Instagram influencer marketing: Perceived social media marketing activities and online impulse buying

The main objective of this research is to investigate the impact of social media marketing activities — restricted only to Instagram influencers — on online impulse buying through the mediating effect of source credibility (attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness), predicated on Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory. The hypothesised relationships were examined using cross-sectional data obtained from 273 Instagram users. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using the SMART-PLS software was employed as the primary data analysis method. The results revealed that the perceived social media marketing activities of Instagram influencers have a significant positive influence on the perceptions of followers pertaining to all three dimensions of source credibility (attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness). In turn, only attractiveness and trustworthiness were found to have a significant positive influence on online impulse buying. Moreover, this study revealed that it was the perceived attractiveness and trustworthiness of Instagram influencers that were the influential mediating factors in the relationship between perceived social media marketing activities and online impulse buying. There is a dearth of studies that have been conducted on the examination of the mechanism through which Instagram influencers’ social media marketing activities influence online impulse buying. This study is significant as it provides new insights into the importance of Instagram influencers social media marketing activities in affecting followers’ online impulse buying through source credibility.