AcademicJournal of Marketing, 2026

Comments that praised an influencer's market standing lifted reposts on the next sponsored post

Shortlisting creators

Reader Note:: This is the paper's post hoc comment-text analysis, run on 250 influencers randomly drawn from the larger Douyin sample. The key inputs were comment-text classifications built with GPT-4 and a fine-tuned Chinese BERT model, then manually validated. The result is observational and based on the proportion of comments in one sponsored post that referred to the influencer's "brand recognition" as defined by the paper.
Evidence:: Observed behaviour
Vendor interest:: None
Sample:: Multimethod study: Instagram field study of 6,869 sponsored posts from 4,908 influencers; experiment with 168 Twitter users; experiment with 208 Instagram users; Douyin field study of 147,877 sponsored videos from 1,000 influencers, plus comment-text analysis on 2,015,022 comments from 24,199 sponsored videos by 250 influencers.

Good for

Comparing yourself against a similar segment, and choosing what to test next.

Not for

Saying that one thing caused another, or predicting what you would get.
Nobody counted this directly — it's a calculation. The publisher worked it out itself, or took the ad platform's word for what its ads achieved.
The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.

Influencer selection is mainly based on engagement rate and audience demographics (94% and 88%), with only 25% using social listening on what consumers discuss

Share of marketers using each data input to select influencers, and what it measures
Data input	Usage (%)
Engagement rate (Influencer output)	94%
Audience demographics (age, gender, location) — Influencer audience	88%
Past campaign performance data (Influencer track record)	81%
Audience interest / affinity data (Influencer audience)	78%
Follower count and reach metrics (Influencer scale)	72%

Open full graph

Sponsored posts got more engagement when influencers had either very low or very high ad loads, and did worst in the middle

In creator selection, brand fit mattered most and follower count mattered least

Most Important Factor Brands Use When Selecting New Creators to Work With
Selection factor	Brands (%)
Creator suitability or fit for brand	22%
Content performance	17%
Working with a diverse group of creators	14%
Brand affinity, or a history of posting about your client	12%
Follower audience demographics	10%

Open full graph

Go deeper on this topic

Our Substack turns the data behind these cards into full breakdowns: what changed, why, and what to do about it.

Fixing your influencer marketing campaign: How to get into the top 10% of advertisers

1.95x

higher conversion odds came with stronger creator audience-brand fit in influencer marketing campaigns

People were about twice as likely to share the sponsored Instagram post when the influencer had low or high ad load instead of a middle one

89%

of marketers do not plan to work with virtual influencers AI avatars or digital clones of creators in 2026

Comments that praised an influencer's market standing lifted reposts on the next sponsored post

Good for

Not for

Related cards

Go deeper on this topic