Influencers’ Persuasive Power and Parasocial Relationships in Digital Consumption: Insights from Instagram and TikTok

Social media influencers (SMIs) are becoming increasingly powerful in shaping customers’ perceptions and behaviors regarding the products they purchase and the brands within digital marketing environments. This research proposes to assess the extent to which social media platforms, particularly Instagram and TikTok, affect SMIs’ capacity to persuade their followers concerning brand credibility and purchase intention. Using an online survey of 701 active users of both platforms in Palestine, the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) through SmartPLS 4.0 for the simultaneous evaluation of both the measurement models and the structural models. The research findings indicate that follower involvement, interactivity, and emotional attachment positively influence the persuasive outcomes through the creation of parasocial relationships (PSRs) between followers and SMIs, and that these influences are different for each platform. Results show that Instagram had a larger overall influence compared to TikTok, whereas there were no differences between platforms regarding how PSRs shape follower perceptions of brand credibility and emotional attachment to SMIs; both of these perceptions are strongly linked to PSRs. Therefore, these findings underscore the importance of platform-specific engagement mechanisms in shaping PSRs and offer theoretical and practical implications for influencer marketing strategies. The findings further suggest that platform affordances may condition not only overall engagement levels but also the relative strength of persuasion mechanisms underlying PSRs and their behavioral consequences. By situating the analysis within a non-Western digital market, this study provides context-specific insights and highlights avenues for future research in comparable digital consumption environments.