Journal of Interactive Advertising

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujia20

Why People Use TikTok (Douyin) and How Their

Purchase Intentions Are Affected by Social Media
Influencers in China: A Uses and Gratifications and
Parasocial Relationship Perspective

Yang Yang & Louisa Ha

To cite this article: Yang Yang & Louisa Ha (2021): Why People Use TikTok (Douyin) and
How Their Purchase Intentions Are Affected by Social Media Influencers in China: A Uses and
Gratifications and Parasocial Relationship Perspective, Journal of Interactive Advertising, DOI:
10.1080/15252019.2021.1995544

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2021.1995544

Published online: 09 Dec 2021.

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JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING
https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2021.1995544

RAPID COMMUNICATION

Why People Use TikTok (Douyin) and How Their Purchase Intentions Are
Affected by Social Media Influencers in China: A Uses and Gratifications and
Parasocial Relationship Perspective
Yang Yang and Louisa Ha
Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The purpose of this study was to explore the motivation of young consumers’ use of TikTok Advertising; influencer
(Douyin) in China and how such motivations may relate to influencer videos’ persuasion marketing; parasocial
power on purchases. Using a national online survey among 382 college students in China, relationship;
persuasion; TikTok
the result showed that entertainment gratification was the most common motivation in
using Douyin. But those users with socialization gratification motives had high persuasion
knowledge and high parasocial relationships with the influencer, as well as higher purchase
intentions for the recommended products. Implications on influencer marketing
are discussed.

Social media has become an effective way for market-
ers to advertise to and interact with consumers. More
importantly, marketers utilize social media to build
brand awareness and brand loyalty (Zhou et al. 2012).
Although many studies have examined uses and grati-
fications on social media use, little research has exam-
ined gratifications in the context of TikTok, known as
Douyin in mainland China—a fast-growing social
media platform and mobile video app. TikTok has
become one of the most popular social media plat-
forms globally with more than 800 million active users
worldwide (Kemp 2020) and 400 million users in
China (TikTok 2020). In 2020, TikTok was named
marketer of the year by Advertising Age in the United
States (Sloane 2020). TikTok and Douyin are the
world’s only social networking sites that are available
in both China and the United States and are vastly
popular globally. (To date, India is still the only coun-
try that has banned TikTok.) As a country with rapid
economic growth and with the largest population in
the world, China is the primary market for inter-
national businesses. However, social media usage in
China differs from the rest of the world because of
the strict censorship on foreign social networking
sites. Chinese users are blocked from accessing foreign
social media platforms that were not established in
China, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Hence, TikTok is a very significant marketing plat-
form for global marketers and especially those inter-
ested in the China market.
TikTok/Douyin is a unique video-sharing site.
Most videos are less than 60 seconds long, and it is a
simple process for video creators to select background
music from its music pool, which makes the videos
more entertaining. Users can capture various live hap-
penings or make video testimonials about products.
They are encouraged to imitate others and make simi-
lar videos as memes or trends. TikTok videos can be
shared seamlessly to other messaging and social media
platforms. Once users choose a video to watch, subse-
quent videos will play on the platform based on
sophisticated algorithms, which keeps users engaged
and often makes them lose track of time. The “For
You” feature is a continuous feed of videos custom-
ized to users’ interests based on their past viewing
record so that users can explore and enjoy the type of
content they like to watch.
ByteDance, a successful private digital company in
China with several digital properties, is the owner of
Douyin. It became a sensation when it hit the Chinese
market in 2016 and then conquered the rest of the
world after acquiring Musical.ly in the United States

