Less is more: Engagement with the content of social media influencers

Abstract

We draw upon theories of social media engagement to explore the factors affecting the success of the various influencer types, based on the size of their audience. We use the social media content of 8,076 influencers and employ sentiment analysis of text and facial recognition analysis of pictures in their content to examine what drives engagement. We show that the social media content of micro-influencers is more likely to be marked as favourite, while the content of other influencer types is more likely to be shared. We further show that including pictures in the content can result in higher engagement and that showing a person in the pictures also affects engagement, but the strength of this effect depends on the size of the influencer’s audience. Our findings provide novel insights into the theories of social media engagement and sorely needed practical implications regarding content creation on social media platforms.