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How the attributes of content distributors influence the intentions of users to pay for content shared on social media

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Abstract

Social media companies such as Facebook, WeChat, and Weibo are trying to profit from paid content shared on social media. This paper studies how the attributes of content distributors influence the intentions of users to pay. An online 2 × 2 between-subject experiment was conducted among Weibo users. Two analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) and structural-equation modeling were employed to test the hypotheses. Subjects showed weaker intention to pay for content shared by a celebrity than that by a noncelebrity when distributors were not experts. Conversely, there was no significant difference when distributors were experts. When distributors were not celebrities, there was no significant difference between an expert and a nonexpert on the intention to pay. Subjects showed stronger intention to pay for content shared by an expert than that by a nonexpert when distributors were celebrities. Intention to pay was also significantly affected by attitudes toward the content distributor and prior attitudes.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71702064), the International Innovation Team of Philosophy and Social Science of Jilin University, and the China Scholarship Council. A part of research work was done at the University of Granada. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions that helped us to substantially improve the article. Some of their ideas and specific suggestions were included or adapted into this article. Yangchun Li is the corresponding author of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Wan Su & Huichuan Zhang

  2. School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China

    Yangchun Li

  3. School of Economics and Management, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China

    Tiandong Wang

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  1. Wan Su
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Correspondence to Yangchun Li.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Relevant studies on antecedents of payment/purchase intention toward paid content or services

Authors

Research

Paid content or services

Is the role of content distributor examined?

Antecedents of payment/purchase intention on which research focused

Kim et al. [1]

They studied social-networking-community (SNC) members’ decisions to buy digital items

Accessories for users’ digital avatars; digital decoration for users’ virtual rooms

No

1. Price utility

2. Functional quality

3. Aesthetics

4. Playfulness

5. Social self-image expression

6. Social-relationship support

Kim et al. [10]

They studied what motivates people to buy digital items in virtual-community (VC) websites

Digital items such as avatars and decorative objects

No

1. Online-presentation self-efficacy

2. VC involvement

3. Online self-presentation norms

4. Desire for online self-presentation

5. Gender

6. Age

7.VC tenure

Mäntymäki and Salo [11]

They studied why people spend real money on virtual goods and services

Virtual items for accessorizing the avatar, digital decoration, and collectibles

No

1. Perceived usefulness

2. Perceived enjoyment

3. Perceived network size

4. Social presence

5. Perceived ease of use

6. Self-efficacy

7. Availability

Lin et al. [80]

They studied the role of free mentality on the formation of willingness to pay for fee-based online content

Paid online music

No

1. Perceived benefit

2. Free mentality

3. Perceived sacrifice

4. Subjective norm

5. Attitude toward paying

6. Perceived behavioral control

7. Music websites

Wan et al. [12]

They studied the effects of social and technological factors on users’ intent to purchase virtual gifts to donate to content creators

Virtual gifts for live video streaming

No

1. Identification

2. Interaction

3. Information value

4. Competitiveness

5. Sociability

6. Personalization

7. Emotional attachment to content creator

8. Functional dependence on social media

Yu et al. [13]

They studied the effect of viewer engagement on purchasing gift items to a streamer in a live video streaming

Virtual gifts for live video streaming

No

1. Viewer engagement

Zhao et al. [23]

They studied which factors contribute to trust-building and can drive payment decision of questioners on social Q&A platforms

Paid answers

No

1. Reputation of knowledge contributors

2. Ability of knowledge contributors

3. Integrity of knowledge contributors

4. Benevolence of knowledge contributors

5. Price

Wang et al. [81]

They studied the influence of several factors on consumers’ intention to pay for online content or services

Paid online content or services

No

1. Convenience

2. Essentiality

3. Added value

4. Perceived service quality

5. Usage frequency

6. Perceived fairness

7. Security concerns

Kwong and Park [82]

They studied the factors of influencing college students’ intention to pay for digital music services

Paid digital music service

No

1. Perceived ease of use

2. Perceived usefulness

3. Perceived service quality

4. Attitude towards using digital music services

5. Subjective norms

6. Perceived behavioral control

Dutta [83]

They studied a holistic model to predict customers’ intent to pay for online content

Paid online content such as Internet access services and business services

No

1. Relative advantage offered by paid online content

2. Complexity of using paid online content

3. Compatibility with paid online content

4. Internet self-efficacy

5. Perceived web security

6. Attitudes toward using paid online content

7. Subjective norms

8. Perceived behavior control

Roettl et al. [77]

