From Links to Likes: Evidence From a Social Commerce Platform

Product-related content created by social media influencers plays a crucial role in shaping consumer purchase decisions. Social media endorsements, as reflected in “likes,” serve as a key indicator of an influencer’s success and provide 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 affects individuals’ social media endorsement 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 more 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 increasing social media endorsements for influencers who generate content more intensively (i.e., frequently). To examine the underlying mechanisms driving these effects, we conducted a controlled experiment simulating our research context (N = 428). The findings suggest that the positive effect of product links on social media endorsement arises from enhancing perceptions of helpfulness while mitigating perceptions of ulterior motives, particularly in organic content. This research makes significant theoretical contributions to the literature on user-generated content, user engagement, and influencer marketing, offering actionable guidance for influencers, brands, and social media platforms.