The Role of Parasocial Interaction on Consumers’ Intention to Purchase Beauty Products

El papel de la interacción parasocial en la intención de los consumidores de comprar productos de belleza

Authors:
  • Purnamaningsih Purnamaningsih
  • Nosica Rizkalla
DOI10.22430/24223182.1617 Table Figure

Received: March 08, 2020
Accepted: May 05, 2020

 

Abstract

Beauty products have become one of the basic necessities of Indonesian women, which has led them to increasingly seek information about such products through a variety of sites, such as YouTube—one of the most cited platforms to find cosmetic reviews. This has encouraged the emergence of beauty vloggers who are now one of the preferred sources of information about beauty products. However, the relationship between subscribers and such influencers has failed to optimally persuade subscribers to purchase the beauty products reviewed by beauty vloggers. Therefore, in this paper, we analyze the effect of parasocial interaction (PSI) on viewers’ purchase intention and its implications. For this purpose, we propose four hypotheses. Moreover, we analyze the data using structural equation modeling. The results of this study reveal that physical attractiveness and attitude homophily have an impact on PSI and can affect viewers’ intention to purchase beauty products in the long term. Social attractiveness, however, is not proven to influence PSI.

Keywords: Parasocial interaction, purchase intention, social media, social attractiveness, physical attractiveness.
JEL Classification: L66, L82, M31, M37.

Resumen

Los productos de belleza se han convertido en uno de los productos de primera necesidad de las mujeres en Indonesia, lo que ha generado un aumento en la búsqueda de información sobre dichos productos a través de una variedad de medios tales como YouTube—uno de los más visitados a la hora de buscar reseñas sobre cosméticos. Esto ha fomentado la aparición de vloggers de belleza quienes son, hoy en día, una de las fuentes preferidas para buscar referencias sobre productos de belleza. Sin embargo, la relación entre suscriptores y dichos gurús no ha logrado persuadir de manera óptima a los suscriptores para que compren los productos de belleza que han sido reseñados. Por lo tanto, el propósito de esta investigación es analizar cómo influye la interacción parasocial en la intención de compra de los suscriptores y cuáles son sus implicaciones. Para esto, proponemos cuatro hipótesis. Además, los datos se analizan mediante modelos de ecuaciones estructurales. Los resultados de esta investigación indican que el atractivo físico y la homofilia tienen un impacto en la interacción parasocial y, a largo plazo, inciden en la intención de compra. Sin embargo, no se reconoce que el atractivo social influya en la interacción parasocial.

Palabras clave: interacción parasocial, intención de compra, redes sociales, atractivo social, atractivo físico.
Clasificación JEL: L66, L82, M31, M37.

1. INTRODUCTION

The cosmetic industry continues to grow every year in Indonesia, which is why it has become a potential market in said country; in particular, it increased by 20 % in 2018 (Investor Daily, 2018). For this reason, this industry was included as one of the core sectors in the Master Plan of National Industrial Development (RIPIN) 2015–2035 (Bella, 2018). Its market growth is mainly driven by the increasing young and millennial population, especially women for whom cosmetics are one of their basic necessities.

Beauty products have become part of the lifestyle of Indonesian women, who spend a considerable amount of time looking for information about those products that suit them most. They, for instance, seek advice from beauty experts, ask friends for recommendations, watch beauty product ads or reviews on social media platforms (e.g., Instagram and YouTube). According to the ZAP Beauty Index (2018), 73.2 % of women in Indonesia prefer to seek information about cosmetics online; and 41.6 % cited YouTube as their primary source.

YouTube is nowadays one of the preferred social media platforms because contents are presented in video format, which is more attractive than images (Shariffadeen & Manaf, 2017). Moreover, this platform has some features to facilitate subscribers’ interactions with contents, such as likes, shares, and comments. This is why this study focuses only on YouTube, a service that allows users to create and upload videos that can be shared and watched by many people (Freeman & Chapman, 2007; Hu et al., 2019).

YouTube users currently compete to create compelling contents, such as vlog entries. Through these engaging contents, vloggers gain more viewers and subscribers, which, in turn, increases their AdSense revenue. Hence, some of them attempt to increase traffic to their YouTube channel by making reviews about products they have used and match their subscribers’ needs (Liu et al., 2019). An increased number of subscribers can, thus, turn vloggers into celebrities, as they become a reference when looking for information about any topic considered compatible with the subscribers’ lifestyle (Rihl & Wegener, 2019).

