Research: For Influencers, Showing Your Inner Circle Can Boost Engagement
七月的某一周，足球明星兼企业家大卫·贝克汉姆（David Beckham）在Instagram上发了四条动态：一则广告（某墨镜品牌的赞助广告），获得了46万个赞；一张照片，庆祝他投资的迈阿密国际足球俱乐部（Inter Miami CF）获得美国职业足球大联盟（MLS）冠军，获得了36万个赞。而另外两条动态——他与父亲和妻子的合影——则获得了比前两者多了三倍的点赞量，它们分别获得了130万和180万个赞。
One week in July, soccer star and entrepreneur David Beckham made four posts on Instagram. A sponsored ad for sunglasses garnered 460,000 likes. A photo celebrating a league win by Inter Miami, a team he co-owns, got 360,000. The two other posts — pictures of the athlete with his father and with his wife — received triple that engagement, with 1.3 and 1.8 million likes, respectively.
贝克汉姆是Instagram上粉丝数最多的账号之一，同时也是收入最高的“网红”之一，各大品牌纷纷以高价邀请他代言，借助他8800万粉丝的影响力来推广自己的产品。越来越多的品牌也开始与粉丝量少但参与度高的“网红”们合作，因为参与度高意味着，这些粉丝中的很大一部分人都会“点赞”并回复网红的每一条帖子。鉴于网红营销的兴起——在美国，这个市场今年将达到240亿美元的规模——以及粉丝参与度对市场营销的影响日益剧增，我们不禁要问：是什么因素让一些帖子的粉丝参与度更高？让它们比其他帖子更吸引人？
Beckham has one of the most followed accounts on the site and is also one of its highest-paid influencers, with brands offering a premium to have him endorse their products to his 88 million followers. Increasingly, brands are also partnering with influencers who have smaller audiences, but whose followers are highly engaged — meaning that a large percentage “like” and respond to each post. Given the rise of influencer marketing — a market set to top $24 billion this year and the increasing importance of engagement to marketers, we wondered: What factors make some posts more engaging than others?
在研究中，我们发现，被认为最能表现网红“真实性”的帖子，比如，透露网红的个人生活或情感细节的帖子最受粉丝欢迎；而被认为不那么“真实”的帖子，如赞助广告或关于工作的宣传帖则会降低粉丝参与度（从贝克汉姆7月份帖子的小样本中也可以看出这点）。
In new research, we hypothesized and found that posts viewed as more authentic to an influencer, for example posts that reveal details about an influencer’s personal life or emotions, are the most popular, while posts that are viewed as less authentic, like a sponsored ad or a promotional post about work, result in lower engagement (as seen in the small sampling from Beckham’s posts in July).
为了做本次研究，我们从Instagram上全球排名前763位的“网红”账号中收集了六个月的数据，即超过5.5万条帖子，并使用文本和图像分析软件搜索帖子中与“真实性”相关的术语和描述，包括提及家庭成员的文本内容，以及人数较少的照片等。
To reach these findings, we scraped data from the top 763 influencers on Instagram worldwide over a six-month period — more than 55,000 posts in total — and used text and image analysis software to search for terms and depictions we’d isolated as related to authenticity, including captions that referenced family members and pictures with few people in them.
然后，我们进行了三次对照实验，向受试者展示了能代表网红“真实性”的帖子。在第一个实验中，我们保持图片不变，但更改了文本，使其分别提到家庭或亲密朋友、赞助广告或合作伙伴，以及其他的“中性语言”。在第二个实验中，我们保持文本不变，但更改了与网红一起出现帖子中的人数。我们还进行了一个实验，要求受试者阅读不同的帖子内容，并对网红的好感度和真实性进行排序。在所有实验中，我们发现，受试者最喜欢提到亲密社交关系或展示少数朋友和家人的帖子。我们还发现，当网红们提到亲密朋友或家人时，他们会被认为更讨人喜欢和更真实。
We then ran three controlled experiments, where we showed participants posts from real influencer accounts. In one, we held the images constant but changed the text to mention either family or close friends, sponsored ad partnerships, or other neutral language. In another experiment, we held the text constant but changed the number of people depicted with the influencer. We also ran an experiment asking participants to rank the likeability and authenticity of an influencer based on different posts. Across our experiments, we found that people most liked posts that mentioned close social ties or depicted a small grouping of friends or family. We also found that when people referenced close friends or family, they were seen as more likeable and authentic.
