الفهرس 
Chapter One: IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 307 |  |  |
| | | from | 307 | | |
Abstract
1.Introduction:
The field of marketing is one of the most dynamic fields that has continuously changed throughout the years. One of the clearest changes in consumers’ behavior, is their tendency to search for information about products and brands using the internet (Appel, Grewal, Hadi, & Stephen, 2020). With the growth of social media platforms, users developed the will and the desire to constantly share their daily lives and experiences with their virtual friends. Due to this phenomenon, people started sharing their opinions about products and brands professionally in the form of reviews to satisfy the need for consumers to know honest feedback from individuals who are similar to them. Eventually, this led to the introduction of the term “Influencer” and its transformation to be a profession. (Audrezet, De Kerviler, & Moulard, 2020)
Influencer marketing is the usage of personas that have a large number of followers on their platforms to provide their followers with information about brands and affect their buying behavior. (Martínez-López, Anaya-Sánchez, Giordano, & Lopez-Lopez, 2020)
Currently, consumers are dealing with influencers not only as a way to learn information about new products but also they are perceiving them as Human Brand. Influencers as Human brands are fulfilling their followers’ needs for ideality, relatedness, and competence in a way that makes them attached to the influencers. (Breves, Liebers, Abt, & Kunze, 2019).
Moreover, followers have a parasocial relationship with their social media influencers where they have a one-way friendship with them. As a result, companies and marketers are always seeking to take advantage of the attachment and the parasocial relationship between the social media influencers and their followers to create a desire inside the followers’ minds to buy unplanned products endorsed by the influencers impulsively. (Shamim & Islam, 2022)
Interestingly, envy plays an important role in the relationship between the social media influencers and their followers as it affects their attitude towards the possessions of the social media influencers and it affects their purchasing decision. (Wenninger, 2021)
Finally, the rise of social media influencers in Egypt is clear as it is highlighted in the increase in the spending on ads in influencer marketing advertising as it will reach 31.994 million dollars by the end of 2023 in Egypt. (Insights, 2023)
2. Research Problem:
The research problem of this research is determined according to the following:
Firstly: The results of the qualitative and the quantitative exploratory studies.
Secondly: The review of the literature on social media influencers as a human brand, the attachment and the parasocial relationship between the social media influencers and their followers, the possession envy that followers have towards the social media influencers, and the followers’ urge to buy and impulsive buying behavior towards endorsed products by the social media influencers.
Thirdly: The statistics show the rise of influencer marketing worldwide and in Egypt, supported by real-life examples from both practitioners and business owners.
Considering the above points, the research aims to Investigate the influence of social media influencers on the impulsive buying behavior of online Egyptian consumers, examining the mediating role of the parasocial relationship and exploring how social media influencers, acting as human brands, contribute to followers’ need fulfillment and attachment. Additionally, the study delves into the impact of followers’ possession envy on their social media influencers and its effect on the urge to engage in impulsive buying.
3. Research Objectives:
• Understanding the effect of social media influencers’ inspiring persona on their followers’ perception of them as a human brand that fulfills their need for ideality.
• Illustrating the effect of social media influencers’ visually aesthetic content on their followers’ perception of them as a human brand that fulfills their need for ideality.
• Explaining how social media influencers’ enjoyable persona makes their followers perceive them as a human brand that fulfills their need for relatedness.
• Identifying the social media influencers whose persona has a similar effect on their followers is perceived as a human brand that fulfills their need for relatedness.
• Elaborating the effect of informative content posted by social media influencers on their followers’ perception of them as a human brand that fulfills their need for competence.
• Understanding how social media influencers’ expertise can let their followers perceive them as a human brand that fulfills their need for competence.
• Clarifying the ability of social media influencers to fulfill their follower’s needs for “ideality, relatedness and competence” and how it leads to developing an attachment with them.
• Identifying the effect of the attachment between social media influencers and their followers that creates a parasocial relationship between them.
• Exploring the result of the parasocial relationship between the social media influencers and their followers that leads to an urge to buy endorsed products by the social media influencers.
• Understanding the effect of an urge to buy endorsed products by social media influencers that results in impulsive buying behavior.
• Explaining the effect of possession envy on the relation between the followers’ parasocial relation with the social media influencers and their urge to buy the endorsed products.
4. Research Hypotheses:
H1: Social media influencers inspiring persona has a positive effect on their followers’ ideality need fulfillment.
H2: Social media influencers visual aesthetic content has a positive effect on their followers’ ideality need fulfillment.
