Abstract
This study considers how the relationships between social media influencers, brands and individuals are intertwined on social media and analyses the spill-over effects of feelings of betrayal. An experimental design with two transgression scenarios (influencer vs. brand) was created, and 250 individuals were recruited to participate in the study. The results show that a perceived betrayal by a brand can negatively affect the perceived coolness of the social media influencer that has endorsed the brand, as well as the parasocial relationships that followers have with the influencer. Accordingly, a perceived betrayal by a social media influencer can negatively affect attitudes, trust and purchase intentions toward a brand that the influencer has endorsed. The current research helps in understanding brand and influencer transgressions and highlights the fact that both influencers and brands should have a sense of collaboration responsibility. It also introduces the concept of influencer coolness, understood here as a desirable success factor for social media influencers, which partly explains their desirability and influence, and a feature that can be endangered through both influencer and brand betrayals.
1. Introduction
The benefits of social media are numerous, including the fact that social media platforms enable new possibilities to interact and maintain relationships with friends and loved ones (e.g., boyd and Ellison, 2007; Cheung et al., 2011; Dhir et al., 2018; Gennaro and Dutton, 2007). In addition, social media also allows connecting with new kinds of ‘digital friends’: These new types of relationship partners can include social media influencers — bloggers, YouTubers, Instagram and TikTok celebrities — who are often considered close friends or even family members by their followers (Berryman and Kavka, 2017; Reinikainen et al., 2020), and also brands (Fournier, 1998), which can evoke strong self-brand connections (Tan et al., 2019) or even feelings of love (Batra et al., 2012) in devoted individuals. This effect may be especially high in young people, who are often ‘fascinated with popular brands’ (Dhir et al., 2016: 427).
8. Conclusion
The current study explores the intertwined relationships between social media influencers, brands and individuals on social media. Although positive emotions have been found to spill over from influencers to brands (Reinikainen et al., 2020), the effects of negative emotions have mostly been overlooked, such as the negative feelings that are caused by trust violations. The present study specifically examined the effects of influencer and brand betrayals on endorsed brands and endorsing influencers, respectively.
