O papel dos influenciadores digitais na decisão de compra do consumidor: Uma investigação no contexto da pandemia

Abstract

The pandemic has caused changes in consumer behavior, specially in the way of making purchases on the Internet. On that account, Instagram was the main social network in terms of prominence in this period, then many users have started to follow some digital influencers, the so-called instagrammers, on the platform. Therefore, this study aims to identify the characteristics of the instagrammers that influence the purchase decision of their followers in the pandemic context. Based on the questionnaire of Masuda, Han and Lee (2021), a survey was applied to a sample of 400 users, by means of which it was evaluated how the users perceive the trust and expertise of the digital influencers and the parasocial relationship developed with them. The results confirmed that trust, expertise and the level of parasocial relationship are characteristics of instagrammers perceived by users who have purchased some product or service due to their influence.