CONTACT Yang Yang yyangdo@bgsu.edu Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA.
Yang Yang (MA, University of Sheffield) is a doctoral student, School of Media and Communication, Bowling Green State University.
Louisa Ha (PhD, Michigan State University) is a professor of research excellence, Department of Telecommunications, School of Media and
Communication, Bowling Green State University.
ß 2021 American Academy of Advertising
2 Y. YANG AND L. HA
and branding its international version as TikTok.
TikTok became the most downloaded nongaming app
in the world in 2020 (Iqbal 2021). TikTok and Douyin
share the same features and technical capabilities but
target different markets. Douyin’s presence only in
China, existing under Chinese censorship laws and
showing only Chinese content, is what makes it differ-
ent from TikTok, which has content from all over the
world. In addition, all videos on Douyin ended with
the a voiceover that says “Douyin” to reinforce the
video brand identity; this element is missing from
TikTok. Other than these differences, TikTok and
Douyin are identical. From an advertising perspective,
it is crucial to investigate TikTok/Douyin because of its
value in reaching a wide variety of audiences and its
potential in disseminating information and advertising
via electronic word of mouth (eWOM).
This study aims to understand why Chinese con-
sumers use Douyin and how these motivations, para-
social relationships, and persuasion knowledge affect
consumers’ product purchase intentions now that
influencer marketing is blossoming on Douyin.
Notably, the money spent on global influencer mar-
keting was predicted to reach US$13.8 billion by 2021
(Statista 2021).
Uses and Gratifications Theory
This study employs the uses and gratifications theory
(UGT) to explore why Chinese consumers use Douyin.
UGT has been widely used in the literature to investi-
gate the reason for an audience’s decision to use certain
media (Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch 1973). People
may use the same media for different purposes
(Severin and Tankard 1997). According to UGT, people
use media to satisfy the needs of information seeking
(cognitive needs), passing time (tension-release needs),
entertainment (affective needs), and interacting with
others (social needs) (Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch
1973). People use social media to fulfill their informa-
tional, socializing, and entertaining needs (Phua, Venus
Jin, and Kim 2017). As others have noted, social media
help individuals “pass time, escape their everyday lives,
and engage in behaviors they find entertaining” when
they are motivated by entertaining gratification (Plume
and Slade 2018, p. 473).
The information needs noted in UGT originally
pertained to news and factual information seeking.
However, in the social media age, information needs
should be extended to advice, recommendations, and
opinions as well. Some consumers do not have strong
opinions when they have to make decisions and so
they seek guidance online.
Moreover, social networking sites (SNSs) facilitate
eWOM communication, such as positive or negative
statements made by potential, actual, or former cus-
tomers about a product or a company (Hennig-
Thurau et al. 2004). Their comments and reviews
may influence other people’s opinions or purchase
behaviors toward the reviewed products. Hence,
information sharing can be a crucial social media
use motive.
Therefore, this study chooses to focus on entertain-
ment, information seeking, information sharing, and
socializing as four motivations which are perceived to
be relevant to social media video use. Our first
research question seeks to determine the prevalence of
the four motivations among Douyin users:
RQ1: What are the motivations of Chinese users to
use Douyin?
Platform Use Motivation and Endorsed Product
Purchase Intention
Purchase intentions is one type of behavioral intention
which indicates consumers’ intent to buy a product or
service, which is affected by their subjective judgment,
such as individual perceptions, attitudes, and satisfac-
tion (Aluri, Slevitch, and Larzelere 2016). It also works
as a critical indicator of purchase behavior (Shin and
Biocca 2017). Prior research suggests a positive rela-
tionship between gratifications and purchase intentions.
Social motives and customer needs positively influence
user satisfaction (Cheung and Lee 2009). Social inter-
action significantly predicts people’s intent of use and
purchase (Stafford and Stafford 2001). Perceived enter-
tainment and enjoyment of websites predict user satis-
faction and purchase intentions on shopping websites
(Cheung, Chiu, and Lee 2011). However, Ko, Cho, and
Roberts (2005) noted that the information-seeking
motive positively affected consumers’ purchase inten-
tions, while the entertainment motive did not directly
lead to purchase intentions.
Because the purpose of this study is to investigate
the mechanism of influencer persuasion effects on
consumers’ purchase decisions, and past research
shows different motives can be associated with pur-
chase intentions, our second research question exam-
ines how the four motivations affect consumers’
purchase intentions on the endorsed products:
RQ2: Which of the Douyin viewing motivations
found from research question 1 predict Chinese
consumers’ purchase intentions regarding the
endorsed product?