H3: Social media influencers enjoyable persona has a positive effect on their followers’ relatedness need fulfillment.
H4: The similarity between the social media influencer persona and their followers has a positive effect on the latter relatedness need fulfillment.
H5: Social Media Influencers informative content has a positive effect on their followers’ competence need fulfillment.
H6: Social Media Influencers expertise has a positive effect on their followers’ competence need fulfillment.
H7: The followers’ needs for “a) Ideality, b) Relatedness and c) Competence”, have a positive effect on their attachment to the social media influencers.
• H7a: The followers’ need for ideality has a positive effect on their attachment to the social media influencers.
• H7b: The followers’ need for relatedness has a positive effect on their attachment to the social media influencers.
• H7c: The followers’ need for competence has a positive effect on their attachment to the social media influencers.
H8: The attachment between the social media influencers and their followers has a positive effect on the parasocial relationship between them.
H9: Parasocial Relationship between the social media influencers and their followers has a positive effect on the latter’s urge to buy products endorsed by the former.
H10: The Urge to buy products endorsed by social media influencers has a positive effect on their followers’ impulsive buying behavior.
H11: Followers on social media with a parasocial relation with the influencers will have a higher urge to buy endorsed products by the social media influencers if they have possession envy.
H12: Followers on social media with a parasocial relation with the influencers will have a lower urge to buy endorsed products by the social media influencers if they have a possession envy.
5. Research Findings and Recommendations:
Hypothesis Accepted/Rejected
H1: Social media influencers inspiring persona has a positive effect on their followers’ ideality need fulfillment. Accepted
H2: Social media influencers visual aesthetic content has a positive effect on their followers’ ideality need fulfillment. Accepted
H3: Social media influencers enjoyable persona has a positive effect on their followers’ relatedness need fulfillment. Accepted
Hypothesis Accepted/Rejected
H4: The similarity between the social media influencer persona and their followers has a positive effect on the latter relatedness need fulfillment. Accepted
H5: Social Media Influencers informative content has a positive effect on their followers’ competence need fulfillment. Accepted
H6: Social Media Influencers expertise has a positive effect on their followers’ competence need fulfillment. Accepted
H7: The followers’ needs for “a) Ideality, b) Relatedness and c) Competence”, have a positive effect on their attachment to the social media influencers Accepted
H8: The attachment between the social media influencers and their followers has a positive effect on the parasocial relationship between them. Accepted
H9: Parasocial Relationship between the social media influencers and their followers has a positive effect on the latter’s urge to buy products endorsed by the former. Accepted
H8: The attachment between the social media influencers and their followers has a positive effect on the parasocial relationship between them. Accepted
H9: Parasocial Relationship between the social media influencers and their followers has a positive effect on the latter’s urge to buy products endorsed by the former. Accepted
H10: The Urge to buy products endorsed by social media influencers has a significant positive effect on their followers’ impulsive buying behavior. Accepted
Hypothesis Accepted/Rejected
H11: Followers on social media with a parasocial relation with the influencers will have a higher urge to buy endorsed products by the social media influencers if they have possession envy. Rejected
H12: Followers on social media with a parasocial relation with the influencers will have a lower urge to buy endorsed products by the social media influencers if they have a possession envy Rejected
Based on the findings of the study, it is shown that social media influencers who have an inspiring persona and post visual aesthetic content fulfill their followers’ need for ideality. Social media influencers whose persona is enjoyable and similar to their followers fulfill their need for relatedness. Besides, social media influencers who post informative content and are experienced in their field, fulfill their followers’ need for competence.
Furthermore, the study showed that followers whose needs for ideality, relatedness, and competence are fulfilled by the social media influencers are attached to them and have a parasocial relationship with them.
Additionally, due to this parasocial relationship, followers have the urge to buy the products endorsed by the social media influencers and they buy it impulsively.
However, unlike the previous literature, possession envy doesn’t have an impact on the relationship between parasocial relationship that followers have towards the social media influencers on their urge to buy the endorsed product by the influencers.
Accordingly, this study provides recommendations and practical implications to both brand managers and social media influencers to make use of the findings and effectively utilize the effect of the social media influencers as human brands who fulfill their followers’ needs for ideality, relatedness, and competence.
Besides, it also provides the brand managers with clear guidelines that they must follow to enhance the followers’ attachment and parasocial relationships with their followers which will create an urge to buy the endorsed products by the social media influencers and impulsively buy them.
Lastly, it provides social media influencers with tips that they need to follow to be able to create a parasocial relationship with their followers so that they can be more effective and get hired by the brand managers.