How to Influence Followers in Social Media: Exploring the Consequences of Opinion Leaders' Living a Calling and P-J Fit on Followers' Attitude and Behavior

Abstract

This study explored the consequential process of opinion leaders' calling under online social media context. We hypothesized two variables, person-job fit and the credibility of opinion leaders mediate the relationship between opinion leaders' calling and the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) toward them. Furthermore, we argued that opinion leaders' vanity moderated the relations between the credibility of opinion leaders and the eWOM toward opinion leaders. This research target the "YouTuber creator" in Taiwan region as the opinion leaders and their fans as the followers, 31 opinion leaders' questionnaires, 316 followers' questionnaires are collected. The results show that: 1, there is a significant positive relation between living a calling and P-J fit. 2, there is a significant positive relation between P-J fit and the credibility of the opinion leaders. 3, there is a significant positive relation between credibility the opinion leaders and eWOM. 4, vanity significantly moderates the relation between source credibility and the eWOM.