How the attributes of content distributors influence the intentions of users to pay for content shared on social media

Social media companies such as Facebook, WeChat, and Weibo are trying to profit from paid content shared on social media. This paper studies how the attributes of content distributors influence the intentions of users to pay. An online 2 x 2 between-subject experiment was conducted among Weibo users. Two analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) and structural-equation modeling were employed to test the hypotheses. Subjects showed weaker intention to pay for content shared by a celebrity than that by a noncelebrity when distributors were not experts. Conversely, there was no significant difference when distributors were experts. When distributors were not celebrities, there was no significant difference between an expert and a nonexpert on the intention to pay. Subjects showed stronger intention to pay for content shared by an expert than that by a nonexpert when distributors were celebrities. Intention to pay was also significantly affected by attitudes toward the content distributor and prior attitudes.