Research on the impact of influencers on audiences' intention to follow.

Influencer marketing has received attention recently from academics and business practitioners. However, very few studies have specifically addressed the issue of enlarging an influencer's audience. The quantity of followers an influencer has an impact on the effectiveness of influencer marketing. This article, which focuses on Chinese fashion influencers, investigates what draws audiences to influencers in an attempt to solve the problem. This study identified expertise and image consistency as two key characteristics of influencers through in-depth interviews. Then, the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model is employed to examine how audiences are impacted by influencers' characteristics. After analyzing 276 questionnaires, we find that the two highlighted characteristics are positively related to audiences' willingness to follow. Additionally, we discover that emotion and perceived value act as mediators in this relationship.