Data from Statista (2019) reveal that 88 billion beauty-related videos had been uploaded to YouTube until 2018. This growing number of beauty product reviews on YouTube has encouraged the emergence of several beauty vloggers in Indonesia. Beauty vloggers are YouTube users who make and publish beauty- or cosmetic-related videos on their YouTube channel but do not necessarily work with brands (Pixability, 2014). In Indonesia, women consider them to be their primary source of information about beauty products.

According to Hsu et al., (2013), subscribers’ trust in beauty vloggers may influence their intention to purchase reviewed products. However, building trust is not a natural process. Although there are several beauty product reviews on YouTube, the ZAP Beauty Index (2018) showed that only about 12.5 % of consumers’ decision to buy beauty products was driven by watching their reviews. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze how the relationship between beauty vloggers and subscribers may help to increase subscribers’ intention to purchase reviewed products.

Several works have studied celebrity product placement on traditional media such as television (Deller, 2016), as well as the effect of celebrity endorsements on brands (Spry et al., 2011; Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017) on traditional media. Nevertheless, there are few studies into celebrities who use digital media to promote products, such as beauty vloggers. As mentioned by De Veirman et al., (2017), vloggers with a considerable number of subscribers are the preferred alternative to convey information about beauty products compared to advertisements created by companies on purpose (De Vries et al., 2012) even though the contents presented by such influencers are sometimes more modest than those in companies’ ads. Brand owners must then understand this beauty vlogger phenomenon in order to build partnerships with appropriate beauty vloggers. In addition, beauty vloggers should identify what needs to be improved to deliver potent beauty product reviews or influence subscribers (Sokolova & Kefi, 2020; Sakib et al., 2020).

As mentioned above, although there are various beauty product reviews on YouTube, only around 12.5 % ​​of Indonesian women buy beauty products, driven by such reviews (ZAP, 2018). This suggests that these latter do not significantly influence consumers’ purchase intention. Consequently, this study aims to investigate how the relationship between subscribers and beauty vloggers can help increase consumers’ willingness to buy beauty products after watching product reviews. Moreover, this could help brand owners to build appropriate partnerships with beauty vloggers to increase consumers’ purchase intention.

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Parasocial Interaction (PSI)

Parasocial interaction can be described as the relationship between personas (e.g., actors, presenters, or celebrities) in the mass media and their audience. This intertwined relationship influences the audience's perception of the persona’s behavior (Zheng et al., 2020). There are several definitions of parasocial interaction. In the marketing sector, Labrecque (2014) defines PSI as an imaginary reciprocal relationship between an audience and a particular persona. Such relationship is developed if the audience continues to follow the persona’s activities on the media. According to Horton and Wohl (1956), parasocial relationship and parasocial interaction have the same meaning, which is why we adapted some supporting theories of PSI based on the concept of parasocial relationships in this study.

PSI provides a relevant framework to understand the one-sided relationship between celebrities and their followers, in which one party (namely the celebrity or influencer) is not aware of it (Kim & Song, 2016). An example of this could be a woman who admires a celebrity (whom she always watches on television) and tries to look like her in order to become part of her community. These relationships in traditional media settings are in line with those in digital media sites between social media users and influencers: for instance, a subscriber’s admiration towards a social media influencer makes her build a close relationship between both. This is supported by the findings of Lee and Watkins (2016), who point out that PSI provides a conceptual framework to describe the relationship between celebrities and their followers on online media platforms, such as that between vloggers and social media users. This relationship is developed when users decide to subscribe to the YouTube channel of vloggers, follow everything they share on social media, and interact with them through comments. Vloggers who have a good relationship with their subscribers will find it easier to persuade them to follow their vlogs.

Attractiveness

Everyone processes information differently depending on their own characteristics. In this regard, the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) theory suggests that individuals’ motivation and abilities influence the way they understand information, which will ultimately affect their attitude towards the information received. Incoming information can be processed through either the central route or the peripheral route (Shimp & Andrews, 2017). When it is processed via cognitive responses to the primary message, individuals are using the central route, while when it is processed only by focusing on supporting elements (e.g., pictures or image of the persona) but not on the primary message, individuals are employing the peripheral route.