Past literature on social influencers has identified
parasocial relationships and persuasion knowledge as
predictors of purchase intentions of influencer-
endorsed products. Hence, they become important
control variables in examining the relationship
between motivations of watching videos and pur-
chase intentions.
Parasocial Relationship
A parasocial relationship is defined as a pseudo
friendship (Lee and Watkins 2016) and psychological
associations between an audience and a performer
(Horton and Wohl 1956). The intimacy is not real
and is constructed through the audience’s imagin-
ation. Audiences can build parasocial relationships
with celebrities as well as with social media influ-
encers. Past research claims that repeated exposure to
a social media personality is an essential factor in the
formation of parasocial relationships (Chung and Cho
2017). After repeated exposure to an influencer, fol-
lowers/viewers perceive the influencer as a trustworthy
or credible resource for purchase information (Lee
and Watkins 2016; Colliander and Dahlen 2011). Lou
and Yuan (2019) noted a positive relationship between
parasocial relationships and followers’ interests in
influencer-promoted products. As followers form
intimate internal relationships with influencers, they
may eventually take the opinions of those influencers
very seriously; marketers utilize these relationships
and levels of influence—thus defining the “digital
celebrity economy” (Xiao and Zhang 2016). Thus, par-
asocial relationships partly explain influencers’ persua-
sion power over followers regarding endorsement
effectiveness (Hwang and Zhang 2018).
Persuasion Knowledge
Persuasion knowledge is regarded as “consumers’
knowledge and beliefs of various advertising-related
issues, such as the goals and tactics marketers use to
persuade them, the extent to which consumers find
these techniques effective and appropriate, but also
personal beliefs about how to cope with these persua-
sion tactics and goals” (Boerman et al. 2018, p. 83).
Usually, consumers’ persuasion knowledge will reduce
the effectiveness of persuasive messages as well as pro-
mote their resistance to the same (Eisend 2015).
Persuasion knowledge is perceived to be negatively
associated with persuasion effectiveness. When influ-
encers explicitly disclose their sponsorship with
brands, their persuasion power may be reduced
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING 3
(Boerman et al. 2018), and consumers’ purchase
intentions may decrease. However, when the persua-
sion knowledge is from someone who has a close par-
asocial relationship with the consumer, it may be a
cue to support the influencer rather than a suppressor
of influence. Zhang’s (2018) study of YouTube influ-
encer video viewers found that even if YouTube influ-
encers disclosed that they were sponsored by a brand,
viewers were still willing to buy the sponsored prod-
uct and did not see a problem with the sponsorship.
As parasocial relationships and persuasion know-
ledge have been found to predict purchase intentions,
we asked an additional research question concerning
the relative importance of these factors and Douyin
use motivation on purchase intentions:
RQ3: How do motivations found from research
questions 1 and 2, parasocial relationships with
influencers, and persuasion knowledge interact to
influence Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions
regarding endorsed products?
Methodology
Because all Douyin users are online users, an online
survey is deemed the most appropriate method to col-
lect large quantity of data with a large sample. An
online questionnaire, created using popular online
survey platform Qualtrics, was posted for Chinese col-
lege students who were active Douyin users. The ori-
ginal questionnaire was in English to obtain the
university’s institutional review board (IRB) approval,
and the official version for participants was
in Chinese.
Sampling Procedures and Participants
Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, it was diffi-
cult to contact college instructors and students during
the time of data collection, so participants were
recruited from a convenience sample of college stu-
dents from different parts of China, as college stu-
dents are active users of Douyin. The researchers
contacted instructors at different universities in differ-
ent regions of China for assistance in recruitment of
student participants. From early January to mid-
March 2020, fieldwork was conducted in China.
