Influencing Factors Of Vlog Marketing From The Perspective Of Para-social Interaction

2018 has been called China’s "Year of Vlog Development".As a burgeoning video format,more and more people are joining the creative team of Vlog,including traditional celebrities,Internet celebrities and ordinary users.Vloggers who record life events or share opinions on camera attract a lot of traffic.This not only provides a new channel for brand marketing promotion,but also provides a new idea for the study of social interaction on social media.Based on the Para-social interaction theory,this paper constructs an influencing factors model about Vlog marketing.The main purpose of this paper is to verify the effect of para-social interaction on brand marketing in the context of Vlog,and find out the factors that affect the para-social interaction,including the blogger attribute factor and the audience motivation factor.Therefore,some references are provided to help brands choose partners and find target consumers.A total of 313 valid questionnaires were collected through online and offline channels,and SPSS was used for data analysis and model hypothesis testing.The following conclusions can be drawn from this study:1)Vloggers’ social attractiveness and homophily of attitude have a significant impact on para-social interaction between Vloggers and viewers.The higher social attractiveness and homophily of attitude,the higher para-social interaction between bloggers and viewers.2)Viewers’ entertainment motivation and information motivation have a significant impact on their para-social interaction with the vloggers.The higher entertainment motivation and information motivation,the higher para-social interaction.3)Physical attractiveness,social attractive and informational motivation can directly influence purchase intention to related products in Vlog,but the influence of physical attractiveness is lower;4)The para-social interaction plays a mediating role in the influence of social attraction/information motivation on purchase intention,and the para-social interaction and information credibility together play a multi-step mediating role in the influence of social attraction/information motivation on purchase intention.The higher social attractiveness and information motivation,the stronger para-social interaction and information credibility,thus further enhancing the purchase intention.