Purpose This study aims to examine if the participation of live-stream influencers (LSIs) affects tipping frequency on live streaming platforms, and further investigate the mediating and moderating mechanisms. Design/methodology/approach Quasi-experiment and difference-in-differences models are used for data analysis. Propensity score matching is used to address potential unobservable endogeneity. Findings Real-time live streaming data reveal that LSIs’ participation significantly improves tipping frequency in live streaming rooms. Also, more users are attracted to the live streaming rooms and more users become active in participation. Additionally, the positive impact of LSIs’ participation is enhanced in the live streaming rooms with a greater number of relationship links between users. Research limitations/implications The findings clarify the new role of influencers and reveal the mechanisms on how LSIs benefit the platforms. Practical implications The findings offer novel insights into implementing influencer marketing to interactive social media platforms, by encouraging influencer participation, user relationship building and influencer network growth. Originality/value This study highlights the value of LSIs for interactive social media platforms in terms of organic growth, revenue generation and cost reduction.

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PurposeRecent years have witnessed the popularity of social free sampling (SFS). That is, firms on social commerce platforms (e.g. Amazon Vine and Pconline Try) offer free sample products for consumers' applications, and the selected applicants are required to write a product trial report on the sites as a return. The main advantage of SFS is to leverage users' product trial reports to increase product exposure and attract prospective consumers. Thus, product trial reports play a central role in SFS. Despite that scholars have examined the rating bias of product trial reports in recent years' knowledge concerning how product trial reports influence user (i.e. readers of product trial reports) engagement remains sparse. To address the research gap, this paper aims to examine the drivers of user engagement with product trial reports.Design/methodology/approachThis study utilized the Poisson regression model to analyze 3,419 trial reports collected from a well-known Chinese SFS site.FindingsBased on the ELM model, the empirical results indicate that product rating, vividness, opinion balance, and reputation of the trial user are positively associated with user engagement. However, longer reports and reports with higher emotional intensity lead to weaker user engagement. Furthermore, product prices strengthen the positive impact of opinion balance but weaken the positive impact of trial users' reputations.Originality/valueThis study is among one of the first studies to investigate the impact of trial reports on user engagement in SFS. It yields actionable guidelines for SFS campaigns.

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