“真实”的帖子可以推动粉丝参与度，而“不真实”的帖子（如赞助广告）则会降低参与度。在这种情况下，网红和营销人员如何才能有效合作？我们的研究为网红和营销人员合作发帖提供了三种建议。
Given that authenticity can drive engagement, and posts viewed as less authentic, like sponsored ads, can lower them, how can influencers and marketers partner together effectively? Our research offers three considerations for creating successful collaborative posts.
将产品融入网红的生活
Show How a Product Fits into an Influencer’s Life
消费者越相信“网红”是“真实”的，“网红”作为品牌代言人就越受欢迎。消费者知道，公司推荐产品的动机是为了提升销量。因此，与其接受公司的推荐，消费者不如在网上向信任的人寻求意见。消费者信赖这些人，可能是因为他们有共同的兴趣爱好，也可能是因为他们的文化和身份相似，原因还可能是这些人在某种程度上是令人向往的，比如，他们的生活方式是这些消费者所追求的。网红为这些消费者提供鉴别力。在浩如烟海的产品中，他们用自己独特的洞察力告诉粉丝，什么才是最好的。
Influencers’ popularity as brand endorsers grew in response to consumer’s beliefs in their authenticity. Rather than take the recommendation of a company — whose motivation is often to increase sales — consumers could turn to people whose opinions they trust online, whether because they share interests, have demographic similarities, or because they are aspirational in some way, perhaps offering a glimpse into a lifestyle that the follower would like to emulate. Influencers offer followers their discernment. In a vast sea of products and possibilities, they use their specific insight to tell viewers what’s the best.
随着网红与品牌合作关系的发展，粉丝会接触到越来越多的广告，这会削弱他们对网红“真实性”的信任。广告非但不能建立信任，反而会让粉丝觉得，网红发帖只是在为赞助商摇旗呐喊。研究发现，粉丝认为赞助商的广告并不“真实”，这种认知会导致网红发帖的参与度降低（以“点赞量”为衡量）。
As influencer-brand partnerships grow, audiences are increasingly inundated with sponsored ads, which can corrode viewers’ beliefs in the authenticity of an influencer. Rather then build trust, ads can make viewers feel that an influencer is simply espousing the specific motivations of their sponsor brand. In fact, our research found evidence that sponsored ads are viewed as less authentic, and result in lower engagement (measured by “likes”) among the posts in an influencers’ feed.
不过，我们的研究还发现，将广告与网红内心世界的真实反映（如提及家庭成员）结合起来，可以抵消广告对参与度的一些负面影响。例如，在一项实验中，我们向参与者展示同一张服装广告照片，但更改了标题文本：当网红在标题中表示，他们在广告中所穿的服装是“由他们的女儿设计的”时，比起表示衣服是“由著名设计师设计的”，“女儿设计的”这张广告照片更受欢迎，也被认为更真实。
However, our work also found that partnering an ad with a genuine reflection of the influencer’s inner life, like mentioning a family member, can offset some of the negative impact sponsored ads have on engagement. For example, in one of our experiments, when an influencer’s caption said that an outfit worn in a sponsored ad was “styled by [their] daughter,” it was more popular and seen as more authentic than when we showed participants the same picture noting that it was styled by a famous designer.
网红希望与赞助商合作，也希望保持粉丝参与度，而营销人员则希望提高网红发布的广告帖的参与度。因此，他们应该考虑如何用一种能表达网红真实性的方式进行广告宣传。营销人员不应只发布网红展示产品的照片，而应考虑如何将产品融入网红的真实生活。如何让网红自然地嵌入或展示产品？这位网红作为品牌大使，是否有办法向粉丝展示或描述产品是如何融入其个人生活或人际关系中的？
Influencers seeking to retain engagement while partnering with sponsors, and marketers looking to improve engagement for their posts with influencers should consider how they can advertise in a way that feels authentic to the influencer. Rather than posting an image of an influencer simply displaying a product, marketers should consider how the product fits into the authentic life of that influencer. How could this be referenced or displayed? Is there a way that this brand ambassador could show or describe how this product fits into their personal life or relationships?
思考“真实性”的其他意义
Consider Other Means of Authenticity
虽然“展示或者描述亲密社交关系”是高粉丝参与度的重要影响因素，但我们还发现，“展现强烈的正面或负面情绪”也与更高的参与度相关，且负面情绪比正面情绪更能引发互动，其影响力是正面情绪的六倍。这可能是因为，人们有分享好消息或“正能量”的社会规范以及压力，因此，分享负面情绪反而让网红显得更真实。
While our research found that the greatest predictor of high engagement was showing or describing close social ties, we also found that revealing strong positive or negative emotions was associated with higher engagement, and that negative emotions were six times more powerful at eliciting engagement than positive emotions. This could be because of the normative pressure to share good news or positive worldviews, and so sharing a negative view could be seen as a more authentic representation of the influencer.
