Money Making Characteristics of an Influencer : An explanatory study of the relationship of influencers’ characteristics on consumers’ purchase intentions

Abstract: Background: Influencer marketing is a rather new marketing strategy where companies use influencers to promote their products and services on their own social media platforms. Previous studies have shown that companies use influencer marketing for creating purchase intentions for the consumer, whereas other studies have indicated three different characteristics of an influencer, authenticity, attractiveness and trustworthiness, that are important to possess in order to be able to influence its followers, which is why this study wanted to do a combination of these types of studies. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain the relationship between influencers’ characteristics and consumers’ purchase intentions. Methodology: This quantitative study used a deductive approach and had an explanatory purpose, along with a cross-sectional research design. This study also presented a new model, including three hypotheses that assumed a positive relationship between the characteristics of an influencer and consumers’ purchase intentions. In order to collect data, a questionnaire was shared online, both through a convenience sampling technique and a snowball sampling technique, which resulted in 195 responses that passed the qualification questions. Findings: Two of the hypotheses within the proposed model were rejected, which meant that Authenticity and Attractiveness of an influencer did not show to have a positive relationship with consumers’ purchase intentions. Hypothesis 3 (H3) was however accepted, and it was shown that 14,8 % of consumers’ purchase intentions is explained by influencers’ Trustworthiness.   Conclusion: This study contributes with the theoretical implications that there is a relationship between the characteristic Trustworthiness of an influencer and consumers’ purchase intentions, along with the managerial implications which helps companies and marketers to know what characteristics to look for in an influencer when they want to create purchase intentions for consumers. Keywords: Attractiveness of an influencer; authenticity of an influencer; influencer characteristics; influencer marketing; influencers; purchase intentions; social media; trustworthiness on an influencer.