Finding goldilocks influencers: How follower count drives social media engagement
Open accessAbstract
Influencers’ follower count, or indegree, is a key criterion that advertisers use when devising influencer marketing campaigns. However, whether influencers with lower or higher follower count are more effective in generating engagement remains an open question. This multimethod research effort—involving an observational field data analysis, based on 802 Instagram marketing campaigns featuring more than 1,700 influencers, together with an eye-tracking study and laboratory experiments—establishes conclusive evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between influencers’ follower count and engagement with sponsored content. A higher follower count implies broader reach but also cues a weaker relationship that reduces followers’ engagement likelihood. That is, engagement first increases, then decreases, as influencer follower count rises. The authors further test the potential moderating effects of two campaign properties: content customization and brand familiarity. Higher content customization and lower familiarity of the sponsored brand signal that influencers value their relationships with followers and thereby flatten the inverted U-shaped relationship. Managers can leverage these novel results and the related actionable guidelines to improve their influencer marketing strategies.
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As these ties strengthen and the influencer becomes more akin to a real friend, follower engagement tends to increase.
“As these ties strengthen and the influencer becomes more akin 121 to a real friend, follower engagement tends to increase (Wies et al., 2023).”
From Drivers of engagement with influencer posts about tourism destinations on Instagram: the role of number of followers, destination connection and content sentiment (2026) · cites this paper as Wies et al., 2023
The existing literature shows that stronger emotional ties foster greater engagement by intensifying attention, empathy, and the willingness to interact with the content.
“The existing literature shows that stronger emotional ties foster greater 125 engagement by intensifying attention, empathy, and the willingness to interact with the 126 content (Wies et al., 2023).”
From Drivers of engagement with influencer posts about tourism destinations on Instagram: the role of number of followers, destination connection and content sentiment (2026) · cites this paper as Wies et al., 2023
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Untangling influence: The effect of follower-followee comparison on social media engagement
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Navigating livestream commerce: A dual-lens framework of influencers’ impact on product sales
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Brand posts with memes on social media: perceived humor and consumer engagement
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Effects of streamer effort and popularity on livestream retailing performance: a mixed-method study
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Digital Cognition in Predictive Marketing Personalization: A Conceptual Framework
Saura, J. R., Ratten, V., & Jeremić, V. (2026) · Psychology and Marketing · doi:10.1002/mar.70109 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Exploring the journey of influencers in shaping social media engagement success
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E-Cigarette Retailers’ Use of Instagram in New Zealand: A Content Analysis
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Tricks of the trade: Understanding and utilizing influencer tactics to improve retailer performance
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Game On: Enhancing Customer Engagement Through Influencers’ Gamified Messages
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Unraveling threats in parasocial relationships: a study on social media influencers
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Virtual influencers: how human-like or animal-like traits shape intention to donate
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Mapping content-driven engagement and attitudinal spillover effect of influencer marketing
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Not easy to “like”: How does cognitive load influence user engagement in online reviews?
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Parasocial Interaction in Marketing Domain: Offering Insights Through a Systematic Literature Review
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Who deserves to be the finfluencer?
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Opinion leadership in a digital age: The rise of nano and micro-influencers
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Gen Z buying patterns: comparing the influence of professional advising and social media engagement
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How Is Influencer Follower Size Related to Brand Responses?
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Virtual Reality, Real Responsibility: The Regulatory Landscape for Virtual InfluencersPreprint
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Mega or Micro? Influencer Selection Using Follower ElasticityPreprint
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The Creator Economy: An Introduction and a Call for Scholarly ResearchPreprint
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I like, I share, I vote: Mapping the dynamic system of political marketing
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Travel Influencer Marketing: How Comment Moderation Affects Generation Z Consumers
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Understanding Consumer Self-Design Abandonment: A Dynamic Perspective
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Social Commerce Surge: The Fusion of Shopping and Social Media
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- Authors
- Wies, S., Bleier, A., & Edeling, A.
- Affiliations
- Goethe University Frankfurt (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Wies, Simone
- Venue
- Journal of Marketing
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2022-11-29
- Volume
- 87
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 383-405
- ISSN
- 0022-2429 (ISSN-L)
- 1547-7185
- OpenAlex
- W4293217494
- Cited by
- 326
- References
- 65
- Citations by year
- 2026: 107 · 2025: 103 · 2024: 85 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 4 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 78.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Marketing (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Lirias (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Marketing and Social Media
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Marketing and Advertising Strategies
- Social Sciences › Demography › SMEs Development and Digital Marketing
- Keywords
- influencer marketing, follower count, social media engagement, Instagram, sponsored content, inverted U-shaped relationship, content personalization, brand familiarity, eye tracking, influencer selection
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
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