They studied the influence of factors on patients’ willingness to pay for online healthcare services offered by the general practitioner (GP)

Paid e-healthcare service

No

1. Gender

2. Age

3. Education

4. Income

5. Information-seeking personality

6. Social motive

7. Trust in the GP

8. Actual use of online communication with the GP

9. Perceived usefulness of the Internet for health-related information

10. Willingness to communicate online with the GP more often in the future

Sardanelli et al. [84]

They studied the factors that affect consumers’ intentions to pay for online movie-streaming services

Online movie-streaming services

No

1. Involvement

2. Subjective norms

3. Frequency of past behavior

4. Attitude toward the subscription of movie-streaming services

5. Moral judgement

6. Perceived risk

Ai et al. [34]

They studied how bandwagon cues of online paid content and the professional backgrounds of content providers influence trust and purchase intention on an online paid-content platform adding social elements (e.g., “likes”)

Online paid content such as online audio guides for books

No

1. Bandwagon cues

2. Source expertise of content provider

3. Trust toward content provider

Zhao et al. [85]

They studied the antecedents of askers’ pay intention in social Q&A platforms

Paid answers

No

1. Perceived cost

2. Perceived extrinsic benefit

3. Perceived intrinsic benefit

4. Positive reciprocity belief

5. Perceived value

6. Trust in answerers

7. Trust in platforms

Shi et al. [35]

They studied why users pay for paid content in social Q&A communities

Paid content such as live courses

No

1. Perceived quality of free content

2. Perceived credibility of content producers

3. Perceived likeability of content producers

4. Perceived quantity of participants

5. Social endorsement

6. Gender

7. Education

8. Vocation

9. Income

Authors of the present study

We studied how the attributes of content distributors influence the intentions of users to pay for content shared on social media

Paid content shared on social media platforms

Yes. The role of content distributors was examined in the present study

1. A content distributor’s fame

2. A content distributor’s expertise

3. Attitudes toward distributors

4. Prior attitude toward general commercial content on social media

5. Gender

6. Income

7. Age

Appendix 2: Scales

Attitude towards content distributor (adapted from [70]):

Please indicate your attitude towards the content distributor shown in the social post. The content distributor is:

  • 1: unpleasant–7: pleasant;

  • 1: unfavorable–7: favorable;

  • 1: bad–7: good.

Intention to pay for paid content (adapted from [71]):

Please indicate your intention to pay for the paid content. It is ____ that I pay for the paid content.

  • 1: unlikely–7: likely;

  • 1: improbable–7: probable;

  • 1: uncertain–7: certain.

Prior attitude toward general commercial content on social media (adapted from [70]):

Please indicate your attitude toward general commercial content on Weibo (e.g., Weibo post containing purchase information or a link to an ecommerce site). General commercial content on Weibo is:

  • 1: unpleasant–7: pleasant;

  • 1: unfavorable–7: favorable;

  • 1: bad–7: good.

Fame:

To which extent would you agree that the distributor is a celebrity?

  • 1: strongly disagree–7: strongly agree.

Expertise (adapted from [53]):

Regarding the content distributor’s expertise in the paid-content category, he is:

  • 1: inexperienced–7: experienced;

  • 1: not an expert–7: an expert;

  • 1: unknowledgeable–7: knowledgeable;

  • 1: unqualified to offer purchase advice–7: qualified to offer purchase advice;

  • 1: unskilled–7: skilled.

Appendix 3: How our paper is different from previous studies

Previous studies

Context

Difference

Amos et al. [46] studied the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements. They indicated that familiarity was positively related to the effectiveness of an endorsement [46]

Advertising

Our research target was content distributors, including celebrities and noncelebrities. Distributors without fame were also examined in our paper. Moreover, we classified that, when a person is known to others, they are deemed familiar to them, too. Therefore, familiarity is usually a surrogate of fame [42]. Surprisingly, in the present study, no significant effect of fame on users’ payment intention was found when content distributors were experts. Instead, fame even hampered users’ payment intention when distributors were not experts

Stallen et al. [45] explained why endorsers with fame are usually more persuasive than noncelebrity endorsers are. The effectiveness of a celebrity endorsement is derived from the transfer of a positive affect or attitude from the celebrity to the product [45]

Product endorsement (shoes)

