Impact of Influencer Attractiveness, Credibility on Parasocial Interaction, Purchase Intentions: Moderating Congruence

The increasingly widespread use of social media has risen up new careers as social media influencers. Interestingly, influencers are now creating their own product lines, branded under their own names or extensions, known as influencer-branded products. This research aims to examine the influence of an influencer's credibility and attractiveness on parasocial interaction, as well as to determine the effect of parasocial interaction on the intention to purchase influencer-branded products. Additionally, this study aims to test the moderating influence of congruence between consumers and influencers, influencers and products, and products and consumers in the relationship between parasocial interaction and purchase intention. This research is conducted using quantitative method through an online survey of 227 respondents, with Mother of Pearl, an influencer-branded product by Tasya Farasya as the object of study. Data is processed using IBM SPSS and SEM AMOS. The results of the study indicate that all variables positively correlate with each other, except for influencer expertise, which negatively affects parasocial interaction, and the moderation effects of consumer-product congruency and influencer-product congruency, which do not significantly impact purchase intention. These findings have implications for influencers as business practitioners, suggesting that they should focus on creating content that highlights their attractiveness and trustworthiness while minimizing content that overly emphasizes their expertise. Furthermore, based on the results of the fit moderation, business practitioners need to enhance the influencer's self-branding, as only the fit between the consumer and the influencer significantly moderates and strengthens the effect on purchase intention