“I like, comment and share social media fashion innovators' content”: investigating millennial consumers' engagement with native advertising of Facebook brand pages

Purpose This study aims to investigate the effects of fashion innovators or micro-social media fashion influencers' (SMFIs) sponsored content characteristics posted from Facebook brand pages (FBPs) in native advertising (NAD) on millennial consumers' engagement (CE) levels by drawing on the specified theories and models. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the 5 theories and models, an online survey of 317 millennial SMFI followers on FBPs' responses was conducted in Bangladesh using non-probability purposive sampling, and structural equation modeling was used to test the model. Findings Established through hypothesis testing, perceived credibility (PC) partially mediates CE, with indirect effects from parasocial interaction (PSI), awareness of the disclosure statement (DS) and entertainment value, except for informativeness value (INF), mainly among female millennials aged 25 to 29. Research limitations/implications This research extends the social media influencer (SMI) marketing literature's five streams by conceptualizing an integrated model as “FIIMCEB,” focusing on fashion clothing SMFIs' content uploaded on FBP, which was overlooked earlier. Practical implications The partial mediating effect of PC, as a content characteristic of SMFI, is discussed for fashion marketers seeking to implement the latest strategies to engage millennial followers. Originality/value The study contributes five ways to SMI marketing literature by specifying how the SMFIs' sponsored content characteristics, including DS, positively affect the behavior of a focused consumer segment in an integrated approach that separates persuasion knowledge model, advertising value model, PSI theory, source credibility model and CE theory of SMI marketing research, extending FBP-based NAD.