Even as companies devote increasing shares of their marketing budgets to paying social media influencers to tout their products, researchers know little about the tactic’s effectiveness or its overall impact on influencers, their followers, and their partner brands. So, a team of researchers decided to investigate. HBS assistant professor Shunyuan Zhang and doctoral student Magie Cheng analyzed more than 85,000 influencer videos posted on YouTube from August 2019 to August 2020. Comparing similar posts with and without paid promotions, they found that putting out a sponsored video caused significant numbers of followers to doubt the influencers’ authenticity and drop off. The study’s findings suggest several ways for influencers and brands, along with the platforms hosting their content, to minimize the damage.
It’s a reality of marketing: People dislike advertising. They fast-forward through commercials in prerecorded shows and pay premiums to avoid them on streaming services. Do people similarly dislike it when the influencers they follow on social media post sponsored content—endorsements for products they have been paid to promote? A new study tackles the question.
