investigated the negative effects of persuasion knowledge on followers' purchase and eWOM intentions. The results indicate that parasocial relationship moderates the paths between followers' persuasion knowledge and purchase intentions and between followers' persuasion knowledge and eWOM intentions. This study sheds light on how digital celebrities have an advertising influence on their SNS followers with the concept of parasocial relationships and is notable given the dearth of empirical studies on digital celebrities’ SNS advertising.