Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Dicle Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, cilt.16, sa.31, ss.429-445, 2026 (TRDizin)
As the internet becomes more widespread and social networks grow in popularity, the influence of internet celebrities, known as social media influencers (SMIs), is also broadening. SMI express their ideas and thoughts in all areas from shopping to art, from clothing to technology via social networks and shape the behaviors of their followers. The objective of this study is to examine how word of mouth communication (WOMC) moderates the impact of trust in social media influencers (TSMI) on consumers' purchase intention (PI). WhatsApp was used to fill out the surveys created for this purpose. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the obtained data. The target audience was reached through the snowball sampling method. The population is people living in Türkiye and exposed to influencer marketing related to the Türk Telekom brand on YouTube. The sample is 363 people. According to the findings obtained from the research, it was understood that trust in social media influencers did not have a significant effect on purchase intention. Word of mouth communication has been found to have a positive impact on purchase intention. Furthermore, trust in a social media influencer has been shown to positively influence word-of-mouth communication. The findings also indicated that word-of-mouth communication has a moderating role in the effect of trust in a social media influencer on purchase intention.