Less Is More: Engagement with the Content of Social Media Influencers

In debates about influencer marketing, the focus is usually on mega-influencers and celebrities with millions of followers. However, the paper “Less is more: Engagement with the content of social media influencers” by Jesse Pieter van der Harst and Spyros Angelopoulos challenges this narrative. It argues that, when it comes to genuine engagement, size is not everything. Micro‑influencers receive more favorites per follower than larger influencers, while larger accounts generate more sharing and total engagement because of their reach.

Rethinking Influence

The paper begins by situating influencers within the broader context of celebrity endorsements, from radio and television to modern social media platforms. While the traditional account suggests that larger audiences are always better, the authors demonstrate that this idea is too simplistic when it comes to social media. They distinguish four tiers of influencers on X: micro (5,000–50,000 followers), meso (50,000–100,000 followers), macro (100,000–1,000,000 followers), and mega (>1,000,000 followers). Then, they ask, “Who generates more engagement per follower?”

To answer this question, the authors compiled a large dataset of self-identified influencers or brand ambassadors on X. They collected the most recent English-language posts from each account’s timeline from early 2021. They measured engagement in two basic ways: favorites (likes) and retweets (shares), in both their raw form and normalized by follower count. This allowed the authors to distinguish the intensity of engagement per audience member from volume.