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Like celebrities in advertising, social media influencers (SMI) play the role of group of reference and will endorse companies’ products and brands. In general, SMI could be described as ordinary social media (SM) users that can attract a sustainable number of followers, acquire a good reputation in a particular domain, and create valuable social media content that influences attitudes and behaviors (De Veirman et al., 2017; Wiedmann & Von Mettenheim, 2020; Conde & Casais, 2023). They could be described as ordinary consumers who take advantage of SM’s opportunity to create their notoriety and impact the opinions and behaviors of thousands of other consumers (McQuarrie et al., 2013; O’Connor, 2017). Since most SMI became famous by sharing their everyday life, including their consumption, purchase, and post-purchase behavior, they became models for other consumers (followers). They profoundly influenced their daily choices and purchase decisions (Rungruangjit, 2022). In effect, followers see SMI as authentic opinion leaders, creators of new trends, and experts in their specific area (Childers et al., 2019; Conde & Casais, 2023). Their messages are considered by followers as more reliable and convincing than those of traditional celebrities (Talavera, 2015), and their content as more reliable in comparison to classic brand-generated content (Cheung et al., 2022). Ultimately, they have a more profound influence on purchasing followers’ behavior than traditional celebrities (Rungruangjit, 2022).
As a result, social media influencers are recognized as a crucial and effective marketing weapon and companies are increasingly investing in SMI for brands and products endorsement (Childers et al., 2019). According to Cheung et al. (2022), SMI marketing is 6.9 times more persuasive than traditional marketing, and 65% of global brands are considering SMI marketing in their marketing budget allocation.
One of the critical success factors of SMI is their capacity to create a parasocial relationship (PSR) with other social media users (their followers). In effect, the parasocial relationship is emerging as a focal concept in research dealing with SMI (Rosaen & Dibble, 2016; Slater et al., 2018) due to the profoundly positive impact of PSR on followers’ behaviors (Hwang & Zhang, 2018). Yuan et al. (2016) indicate that SMI’s expertise and PSR are highly correlated and influence consumer behaviors. As for PSR, previous research presented expertise as a critical key success factor for SMI success. The SMI’s perceived expertise and qualification in their field make followers trust them and accept their advice (Wiedmann & Von Mettenheim, 2020; Cheung et al., 2022).
In effect, different types of SMI possess different levels of expertise related to different domains. For example, athletes are expected to be experts in sports products. In contrast, an entertainment star is expected to be an expert in cosmetics (Rungruangjit, 2022). Referring to Haenlein & Libai (2017), Conde & Casais (2023) considered that SMI could be divided into three categories depending on their level of expertise and popularity: the “mega-influencers” who are considered experts in a specific area and who are very popular and the “micro-influencers” who are ordinary consumers able to have a relative impact on a narrow circle of followers. They presented the “macro-influencers” as a third intermediate category.