How do we feel when our favorite social media personalities share sponsored content, endorsing products they’re paid to promote?
This question sparked a new study.
Shunyuan Zhang, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School, and Magie Cheng, a doctoral student, understood that businesses are pouring more of their marketing money into sponsoring social media content.
Yet, there was a lack of research on how effective this approach was, and how it impacts influencers, their followers, the platforms they use, and the brands they promote.
They set out to delve into this topic, focusing specifically on the relationship between influencers and their fans.
While some surveys hinted at followers not being too keen on sponsored posts, there was no concrete evidence.
Influencers were aware of potential downsides to accepting sponsored deals, but how costly could these be?
Zhang and Cheng tracked 861 English-speaking YouTube personalities in beauty and lifestyle, analyzing over 85,000 videos they uploaded in a year.
They studied how many people watched or “liked” each video, noted if it was sponsored, and even considered the influencer’s demeanor and the overall look of each video.
They followed the influencers’ follower counts before and after each video was shared.
To better understand the effect of sponsored content, they split the influencers into two groups: those who shared at least one sponsored video during the year, and those who only shared non-sponsored, original content.
They then compared the performance of the two groups.
Their findings showed that posting a sponsored video led to influencers losing, on average, 0.17% of their followers in the following three days.
While this may seem small, it can build up.
For instance, an influencer with 1.5 million followers could lose up to 382,000 followers a year if they post 150 sponsored videos – the average for the paid influencers in the study.
As follower numbers are crucial for influencers’ income and status, seeing those figures drop can be distressing.
But it’s not all bad news for influencers.
The researchers stress that they don’t have to completely reject sponsored content.
They need to be careful, though, about which brands they work with to maintain authenticity and keep their followers from leaving.
The study found three key factors influencing how much influencers were penalized for paid promotions.
Firstly, influencers with bigger followings felt the impact more than less popular ones.
They lost more followers, received fewer likes and comments, and had more negative feedback.
Less popular influencers, according to the researchers, tend to have closer connections with their audience, who are more receptive to sponsored content.
Secondly, sponsored content was better received when it was in line with what the influencer usually shared.
If the promoted product matched the influencer’s usual content, it was less likely to be resented by followers.
Finally, posts promoting big, well-known brands got a stronger negative response compared to those endorsing smaller, lesser-known ones.
The researchers suggest that followers enjoy discovering new products they might not have come across otherwise.
The study offers valuable insights for influencers: they need to understand that paid posts could cost them followers, and they need to be smart about which deals to accept, which brands to promote, and how much to charge.
Choosing products that align with their style and what followers would enjoy is crucial.
They also need to weigh if the pay is worth the potential damage to their reputation.
These findings aren’t only useful for influencers.
Brands, too, can benefit.
Instead of always going for influencers with massive followings, they might consider partnering with less prominent ones whose followers might react more positively.
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