Message recipients who prefer peripheral cues process information based on supporting attributes that act as the source of attraction. One of those supporting attributes is source attractiveness. It indicates that the image of a persona (e.g., an actor, presenter, or celebrity) can be the source of attraction for the audience to understand the message being delivered. Thus, actors or celebrities who regularly appear in the media often have an attractive appearance that stirs up feelings of admiration in the audience or a desire to look similar to them. In addition, such attribute encourages the formation of an imaginary relationship between personas and their audience. According to Rubin and McHugh (1987), the development of parasocial interaction relationships is influenced by the perceived attractiveness of performers.

Such constructed attractiveness is also a factor considered by vloggers when creating product review contents on YouTube. They pay great attention to their physical appearance and attitude, which will be visible on their YouTube channel, as this is expected to become a source of attraction for their viewers to further watch the video of the product that is being reviewed (Rosaen et al., 2019). Consequently, the greater the appeal of a persona, the higher the chance that such persona and his or her viewers will interact and the greater his or her ability to influence them.

McCroskey and McCain (1974) divide attraction into three categories: task attractiveness, physical attractiveness, and social attractiveness. Physical attractiveness refers to the physical appearance of a persona; for example, beauty vloggers with attractive facial features or an attractive physical appearance. Social attractiveness can be described as a persona’s personality that makes him or her likable. A beauty vloggers’ positive and pleasant personality can make their subscribers to like them and to spend more time watching every content they upload on their YouTube channel. Task attractiveness is the ability of individuals to reflect the desired personality. According to Klimmt et al., (2006), the type of attraction that favors parasocial interaction relationships varies depending on the media used. For instance, as mentioned by Lee and Watkins (2016), physical attractiveness and social attractiveness have a higher influence on the development of parasocial interaction relationships in online media sites.

Homophily

Aral and Walker (2014) state that attitude homophily refers to individuals’ tendency to bond and interact with other individuals who are similar to them in terms of education, social status, among other characteristics. When people feel that they share some similarities with others, such as same desires and interests in a particular field, they will more likely interact with them. For example, if a subscriber feels that she has things in common with beauty vloggers in terms of keeping a good physical appearance or in choosing the right beauty products, this will encourage her to want to watch more of their beauty product reviews and interact with them through comments on their YouTube channel. In this same vein, McCroskey et al., (1975) points out that homophily is the antecedent to PSI because such similarity between both parties boosts the development of the imaginary relationship. This idea is supported by Lee and Watkins (2016), who report that homophily is a factor that influences PSI in social media.

Hypotheses and research model

Like television performers, beauty vloggers are also required to show an attractive appearance while making beauty product reviews because it will persuade more subscribers to watch such contents. Hence, physical appearance becomes a primary matter for beauty vloggers, since an attractive appearance will make their subscribers be more interested in watching and paying attention to what they are explaining. As a result, subscribers will feel as if they had a connection with them and consider them as friends (Lee & Watkins, 2016). This will, in turn, encourage them to follow everything beauty vloggers share. This idea is in line with the findings of Schmid and Klimmt (2011), who affirm that physical attractiveness influences PSI: beauty vloggers’ appeal becomes a means for the development of a relationship between beauty vloggers and subscribers even though this is only a one-sided relationship driven by the subscribers’ admiration towards the physical appearance of beauty vloggers.

H1: Physical attractiveness has a positive influence on parasocial interactions.

Social media users prefer to follow celebrities or actors whom they consider are compatible with them. An example of this is a subscriber who follows a beauty vlogger because she feels that keeping a good physical appearance is something they have in common. The fact that subscribers and beauty vloggers have similar hobbies, lifestyles, preferences, or social status (Eyal & Rubin, 2003) will encourage interaction between them. The more the similarities between them in terms of keeping a good physical appearance or in choosing the right beauty product, the higher the likelihood that they will interact with each other. In this regard, Hoffner and Buchanan (2005) state that homophily may describe subscribers’ identification with a persona due to their similar personality traits. Such a relationship may, indeed, reduce uncertainty and provide positive experiences between both parties. Therefore, homophily has an impact on PSI (Schmid & Klimmt, 2011; Sokolova & Kefi, 2020).

H2: Attitude homophily has a positive influence on parasocial interactions.

