Douyin food vloggers’ impact on visit intention: Taste awareness as a mediator

With the proliferation of social media in modern life, short-video platforms such as Douyin have become an essential venue for consumers to discover new culinary trends and dining locations. This paper explored how the credibility of food exploration short-video bloggers (vloggers) on the Douyin platform influences the audience’s willingness to visit food locations by forming their taste awareness. We conducted a survey of 437 Douyin users to investigate the relationships between source credibility, visit intention, and the formation of taste awareness. The results showed a significant positive correlation between source credibility and visit intention, with taste awareness formation partially mediating this relationship. Our findings provide a new perspective on understanding how vloggers influence consumer behavior at the cognitive level. Practical recommendations for food industries include utilizing social media marketing and content creators to build audience trust and influence decision making.