Potential participants were contacted by their instruc-
tors via their classes’ WeChat groups. They were
informed of project information, risks, benefits, proce-
dures for participation, as well as any incentives, such
as extra credit. The final sample of students came
from 21 universities in China. These universities have
4 Y. YANG AND L. HA
Table 1. Descriptive analysis and intercorrelation between Douyin use motivations (N ¼ 382).
M SD
1. Entertainment 3.60 0.92
2. Information sharing 2.79 0.92
3. Information seeking 2.77 0.83
4. Socialization 2.48 0.91
Note. N ¼ 382.
p < .01.
students from all over the country. As a result, there
were 382 qualified survey respondents from 22 prov-
inces, 103 cities, and four municipalities in China,
covering almost every part of China (except Tibet).
Measures
The main questionnaire included 5-point Likert scales,
adopted from past research, to address the research
questions of this study.
Motivations
A total of 15 items were used to measure the four
motivations of using Douyin. “I use Douyin to main-
tain relationship with people” (Hollenbaugh and
Ferris 2014), “I use Douyin to meet with new people”
(Balakrishnan and Shamim 2013), “I use Douyin to
communicate with likeminded people,” and “I use
Douyin to gain a sense of belonging” were the four
items used to measure socialization (Cronbach’s alpha
¼ 0.88). “I use Douyin because it is enjoyable,” “I use
Douyin because it is entertaining,” “I use Douyin to
pass time,” and “I use Douyin to relax” were the four
items from Baek et al. (2011) and Balakrishnan and
Shamim (2013) used to measure entertainment motiv-
ation (Cronbach’s alpha ¼ 0.92). “I use Douyin to
provide information to others,” “I use Douyin to share
information that might be useful to others,” and “I
use Douyin to share information about my special
interests,” adapted from Baek et al. (2011), were the
three items in the information-sharing scale
(Cronbach’s alpha ¼ 0.86). The four items in the
information-seeking scale were adapted from Kim,
Sohn, and Choi (2011), including “I use Douyin to do
research,” “I use Douyin to learn,” “I use Douyin to
get new ideas,” and “I use Douyin to get information”
(Cronbach’s alpha ¼ 0.81).
Parasocial Interactions with Influencers
Nine items from the Rubin and Perse (1987) paraso-
cial interaction scale were adopted. Some examples
were “I feel sorry for my favorite Douyin influencer
when he or she makes a mistake,” “My favorite
Douyin influencer’s personality makes me feel com-
fortable, as if I am with friends,” “I see my favorite
1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 Percentage
— 75.6
0.54 — 31.8
0.56 0.72 — 29.4
0.48 0.69 0.73 — 20.2
influencer as a natural, down to earth person,” “I look
forward to watching my favorite influencer on tele-
vision,” and “I would watch programs that featured
my favorite influencer, even if I didn’t regularly watch
the program.” (Cronbach’s alpha ¼ 0.94)
Persuasion Knowledge
Five items on the persuasion knowledge scale were
adapted from Dhanesh and Duthler (2019) and
Boerman et al. (2018), such as “I am aware that
Douyin influencers are paid to endorse a certain
brand or product or not,” “I am aware that brands
collaborate with Douyin influencers to hide the com-
mercial purpose of showing the brand,” “I can differ-
entiate if the Douyin influencer recommends a
product is because the influencer has a positive
experience for using that product or is because the
influencer is paid by the brand” (Cronbach’s alpha
¼ 0.86).
Purchase Intention
Two items were used to measure purchase intention,
including “I will buy the product recommended by
my favorite Douyin influencer” and “I will buy the
product endorsed by my favorite Douyin influencer”
(Cronbach’s alpha ¼ 0.89).
Results
There were more women participants than men:
26.1% male respondents and 72.3% female respond-
ents. Most participants had less than one year (47.9%)
or one to two years (32.6%) of experience using
Douyin. Most respondents (73%) spent less than one
hour on Douyin daily.
Motivations of Using Douyin
We first present the descriptive results to facilitate our
understanding of Douyin use motives. Table 1
presents descriptive statistics on the four motivations
of Douyin use for the first research question: enter-
tainment, information sharing, information seeking,
and socializing gratifications. In general, Douyin users
gave highest scores for entertainment gratification
 JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING 5

