Purpose: This study applies parasocial relationship theory to identify the role of broadcaster characteristics in the highly interactive business setting of live streaming commerce.Design/methodology/approach: A total of 401 online questionnaires were distributed to individuals with live streaming showroom shopping experience, and SmartPLS software was used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses.Findings: Broadcasters' characteristics are positively associated with viewers' parasocial relationships, thus further enhancing viewers' attitudinal and behavioural loyalty towards that broadcaster's streams. Parasocial relationships mediate the effects of most broadcaster characteristics (except for expertise) on attitudinal and behavioural loyalty. In addition, parasocial relationships have a stronger positive effect on viewer behaviours for hedonic products and under high match-up.Originality/value: The broadcaster is a key indicator of the success of live streaming commerce. This study establishes a well-organized framework to understand how broadcaster characteristics influence viewer loyalty towards that broadcasters' streams based on parasocial relationship theory.

Building on social media and destination brand-related literature, this study aims to explore World Heritage Sites’ (WHSs) brand diffusion and formation process from long-term and short-term perspectives, which includes brand diffusion, user-generated content (UGC), opinion leaders and brand events’ impact. This study uses a mixed-method including text mining, keyword analysis and social network analysis to explore the brand formation process of four popular WHSs in Beijing, namely, the Palace Museum, Great Wall, Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven and more than 10,000,000 users’ data on Sina Weibo has been implemented to uncover the underlying social media branding mechanism. The results show that the number of postings keeps in a stable range in most months, but, in general, there are no common rules for changing trends among the four WHSs; long-term high-frequency keywords related to history and culture account for a higher percentage; different kinds of accounts have varying impacts on information diffusion, in which media accounts lead to a bigger influence. However, more followers do not necessarily mean more interactions and most of the interaction ratio is much lower than 0.01000; brand events facilitate brand dissemination and have an impact on the creation of UGC. This study is valuable for destination marketers to deeper understand brand diffusion and formation and provides valuable insights for developing effective destination marketing strategies. Unlike previous studies that only concern a few parts of destination brand formation via social media (e.g. brand diffusion, brand events or opinion leaders’ impact), this study takes a more comprehensive perspective by systematically analyzing the brand formation process of WHSs on social media. By considering both long-term diffusion and short-term representative events, this study provides a more holistic understanding of the branding mechanism.