Research on the Impact of Key Opinion Leaders KOLs Credibility on Consumer Decision-Making Paths in Social Media Marketing

Business School, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, 100000, China

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Abstract

Social media has developed rapidly, Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) have become important sources of information influencing consumer decision-making, but KOL credibility mechanisms across consumption stages remain poorly integrated. Therefore, this paper conducts a systematic literature review to investigate how KOL credibility is formed and how it affects consumer behavior during the pre-purchase stage. This paper provides a systematic analysis of the purchase and post-purchase stages within the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework, and accordingly synthesizes previous literature to identify the multidimensional antecedents of KOL credibility: personal traits and content characteristics. Most importantly, it concludes that KOL credibility serves as a salient external stimulus that affects consumers’ cognitive evaluations and emotional reactions. The text explains how the approach increases purchase intention in the pre-purchase stage, reduces perceived risk so as to facilitate decision conversion during purchase, and builds trust, reinforces brand loyalty through expectation validation in the post-purchase stage. More importantly, it makes a point about the dynamic character of credibility, as it is constantly adjusted by consumer experiences. Hence, the paper extends the S-O-R model with a stage-based perspective and offers direct insights for KOL strategy and brand collaboration in digital marketing.