General Attitude Scale for Social Media Influencers

Abstract

This study aims to develop and validate a scale measuring consumers’ attitudes towards social media influencers (SMIs). In this sense, the study population consisted of social media users who followed at least one social media influencer. The survey method was used as the data collection tool in the study. While creating the scale items, relevant literature as well as expressions and some sentences obtained from short interviews with consumers who use social media and follow at least one social media influencer were used. As part of the research, 821 surveys were accepted as valid and evaluated. After pretesting studies on a group of 258 people, the scale was retested with a new sample of 821 people. The skewness and kurtosis values were between +1.96 and -1.96. The sample had a normal distribution. The EFA analysis revealed that the scale item distribution was compatible with the pretest analysis. Although no random distribution was found with parallel analysis, Kaiser–Guttman analysis was also performed to control the distribution of random scales into their subdimensions. The EFA results showed that the developed scale provided appropriate values. KMO=0.896, Bartlett’s sphericity test=0.000, Bartlett’s<0.05, Cronbach’s alpha=0.889, AVE=0.585, and CR=0.934. As a result of CFA, the values for the goodness of fit were found to be appropriate (x2 (df)=3.144; p=0.000, RMSEA=0.051; CFI=0.994; GFI=0.990; SRMR=0.014; AVE=0.580; CR=0.933), and it was observed that there were no items below the factor value of 0.50. As a result of the invariance analysis, it was understood that the developed scale had invariance properties and was suitable for use with a large audience, as the ∆CFI value was less than 0.01 between both samples. The General Attitudes Scale towards social media influencers has a single factor and consists of six items. The factor loading values of the scale items ranged between 0.53 and 0.90. In this research, it was determined that social media influencers had a significant impact on the participants. The general attitudes of the participants as part of the study had a significant effect on their social media influencers.