Investigating the mechanism through which consumers are “inspired by” social media influencers and “inspired to” adopt influencers’ exemplars as social defaults

Abstract

Drawing on customer inspiration and social default theories, we investigated the mechanism by which consumers are “inspired by” social media influencers (SMIs) and “inspired to” adopt the SMIs’ exemplars as their own social defaults (standard default options that are socially desirable to like and follow). We investigated whether SMIs’ personality-determined traits [attractiveness (H1) and credibility (H2)] and content-determined traits [closeness (H3) and interactivity (H4)] led consumers to feel “inspired by” SMIs; whether consumers’ “inspired by” state led them to feel “inspired to” adopt the SMIs’ exemplars as their own social defaults (H5); and whether consumers’ “inspired to” state affected their behavioral and emotional responses: choice imitation (H6) and social glue (H7). To offer more nuanced implications, we examined whether the inspiration mechanism between consumers and SMIs differed between male and female consumers. We analyzed our model via SEM and probit regression analyses using survey data from 455 U.S. consumers’ responses.