Trust in Social Media Influencers and Purchase Intention: an Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Influencers have entered our lives as a new communication tool with the developments in social media. The aim of the study is to reveal the relationship between the trust in the influence and the purchase intention in the influencer communication process. An online questionnaire was applied between 21-28 May 2020 to the students who were studying at the Near East University in the spring term of 2019-2020 and followed an influencer. It was found that influencers expressing opinions increased the trust towards them and that there is a positive correlation between trust in the influencer and purchasing intention. It was found that there were no significant difference between genders in terms of trust in influencer and purchase intentions of the participants following the influencer were moderate. There was no significant difference between the time spent on social media and the purchase intention however, significant differences were found between trust in influencer and education and monthly income. The subject being up-to-date and limited number of studies in the field can be considered as the originality of this study. Since it was implemented in the first period of the pandemic, the study sheds light to this process. The purchasing and trust scale has been adapted and developed for influencers. In this case, it is among the features of the study.