A personality profile approach to explaining susceptibility to health-related social media influencer videos

Despite the vast discussion about the role of image or video-based social media content on health-related attitudes and behaviours, little evidence explores how or why such messages may be persuasive in this regard. That is, to what extent does persuasiveness of content influence receiver susceptibility to the message? Further, how do receiver characteristics interact with this? We used Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to cluster participants (N = 142) based on personality traits, to explore any differential susceptibilities to a video-based health message on TikTok. We measured susceptibility in respect of perceived message persuasiveness and reported behavioural intentions. We found three personality profiles: malevolent (n = 34), socially-apt (n = 57), and fearful (n = 51). “Socially-apt” profiles were more likely to be persuaded by principles of consensus and liking than those with fearful profiles. Persuasive principles of consensus and commitment were positive predictors, and scarcity was a negative predictor of behavioural intention to follow health-related advice from the video. Our findings suggest that susceptibility to influencer messages does not operate universally, and instead user personality profile type accounts for some variability here. There are implications for personalised marketing and market segmentation tactics based on psychographic assessments of social media users.