Increasing Consumer Engagement on Social Networks: Social Media Influencer’s Followers ‘Like’ to See a Face in a Post

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of the study was to test whether Instagram influencers can affect followers’ engagement using a simple modification to an Instagram post content. Design/Methodology/Approach – The study focused on the posts sampled from Croatian Instagram SMIs with more than ten thousand followers. Ten posts from each SMI were analysed for both low engagement, i.e. the number of likes, and high engagement, i.e. the number of comments, along with information on whether a face and other features of an SMI features were shown in a post. Findings and implications – Human face in a post increases engagement, but only the lower type (i.e. the number of likes a post receives), even when the effect of the number of followers is statistically controlled for. A higher type of engagement (i.e. the number of comments) is not affected by the presence of a face in a post. Limitations – A lack of formal operationalization of SMIs leads to a more conservative sample of only those SMIs with more than ten thousand followers. The content of the posts preceding the analysed post, which could have influenced the followers’ behaviour, could not be measured due to the study design. Originality – Although previous research has shown that a face in an Instagram post leads to more likes and comments among friends, the relationship between SMIs and their followers lacks the exact reciprocity of like-for-like. Given that the followers’ gains are not straightforward in this kind of relationship, the finding that a face shown in a post can affect engagement is worth scientific attention.