EXPRESS: Signals for Success: the Intersection of Influencer Linguistic Personality, Content, and Follower Size

Influencers are a crucial strategic component for many brands because of their significant marketing value. This research integrates parasocial and signaling theories to posit that relationship-building signals and promotion-focused signals will differentially impact engagement with sponsored posts. The study investigates the role of linguistic personality and content characteristics in driving engagement on social media platforms, with a focus on how follower size moderates these effects. Text mining techniques are used to construct a data set of 961 sponsored posts from 71 influencers. Findings reveal that linguistic agreement, characteristics of the photo (whether the influencer and/or product appear), and of the text (hashtags and emojis) significantly influence engagement. Multiple facets of this influence are moderated by follower size. Specifically, agreeable language positively impacted engagement, while picturing the product and higher hashtag use negatively impacted engagement. Further, follower size moderated the effect of the variables on engagement such that influencers with larger followings benefit more from conscientious language, fewer hashtags, and inclusion of the influencer in the post photo. Influencers with smaller audiences benefit more from extraverted, agreeable, open, and emotionally stable language strategies. These insights offer practical implications for influencers and marketers, suggesting tailored strategies to optimize content.