Research on the Influence of Beauty Opinion Leaders on Consumers' Purchasing Intention in Chinese Social Media

The correlation between opinion leaders and consumer's purchase intention has been verified but only scattered vertical studies on beauty. This paper mainly explores the influence of the characteristics and content characteristics of Chinese social media beauty opinion leaders on consumer purchase intention. This study adopts the model of social media opinion leaders and purchase intention from Liuhe (2019). (including seven variables: professional degrees, popularity, product involvement, interactivity, homogeneity, content quality, and timeliness), two intermediate variables (Perceived values and trust), and recruited six opinion leaders on Chinese social media platforms for in-depth interviews. In an empirical study on consumers' purchase intention by opinion leaders, the results show that the homogeneity of opinion leaders and the quality of content have a significant impact on consumers' purchase intention. Consumers' trust, perceived functional value, and perceived social value all have different mediating effects in the influence of beauty opinion leaders on consumers' purchase intention. Beauty consumers and beauty brands have put forward relevant opinions and suggestions. However, based on the limitations of this study, future study can analyze more indicators as influencing factors and further explore the purchasing behavior of consumers after they generate purchase intention, making the research more realistic.