Abstract
Few studies have examined the personality traits that may predict opinion leadership behavior in social media. This study aims to examine the personality traits of individuals who use social media platforms and engage in social networking in Saudi Arabia. This study investigates the extent to which innovativeness, competence in interpersonal relationships, and extraversion affect the opinion leadership propensity in social media. The data were collected via an online structured questionnaire which was completed by a sample of 321 social media users. The results of this study show that people with a high level of innovativeness and interpersonal relationship competency are more likely to be opinion leaders on social media. However, the personality trait of extraversion does not affect the propensity to be an opinion leader. The results indicate that the effect of innovativeness on opinion leadership propensity is lower for Generation Y than Generation X.