Purpose

Drawing on the example of car manufacturer Tesla and its early investor Elon Musk, the purpose of this paper is to explore the connection between the personal communication activities of influential entrepreneurs on social media, the emergence of parasocial interactions (PSIs) and the related communication outcomes for the company.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper conducted an online survey, recruiting 207 participants via purposive sampling. Partial least square path modeling and an independent t-test were conducted to test hypotheses.

Findings

The results of this paper show that following entrepreneurs’ personal social media activities amplifies PSIs, which in turn positively impact the company's communication outcomes. Organization–public relationships and purchase intentions are improved by PSI.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies that connects the personal and the organizational level in exploring entrepreneurial marketing. The results show that Elon Musk acts as an influential entrepreneur to effectively promote communication outcomes for Tesla. This paper illuminates the potential of entrepreneurs’ personal social media activities to support the success of their ventures.

中文翻译：

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企业家作为影响者：超社会互动对沟通结果的影响

目的

本文以汽车制造商特斯拉及其早期投资者埃隆·马斯克为例，旨在探讨有影响力的企业家在社交媒体上的个人交流活动、准社会互动（PSI）的出现以及相关交流结果之间的联系。为公司。

设计/方法/途径

本文进行了一项在线调查，通过有目的的抽样招募了 207 名参与者。进行了偏最小二乘路径建模和独立的t检验来检验假设。

发现

本文的结果表明，关注企业家的个人社交媒体活动会放大 PSI，进而对公司的沟通结果产生积极影响。PSI 改善了组织-公共关系和购买意向。

原创性/价值

据作者所知，这是首批将个人和组织层面联系起来探索创业营销的研究之一。结果表明，埃隆·马斯克作为一位有影响力的企业家有效地促进了特斯拉的传播成果。本文阐述了企业家的个人社交媒体活动在支持其企业成功方面的潜力。