Beauty vloggers are expected to have a personality or attitude that is acceptable to many people, especially their subscribers, in order to increase viewers' fondness towards them (Sokolova & Kefi, 2020). Beauty vloggers may, thus, turn into a friend or partner for subscribers to obtain information about beauty products. This would certainly boost the development of a relationship between subscribers and beauty vloggers although the latter do not experience such connection directly. According to Schmid and Klimmt (2011) and Lee and Watkins (2016), social attraction is the main factor that affects PSI.

H3: Social attractiveness has a positive influence on parasocial interactions.

Kim and Song (2016) report that subscribers are likely to build a closer relationship with beauty vloggers on social media if they are continuously following their product reviews. They would find in beauty vloggers a reliable source of information related to beauty and cosmetics. Therefore, a good connection between both parties—based on subscribers’ trust in the contents provided by beauty vloggers—is essential, as it would encourage subscribers to purchase the beauty products reviewed by beauty vloggers (Kim et al., 2015). In this respect, Hwang and Zhang (2018) and Sokolova and Kefi (2020) point out that parasocial interaction is a factor that positively influences purchase intention.

H4: Parasocial interaction has a positive influence on purchase intention.

According to the hypotheses mentioned above, we developed a research model (shown in Figure 1) based on that proposed by Sokolova and Kefi (2020) in order to investigate the effect of PSI on consumers’ intention to purchase beauty products.

Figure 1. Research model
Figura 1. Modelo de investigación
Source: Taken from the study by Sokolova and Kefi (2020).
3. METHOD

Sample

We collected data through a self-administered questionnaire and had a total sample of 151 respondents. To obtain more in-depth results, we conducted an initial screening using several criteria and selected homogeneous respondents, namely women who care about physical appearance and use beauty products in their everyday life. In addition, such selected respondents are subscribed to the YouTube channel of a beauty vlogger and have watched her beauty product reviews and interacted through comments but have never used the beauty reviewed products being.

We employed judgmental sampling, which is a nonprobability sampling technique, because respondents were chosen based on in-depth criteria, it was not possible to use a sample frame in this study.

Measurement indicators

Our model includes five constructs: physical attractiveness, attitude homophily, social attractiveness, parasocial interaction, and purchase intention. To explain each construct in this research, we relied on several previous studies to develop all the questions. In addition, we built each measurement indicator based on several theories, as described in Table 1.

Table 1. Measurement indicators
Tabla 1. Indicadores de medición
Source: Created by the authors.

Such five constructs were measured on a 1–7 Likert scale, where 1 indicates “strongly disagree”; and 7, “strongly agree”. Questions were presented in the form of an online self-administered questionnaire in order to reach a wider range of beauty enthusiasts in Jakarta and its neighboring cities.

Data analysis

We applied a confirmatory factor analysis to test the validity of the measurement indicators and calculated their Composite Reliability (CR) and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) to assess their reliability. We performed validity and reliability tests as the first stage of data analysis using structural equation modeling and conducted the structural model once the first-stage test had been passed (Hair et al., 2009).

4. RESULTS

The entire population of this study was female. The descriptive analysis (presented on Table 2) shows that the majority of respondents are between 17 and 23 years (64 %), live outside Jakarta (81 %), and have a budget to purchase beauty products between IDR 151,000 and IDR 350,000 (52 %). In addition, most of them prefer to watch reviews about facial (30 %) and skincare (30 %) products and are subscribed to Rachel Goddard’s YouTube channel (40 %).

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of respondents
Table 2. Estadísticas descriptivas de las encuestas
Source: Created by the authors.

According to Table 3, every indicator has a t-value above 1.96, with a factor loading above 0.5, which means that they are all considered valid to measure each variable. In addition, their CR and AVE are above 0.7 and above 0.5, respectively, which indicates that they are reliable (Hair et al., 2009).

Table 3. Validity and reliability of measurement indicators
Tabla 3. Validez y confiabilidad de los indicadores de medición
Source: Created by the authors.

Hypothesis testing and model fit

The obtained overall Goodness-Of-Fit (GOF) indices of the structural equation model (reported in Table 4) suggest that it is an acceptable fit to the data, with a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of 0.069 (which should be below 0.8), a Parsimony Normed Fit Index (PNFI) of 0.81, and a Comparative Fit Index (CFI) of 0.97 (Hair et al., 2009).