Table 2. Summary of hierarchical regression analysis with Douyin use motivations predicting purchase intentions of
Douyin users.
Model 1 Model 2
Variable B SE B b B SE B b
Douyin use experience 0.06 0.07 0.06 0.03 0.07 0.03
Douyin use frequency 0.07 0.04 0.13 0.06 0.04 0.12
Parasocial interaction 0.47 0.06 0.50 0.35 0.08 0.38
Persuasion knowledge 0.42 0.08 0.38 0.42 0.08 0.38
Parasocial interaction  Persuasion knowledge 0.19 0.06 0.23 0.18 0.06 0.21
Entertainment 0.09 0.07 0.10
Information sharing 0.00 0.08 0.00
Information seeking 0.02 0.11 0.02
Socialization 0.27 0.09 0.28
Gender 0.06 0.11 0.04 0.09 0.11 0.05
Income 0.03 0.05 0.04 0.02 0.05 0.02
R2 0.42 0.46
F change for R2 16.50 12.26
Note. Parasocial interaction and persuasion knowledge were centered at their means as interaction term.
p < .01.

(M ¼ 3.60, SD ¼ .92). Information sharing was in
second place (M ¼ 2.79, SD ¼ .92). The score for
information seeking was slightly lower than informa-
tion sharing (M ¼ 2.77, SD ¼ .83).The lowest score
was given to socializing (M ¼ 2.48, SD ¼ .91). We
combined those who agreed/strongly agreed to the
motivation for their time spent on Douyin. The
results showed that most people chose entertainment
as their motivation (75.6%) and the least people chose
socialization as their motivation (20.2%). Thus, the
results indicated that the entertainment gratification
was the most common motivation for people to spend
time on Douyin, and socializing was the least com-
mon motivation. Most people have multiple motiva-
tions to use Douyin and hence the four motivations
were found to be positively correlated with
one another.
Which Motivation Most Relates to
Purchase Intentions?
We next address the second research question on
whether the motive of Douyin use is related to pur-
chase intentions of endorsed products. The result in
Table 2 (Model 2) shows that only the motive of
socialization (b ¼ .28, p < .01) on Douyin positively
predicts consumers’ purchase intentions regarding
endorsed products. The three other motivations are
unrelated to purchase intentions.
Factors Predicting Purchase Intentions
A hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine
the relationship between persuasion knowledge, para-
social interaction, and purchase intentions of influen-
cer-recommended products apart from motivations.
Model 1 in Table 2 indicates the relationship between
parasocial interaction and purchase intentions control-
ling gender, income, years of Douyin use experience,
Douyin use frequency, persuasion knowledge, and
parasocial interaction before including Douyin use
motivations as a factor. Model 1 was significant,
accounting for 42% of the variance in purchase inten-
tions (R2 ¼ .42, F (6, 162) ¼ 16.50, p < .01). Among
all the independent variables, parasocial interaction
(b ¼ .50, p < .001) and persuasion knowledge (b ¼
.38, p < .001) were both significant predictors of pur-
chase intentions. Hence, we can see the higher the
level of parasocial interaction between a TikTok
(Douyin) influencer and followers, and the higher the
persuasion knowledge of the influencer, the greater
the Douyin user’s purchase intentions for the pro-
moted products.
Examination of the interaction effect in Figure 1
shows an enhanced effect of persuasion knowledge on
purchase intentions. As parasocial interaction
increased, people with high persuasion knowledge had
a stronger positive relationship with purchase inten-
tions than people with low persuasion knowledge.
Model 2 included the four Douyin use motivations,
and we found socialization as the only significant
motivation predicting purchase intentions (b ¼ .28,
p < .001). Adding the motivation factor only slightly
improved the explanation of the variance to 46%.
Discussion
Entertainment gratification was the only dominant
motivation of time spent on Douyin for college stu-
dents in China. The respondents reported the other
three motivations—information sharing, information
seeking, and socializing—for using Douyin much less
often. The results indicated low use of social media’s
prominent feature—socialization—in Douyin. College
6 Y. YANG AND L. HA
7 perceived as a negative factor that reduces influencers’
6 persuasive power. Instead, consumers’ recognition of
purchase intention
5
Low PKN
4
High PKN
3 tions and sets their expectation for support through
2
1
Low Parasocial High Parasocial
Figure 1. Moderation effects for persuasion knowledge on
