Exploring the role of source, content, and audience factors in shaping sharing behaviour among social media influencers’ followers in Saudi Arabia

The rise of social media influencers over the past decade has garnered interest from scholars and marketers, paving the way for what is widely known as influencer marketing. Recent evidence indicates that engagement between influencers and their followers plays a major role in the success of influencer marketing. While scholars and practitioners are interested in enhancing followers’ engagement with influencers, the mechanism driving this engagement remains a promising area for research. Specifically, the exploration of engagement, particularly in the form of sharing, remains an underexplored area in the current body of literature. Therefore, this study aims to develop a model that investigates the underlying mechanism of followers’ sharing behaviour towards influencers’ posts, with a specific focus on the unique context of Saudi Arabia.

With the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework as a backbone and supported by the Communication Persuasion Matrix (CPM), an integrated model was developed to explore the specific factors related to the source, content, and audience influencing followers’ sharing behaviour. Specifically, the impact of source popularity and authenticity, content creativity and quality, as well as audience collectivist values and self-efficacy are studied. It is argued that parasocial relationships between influencers and their followers act as a mediator between these factors and sharing behaviour. Additionally, the potential moderating role of verification behaviour – the follower’s tendency to seek validation for what an influencer says – on the relationship between parasocial relationships and sharing behaviour was investigated.

An exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was employed, consisting of two stages of data collection and analysis that integrated qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first stage, twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with followers of SMIs to identify audience factors that might influence their engagement with SMIs. In the second stage, 507 valid survey responses were collected through a questionnaire and analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).

The findings of this study elucidate the mechanism underlying the development of sharing behaviour. Specifically, the results suggest that only factors related to the content of SMIs can directly contribute to increased sharing behaviour. However, when followers develop a parasocial relationship with their favourite influencer, all factors related to the source, content, and audience exhibit significant indirect effects, leading to increased shared behaviour, except for self-efficacy. Additionally, verification behaviour was found to negatively moderate the relationship between parasocial relationships and sharing behaviour. These research outcomes yield several theoretical and practical implications.