Table 4. Goodness-of-fit indices of the overall model
Tabla 4. Índices de bondad de ajuste del modelo general
Source: Created by the authors.

Figure 2 and Table 5 show the results of the one-tailed hypothesis test conducted in this study. According to such results, the t-value of H1 (2.17) and H2 (4.68) is above 1.645, which means that physical attractiveness (H1) and attitude homophily (H2) have an influence on PSI. Likewise, H4 has a t-value (5.0) that is above 1.645, indicating that PSI affects purchase intention. H3, however, has a t-value of only 1.26 (which is below 1.645); hence, it is proven that social attractiveness does not have an impact on PSI in this research.

Figure 2. Output structural model
Figura 2. Modelo estructural de salida
Source: Created by the authors.
Table 5. Hypothesis testing
Tabla 5. Prueba de hipótesis
Source: Created by the authors.
5. DISCUSSION

The results of this study reveal that PSI influences subscribers’ intention to purchase products that have been reviewed by beauty vloggers on YouTube. Our conclusions are in line with those reported by Hwang and Zhang (2018) and Sokolova and Kefi (2020), who indicate that, in this digital era, the relationship between beauty vloggers and subscribers may impact subscribers’ behavior even though such relationship is an imaginary one-sided relationship that subscribers experience with beauty vloggers.

Such findings also suggest that, in order for subscribers to feel a bond with beauty vloggers, these latter must regularly upload, on their YouTube channel, new contents concerning various stories or experiences (Horton and Wohl, 1956) related to beauty products. This will make subscribers feel like they need to keep watching their entire contents, which, in turn, creates more intimacy between them and beauty vloggers. A relationship will, therefore, be developed from such intimacy, which may influence subscribers’ perception of the reviewed products, thus encouraging them to purchase such products.

Moreover, we have proven that physical attractiveness has an influence on PSI, as was also reported by Lee and Watkins (2016) and Schmid and Klimmt (2011). Beauty products are considered successful in providing benefits when consumers feel more beautiful after using them. Therefore, attractiveness becomes an essential and motivating factor when reviewing the benefits of or experience in using a certain beauty product. Beauty vloggers must then have an attractive physical appearance to promote the product being reviewed, as this will increase subscribers’ trust in the fact that such product actually improves their physical appearance. For instance, beauty vloggers with a beautiful and attractive face and makeup skills can build a better relationship with their subscribers. An attractive physical appearance will make subscribers to want to spend more time watching each beauty product content and review. This constant interaction will, thus, lead to the development of a closer relationship between subscribers and beauty vloggers.

Furthermore, beauty vloggers, who become subscribers’ role model, may motivate them to look beautiful in every uploaded content. Algoe and Haidt (2009) point out that differences can also be a source of attraction, as they generate positive responses. When beauty vloggers have an appearance different from that of subscribers, these latter will likely consider them more attractive. For example, a beauty vlogger with an exotic appearance may cause her subscribers to watch each of her uploaded contents, which will, in turn, speed up the development of a relationship between both parties.

Additionally, we found that social attractiveness has no influence on PSI, which contradicts the findings of Schmid and Klimmt (2011) but supports those of Rihl and Wegener (2019). According to our results, beauty vloggers’ personality does not affect the interaction that occurs between them and subscribers because, on every uploaded content, they are less likely to build a positive emotional bond with their subscribers, especially in terms of personality. Hence, subscribers do not feel empathy towards beauty vloggers’ personality; they focus on their physical appearance and not on their character.

We also found that attitude homophily has an impact on PSI, which is in line with the findings of Sokolova and Kefi (2020). The relationship between beauty vloggers and subscribers is developed if both parties have things in common, for instance, in terms of keeping a good appearance and choosing the right beauty products. The more the similarities between them, the higher the probability for them to interact and communicate with each other or understand the messages conveyed by beauty vloggers through the contents uploaded on their YouTube channel. In this regard, McCroskey & McCain (1974) state that, from various information sources, individuals will select the one that is similar to them.

Theoretical contribution

Our study adds to the literature on PSI on social media (especially YouTube) and in the context of beauty products. Several theories have widely discussed PSI on traditional media, which explains an audience’s admiration towards an artist or persona they watch on films or television (Schmid and Klimmt, 2011). Nevertheless, in this digital era, this situation is different because using social media has become a topmost priority for interacting with others. Thus, this research provides a more in-depth description of the factors that influence PSI on social media sites (especially YouTube) and how this latter affects consumers’ intention to purchase beauty products.

