Consumers’ perceived credibility of beauty key opinion leaders and online engagement with beauty brands on Twitter

Abstract

This research aims to explore how consumers perceived the credibility of beauty key opinion leaders, how consumers engage with beauty brands reviewed by these beauty key opinion leaders and whether the two variables correlate with one another. The research was conducted on 200 respondents with the age range of 18 to 37 who were followers of one of the two beauty key opinion leader representatives on Twitter. Through the use of online questionnaire, the results indicated that overall, the perceived credibility of beauty key opinion leaders was positive (M = 4.08) with expertise receiving the highest average score of 4.15. As for online engagement, respondents generally engaged with beauty brands on Twitter (M = 3.90), mostly through cognitive engagement as it gained the highest mean score of 4.00. With the application of Pearson Correlation test, the result depicted that the perceived credibility of beauty key opinion leaders and the online engagement with beauty brands were correlated and the relationship was positive (r = .743). The implications of the research extends the existed body of knowledge in regards to influencer marketing on Twitter as well as influencers’ source credibility and consumers’ online engagement.