此外，我们还发现，当网红在撰写文案时使用第一人称代词，比如说“我在游泳”比“游泳去了”的帖子的参与度更高。
Additionally, we found that posts have higher engagement when influencers write captions using first person pronouns (saying “I am swimming” rather than “swimming” for example).
希望提高参与度的营销人员和网红，不仅应将帖子与网红的社交生活联系起来，还应注重网红对个人经历的表达。在制作赞助广告时，营销人员和网红应考虑如何利用网红自身的声音、感受或观点。
Marketers and influencers looking to increase engagement should ground posts not only in the social lives of influencers, but also in an influencers’ individual articulations of their experience. When creating a sponsored ad, marketers and influencers should consider how the ambassador’s own voice, feelings, or opinion can be used.
避免压力，注意稀缺性
Words of Caution
网红的工作处于职业生活和个人生活之间的灰色地带，两者之间的界限可能很难把握。虽然我们的研究表明，展示网红的个人社会关系能吸引观众，但如果网红的私人生活受到了过多的关注，也可能会对他们的心理健康和幸福感产生负面影响。如果网红感受到来自赞助商的压力，比如，赞助商要求他们展示私密的社交关系来抵消广告对参与度造成的影响，那么网红的心理健康和幸福感更会降低。
Influencers’ work exists in the gray area between professional life and personal life, and the boundary between the two can be challenging to navigate. While our research shows that revealing personal ties is engaging to audiences, it’s possible that opening up influencers’ private lives to additional public scrutiny could have deleterious impacts on their mental health and well-being. This is particularly true if influencers feel pressure from their sponsors to utilize their close social ties to offset some of hits to engagement that sponsored ads can produce.
此外，尽管我们的研究发现，真实性对参与度有显著影响，但值得注意的是，在网红的动态中，涉及社交关系或强烈情感的图片或文字相对罕见（在研究的5.5万条帖子中，只有9%提到了社交关系，4%展示了正面情绪，而只有0.7%表达了负面情绪）。这些帖子的稀缺性本身也可能推动了参与度的增长——如果网红经常发布关于家庭或负面情绪的内容，那也有可能会改变粉丝与这些帖子互动的方式。
Additionally, while authenticity seemed to have significant impacts on engagement in our study, it’s important to note that images or text about social ties or strong emotions were relatively rare in influencers’ feeds (only 9% of the 55,000 posts studied referred to social ties, 4% showed positive emotions and only 0.7% expressed negativity). The rarity of these posts could also drive engagement — if influencers post constantly about their families or negative emotions, it could potentially change how followers engage with these posts.
. . .
总之，我们发现了令人信服的证据，说明了“真实性”是网红影响力的关键组成部分。粉丝重视网红的真诚，无论是分享重要的人物，还是表达他们的不满。如果某件事对网红来说重要，那么它可能也会对他们的粉丝产生影响。希望增加粉丝参与度的网红或营销人员应探索，如何将更多观众带入“私密空间”，并向这些粉丝展示自己真实的一面——毕竟，网红的独特见解、观点、个性和兴趣，可能正是用户最初决定关注他们的原因。
Overall, we find compelling evidence that authenticity is a key component of an influencer’s influence. Followers value authentic disclosures from influencers, whether that’s sharing about someone important or venting about something that upsets them. If it is important to an influencer, it’s likely to make an impact with their followers. Influencers or marketers looking to increase engagement should explore ways to bring audiences into their confidences, granting them views of their authentic selves — after all, it’s likely an influencer’s special insight, opinions, traits, and interests that caused a user to decide to follow along in the first place.
郑在延是莱斯大学琼斯商学院的杰出助理教授。她在哥伦比亚大学商学院获得博士学位。她的研究重点是数字营销、新兴技术、消费者参与社交媒体和AI驱动的营销，包括YouTube、ChatGPT和NFT市场等平台。阿杰·卡尔拉是莱斯大学琼斯商学院的营销学教授。他目前的研究兴趣包括家庭关联如何影响消费者认知。他的研究被《纽约时报》《经济学家》《华盛顿邮报》《福克斯新闻》等多家媒体引用。