This work is in line with previous research on PSI (Horton and Wohl, 1956; Hoffner, 1996); however, the difference is that it focuses on social media. Our findings suggest that, in the context of beauty products on social media, PSI affects viewers’ purchase intention. In addition, this study supports the results reported by Lee and Watkins (2016), who found that attitude homophily and physical attractiveness are significant factors influencing the development of parasocial relationships. This is because women will trust beauty vloggers who have their same values and the desired physical appearance, primarily in terms of beauty. The closer the relationship between both parties, the greater the viewers’ intention to purchase the products reviewed by beauty vloggers.

Managerial implication for the beauty product industry

This study can be useful for the cosmetic industry because brands will no longer be separated from their competition. Therefore, in order to be competitive, they must develop and implement different strategies, such as using social media platforms. In this digital era, many beauty product brands in Indonesia promote their products through social media sites, mainly those that can reach a wider target market. Nevertheless, this has become a challenge because of the increasing number of brands using such tools. Thus, this work is expected to provide insights to beauty product brands into how they can make the most of social media platforms (especially YouTube) by working together with the right beauty vloggers.

According to our findings, when watching beauty product reviews, viewers will find beauty vloggers with an attractive physical look to be likeable. This attractive physical appearance will, in turn, make them feel confident that the reviewed product actually provides benefits to those who use it. Physical attractiveness does not necessarily mean having a beautiful face; it can also be represented by an attractive appearance when making a review. In addition, a healthy skin and makeup skills can be signs of attractiveness in beauty vloggers. Therefore, when it comes to choosing beauty vloggers to promote their beauty products, brands must pay attention to their physical appearance, as this aspect will make subscribers to want to watch their product reviews for a longer time and more frequently. Hence, such trust between both parties will grow and favor the development of relationships. The closer the relationship, the higher the subscribers’ interest in purchasing the product that has been reviewed by beauty vloggers.

Brands must also consider beauty vloggers’ compatibility with their target market in terms of values ​​and lifestyle because previous works, as well as this study, have reported that attitude homophily influences PSI. For instance, our results indicate that if beauty vloggers’ values ​​and lifestyle are compatible with those of their viewers, this will encourage them to watch every product review they upload on YouTube. Most respondents in this study were young female adults who naturally have specific values and lifestyles. Therefore, brands targeting this same market should choose a beauty vlogger who has their same values so that every product review will be more readily accepted and encourage viewers to purchase such products in the long term.

Additionally, this research could help beauty vloggers to better build valuable relationships with their viewers, as this will increase their intention to watch their beauty product reviews and, thus, their willingness to purchase such products. For this purpose, they should always pay attention to their physical appearance when making product reviews and build a good relationship with viewers based on these latter’s values ​​or lifestyles in terms of beauty products.

6. CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study reveal that PSI in the form of an imaginary relationship between beauty vloggers and their subscribers is influenced by physical attractiveness and attitude homophily. A long-term relationship may, in turn, affect consumers’ purchase intention. In this research, social attractiveness was not proven to have an effect on PSI because beauty vloggers do not build emotional bonds with subscribers when making product reviews.

Based on such findings, in order for businesses in the cosmetic industry to encourage women to purchase their beauty products, they can work together with beauty vloggers to promote their products. In addition, to have a more impactful effect on consumers’ purchase intention, brands should choose beauty vloggers with a fascinating physical appearance, as well as values and lifestyles similar to those of the target market. These two factors will enhance the relationship between both parties and encourage viewers to purchase their products in the long term.

In view of the above, becoming a beauty vlogger requires having an attractive appearance in order to build a better relationship with subscribers. In addition, compatibility between subscribers and beauty vloggers in terms of values also drives the development of a relationship between both parties. A long-term relationship will influence subscribers’ perception of the products being reviewed by beauty vloggers and encourage them to purchase such products.

One limitation of this research is that it is not limited to a particular category of beauty product reviews and does not consider a minimum number of subscribers for each beauty vlogger. Thus, we recommend further studies to consider this limitation in order to obtain better analysis results.

REFERENCES