Abstract

Product-related content created by social media influencers plays a crucial role in shaping consumer purchase decisions. Social media endorsement (as reflected in likes) serves as a key indicator of influencer success and provides brands and platforms with valuable insights into how social media users perceive and engage with product-related content. This study theorizes and examines how and why incorporating a product link into influencer-generated content impacts individuals’ social media-endorsing behavior. Our empirical analysis, based on 216,973 product-related posts from 6,188 influencers on a social media platform, suggests that (1) the inclusion of a product link is associated with higher social media endorsement, (2) this effect is more pronounced for organic (non-sponsored) content than for sponsored content, and (3) product links are more effective in improving social media endorsement for influencers who generate content more intensely (i.e., frequently) than the others. To examine the underlying mechanisms driving these effects, we conducted a controlled experiment simulating our research context (N = 428). The findings indicate that perceived helpfulness and perceived ulterior motives of the influencer mediate the relationship between product links and social media endorsement. This research makes significant theoretical contributions to the literature on user-generated content, user engagement, and influencer marketing while also offering practical implications for influencers, brands, and social media platforms.

DOI

10.17705/1jais.00943

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