parasocial interaction and purchase intentions.
student respondents in our study rarely were moti-
vated by socialization in using Douyin. The nature of
Douyin use should thus be taken into consideration.
Douyin is different from YouTube and many other
video-sharing social media due to restriction of video
length, with a maximum duration of 60 seconds.
People expect quick entertainment, and most of them
want to have fun. When they open the app, Douyin
will feed videos to them. These recommended videos
come from their viewing history, search history, or
contact information. Thus, the convenience of use and
entertainment-driven feature of Douyin for self-
indulgence may be the critical factors that explain
why people rarely use Douyin to socialize with others.
We tested whether the four motivations of using
Douyin influence consumers’ intention of purchasing
endorsed products in the regression analysis. The
result suggests that certain users’ Douyin use motiva-
tions were positively related to their product purchase
intentions, such as socialization, but it was also the
least common motivation for Douyin use. Persuasion
knowledge and parasocial relationships are stronger
predictors than Douyin use motives for purchase
intentions of influencer-endorsed products. The lack
of significance in the information-seeking motive in
predicting purchase intentions is intriguing. It is pos-
sible that the parasocial relationship is such a strong
predictor that it does not matter whether people are
seeking information when their favorite influencer
persuades them. The intimate positive relationship
between influencers and their audiences is vital to
influencers’ endorsement effectiveness. When consid-
ering the relationship, the influence on consumers’
purchase intentions stems from their socialization
with the Douyin influencer.
Moreover, the interaction effect of parasocial rela-
tionships and persuasion knowledge shows that fol-
lowers with high persuasion knowledge tend to have
higher purchase intentions than followers with low
persuasion knowledge. Persuasion knowledge is not
persuasion attempts enhances the positive correlation
between parasocial relationships and purchase inten-
purchase. This indicates that followers accept the
compensation of influencers by sponsors, and they
support influencers with their intentions to purchase
the endorsed product.
When pairing brands with influencers on Douyin,
marketers should consider users’ Douyin use motiva-
tions and marketing goals. On one hand, marketers
can collaborate with an expert, knowledgeable influen-
cer to promote high-involvement products that people
need more information about, as well as assurance
from the influencer, to make purchase decisions. On
the other hand, marketers can collaborate with popu-
lar influencers who maintain positive relationships
with their followers and focus on socialization to pro-
mote low-involvement products. Therefore, our find-
ing suggests that marketers should target people
seeking to socialize who also have a high parasocial
relationship with influencers on Douyin if their mar-
keting goal is to sell products.
Theoretical and Practical Implications
Theoretical Implications
This research makes several theoretical contributions.
First, we uncover the motivations of using Douyin
when other research has not paid much attention to
this new platform. Our findings demonstrate that
motives for using Douyin can be different from other
social media platforms. We find that socialization, as
the critical feature of social media, is not the most
common motivation for Douyin users. Instead, this is
the least common motivation, and most users value
entertainment as their first priority in terms of their
Douyin use motives. Prior social media UGT research
emphasizes the important role of social interaction, as
social media is predominantly seen as “social” (Erz,
Marder, and Osadchaya 2018). However, the newer
social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok
(Douyin), are different from Facebook, which is a
great place for people to stay connected and stay in
touch with one another easily. Rather, newer social
media platforms provide a place for online personal-
ities, influencers, and content creators to connect with
audiences and broadcast themselves. In other words,
the minority of users on Instagram and TikTok
(Douyin) use the platforms to build communities and

