Digital marketing: A field research on purchase behavior under influencer effect

The widespreaduse of the internet and the widespreaduse of social media platform sbyconsumers have forced businesses to exist in socialmedia. With the accounts they havecreated on behalf of theirbrands on social media platforms, businesses have had the opportunity to promotet heir products by reaching consumers more easily and at lesscost. Consumers have had the opportunity to reach businesses from social media platforms when ever they want, to ask questions about the product and toget feedback in a short time. This situation has revealed the concept of Social Media Marketing. Being able to reach largemasses in a short time at very lowcosts has provided a great advantaget to businesses. People with high followers and influence on social media platforms are called "Influencers". "Influencers" who promote products to consumers who spend time on social media by producing content as a result of their cooperation with businesses, have revealed the concept of Influencer Marketing, which is a new marketing strategy. Consumers who want to have detailed information about the product they will buy were ableto realize their purchasing behavior in line with the information which they obtained through the content produced by the Influencers and the questions they asked to the Influencers. In this study, it is investigated how Influencers affect consumer purchasing behavior. In the study, the concepts of Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Influencer Marketing and Influencer are examined. In the study, a scale consisting of 23 questions and 4 dimensions is used. Study data are obtained by online survey method. The obtained data are analyzed in SPSS 26.0 package program. The questionnaire is applied to 578 participants aged 18 and over. T-test and One-Way Anova (One-Way Anowa) analysis are used to measure consumers' purchase intention. As a result of the analyzes, differences are determined in the sub-factors of Physical Attractiveness, Perceived Reliability, Expertise Level and Positive Communication according to demographic characteristics and the most used social media applications. As a result of the analysis in the research, it is determined that the social media application that the participants spent the most time is Instagram. As a result of the findings, H2.1, H2.3, H3.3, H4.1, H.7, H8, H.10 and H.11 hypotheses are accepted from 32 hypotheses developed in accordance with the purpose of the study.