Effect of Social Media Influencers on Consumer Brand Engagement and its Implications on Business Decision Making

Abstract

The number of social media users and users accessing different social media platforms is increasing daily. For this reason, social media influencers and content marketing are increasingly important in businesses' marketing strategies. More studies on social media influencers and content marketing still need to be done since they are relatively new concepts. The research goal is to find out the impact of social media influencers and content marketing on online repurchase intention through brand trust and customer brand engagement in online shopping stores. These research findings generally found a significant positive direct impact of social media influencers and content marketing on brand trust, customer brand engagement, and online repurchase intention. The results found that content marketing was the most vital determinant of brand trust and customer brand engagement, followed by social media influencers. Additionally, brand trust is significantly influenced by customer brand engagement. Additionally, brand trust and customer brand engagement significantly and positively impacted online repurchase intention. Furthermore, social media influencers are identified as the most significant determinant of online repurchase intentions, followed by content marketing, brand trust, and customer brand engagement. The mediation analysis results revealed that customer brand engagement did not mediate the positive impact of social media influencers and content marketing on online repurchase intention. Additionally, it was found that brand trust mediates the positive impact of social media influencers and content marketing on online repurchase intentions. Future studies should continue to study social media influencers and content marketing since literature is scarce.