Fame can perhaps bolster the endorsement effectiveness of product endorsement in many cases. However, in a paid-content context, we found that fame negatively affected the users’ payment intention when endorsers did not display adequate expertise. Furthermore, fame seemed to be less relevant to payment intention when expert endorsers were present. Significant influences of attitudes towards the content distributor on payment intention were found irrespective of whether endorsers were celebrities. Hence, the present study extended the theoretical boundary established in the prior literature. In a paid-content context, the effectiveness of an endorsement is derived from the transfer of a positive attitude from content endorser to endorsed content, regardless of whether the endorser is famous

Dou et al. [28] studied how the source of a message (Internet users) influences consumers’ product assessment. A significant effect of expertise on product attitude was found; however, no significant effect of expertise on purchase intention was found [28]

Online product reviews

The authors stressed the endorser’s role of Internet users in influencing consumers’ product assessment and purchase intention [28]. Kindle 2, a wireless reader device, was selected as the product in their experiment. The authors also mentioned that the product type could affect a person’s way of information processing [28]. Paid content, an intangible digital good, is very different from tangible products such as reader devices. It is hard for social media users to assess the quality of a digital good before they purchase it due to its virtual nature [23]. In contrast to tangible products, users have to rely more on peripheral cues, such as the content distributors’ expertise. Furthermore, in contrast to the reference paper, a significant effect of expertise on payment intention was found in our study when distributors were famous

Mun et al. [54] examined the effect of a consultant’s expertise (professional vs. nonprofessional) on the viewers’ trust in the consultant. The presence of expertise can increase the likelihood that viewers trust the information [54]

Web-based information seeking

Social media are platforms for free information seeking and gathering. However, our research interest lay in paid content. Therefore, previous knowledge that expertise was associated with more positive outcomes could become invalid when users run into paid information or content shared on social media. When it comes to making a payment, user interest in content could be largely weakened when we consider the fact that massive social media content is free. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the effect of expertise on payment intention. Moreover, the reference article focused on information providers. This is a broader concept that can entail content producers and content distributors. Our research interest lay in massive content distributors on social media and focused on how social media should use this force to grow their paid-content business. Therefore, we studied a more precise concept and considered the characteristics of social media (e.g., a distributor’s profile page could contain information related to this person’s expertise). We found that expertise was not always effective in eliciting a more positive outcome from users when endorsers were not famous

Parmar and Patel [47] compared the product-endorsement effect of celebrities and noncelebrities, and found that each type of endorser had their own advantage in product endorsement

Endorsement of tangible products

The two authors indicated that the effects of fame and expertise varied in different product categories [47]. However, all products in their study were tangible. Paid content on social media is a digital good that is different from tangible products. Unlike tangible products, paid content does not have a physical appearance through which buyers assess its quality

Bergkvist et al. [86] studied a new model of how celebrity endorsements work and found insignificant effects of expertise on attitudes toward brand endorsement

Brand endorsement

In our research context, paid content is quite different from brand endorsement. We were able to show that expertise increased users’ payment intention and attitude toward an endorser when the endorser was a celebrity

Gong and Li [48] studied celebrity endorsements on a microblog (Weibo) and found an insignificant effect of perceived expertise of celebrity on the users’ intention to purchase the endorsed product

Celebrity endorsement on a microblog

The authors studied celebrity endorsements on a microblog platform (Weibo) similar to our study. In contrast to their study, focusing on tangible products, we studied intangible digital goods. Moreover, in our study, a significant effect of expertise on users’ payment intention was found

Zhao et al. [23] studied Q&A platforms and the factors determining platform users’ payment decisions. They found that knowledge contributors’ reputation was positively related to users’ payment decision [23]

Paid Q&A

Q&A platforms cannot be equated to social media platforms, as they are not designed for online social interactions. Therefore, it is questionable whether conclusions established in the context of paid answers are still applicable in our social media context. Moreover, albeit reputation is a concept close to fame, a significant negative effect of fame on payment intention was found when distributors were nonexperts. There was no significant effect of fame on payment intention when distributors were experts

Ahmad et al. [49] studied the endorsement effect of young celebrities on young consumers. Insignificant influence of expertise on endorsement effectiveness was found [49]

Social media advertising

The authors focused on how young consumers were affected by celebrity endorsements. In our study, we expanded our scope to a larger group of consumers with a broader age range (see Table 1). The authors also indicated that, with regard to young consumers, celebrities’ expertise did not seem to be influential to them [49]. However, we found that celebrity expertise was positively related to users’ payment intentions and attitudes

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Su, W., Li, Y., Zhang, H. et al. How the attributes of content distributors influence the intentions of users to pay for content shared on social media. Electron Commer Res 23, 407–441 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-021-09482-z

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