interact with others; the majority of users are con-
tent consumers.
Second, we explore the role of people’s motivations
of time consumption on Douyin, along with the inter-
action effect between parasocial relationships and per-
suasion knowledge, in shaping purchase intentions
toward influencer-promoted products through the the-
oretical lens of UGT, parasocial relationships, and the
persuasion knowledge model. This research provides
evidence that social media use motivations influence
users’ purchase intentions toward endorsed products.
In addition, the results affirm the prior finding that
parasocial relationships and persuasion knowledge are
predictors of consumers’ purchase intentions.
However, persuasion knowledge is tested as the mod-
erator of the relationship between parasocial relation-
ships and purchase intentions. The findings contradict
the negative effect of persuasion knowledge on pur-
chase intentions in prior literature. On the contrary, it
credits the positive role of persuasion knowledge in
predicting purchase intentions when consumers have
a relatively high parasocial relationship with social
media influencers.
Practical Implications
Our findings provide important implications for social
media marketing professionals wishing to maximize
reach and engagement on Douyin, especially for those
who want to enter the Chinese market. First, marketers
who aim at influencer marketing on Douyin should
consider Douyin users’ motives. Because the primary
reason for time consumption on Douyin is entertain-
ment, practitioners need to create entertaining content
that meets consumers’ basic needs of their time spent
on Douyin. Furthermore, knowledge of consumers’
motives, their relationship with influencers, and user
behaviors on social media platforms is invaluable for
social media marketers to collaborate with appropriate
influencers on appropriate social media platforms to
achieve different influencer marketing goals.
Our findings also provide implications for Douyin
platform designers. User behavior on TikTok
(Douyin) has become a popular topic in current
advertising and social media research. We find that
Douyin users prefer the entertaining instead of the
socializing feature of the platform. Other than enter-
taining content or some entertaining personalities,
platform designers should develop more entertaining
functions or fun things for users to do to satisfy their
needs, such as avatars and emojis that help people
show their enjoyment in consumption.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING 7
Finally, currently, no law in China requires influ-
encers to disclose their sponsorship by companies. So
far, it is based on influencers’ free will or their per-
ceived social responsibility. Influencers and brands
may worry whether disclosure of sponsorship will
negatively affect consumers’ purchase intentions. Our
study shows that marketers do not need to worry too
much that influencers will lose their persuasiveness if
they disclose sponsorship to viewers. It is time to con-
sider making a sponsorship disclosure law in China,
which is a practical implication of the present study.
Marketers and influencers should not oppose
disclosure because it should not reduce the persuasive
effect of their endorsement if there is a positive and
close relationship between the influencer and viewers;
indeed, such disclosure could instead enhance the
persuasive effect.
Limitations and Suggestions for
Future Research
Limitations of this study and directions for future
research should be noted. First, due to the COVID-19
pandemic, we used a convenience sample of Chinese
Douyin users among some college students whose
instructors were connected with the researchers, and
this sample was neither representative nor diverse.
Moreover, we had many more female respondents
than male respondents. Future research should recruit
a representative sample with balanced male and
female respondents to represent the Chinese Douyin
population, because prior research suggested that
Douyin has a relatively equal number of male and
female users. Second, the four motivations investi-
gated in this research are insufficient to explain users’
time spent on Douyin. Other motives can be explored
in future Douyin research, particularly the relationship
between motivations and users’ purchase intentions.
We recommend future research to separate prod-
uct-specific information/recommendation seeking
from nonproduct general information seeking when
investigating users’ information-seeking motivation on
TikTok/Douyin. Moreover, the present study focused
on Chinese users and their use of the Chinese version
of TikTok. Due to the different laws and policies in
different markets, the content shared on Douyin in
China may differ from content shared by TikTok
users. Therefore, it is recommended that future
research focus on the context beyond China for
TikTok influencer marketing. In addition, the current
study asked participants to provide information on
their relationships with their favorite social media
8 Y. YANG AND L. HA
influencers. Future research should limit participants
to those who indeed follow some influencers and con-
sider at least one influencer as a favorite influencer.
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