Driving Brand Engagement Through Online Social Influencers: An Empirical Investigation of Sponsored Blogging Campaigns

TLDR

Influencer marketing is widespread, but little is known about which factors drive online brand engagement across different stages of the consumer purchase funnel. The study uses real in‑market customer response data supplemented by an experiment to test these effects. Sponsored blogging boosts engagement differently by blogger expertise, content type, platform, and campaign intent—expertise raises awareness on blogs but not on Facebook, hedonic posts on Facebook increase trial, and incentives vary by platform—highlighting the complex interplay of these factors.

Abstract

Influencer marketing is prevalent in firm strategies, yet little is known about the factors that drive success of online brand engagement at different stages of the consumer purchase funnel. The findings suggest that sponsored blogging affects online engagement (e.g., posting comments, liking a brand) differently depending on blogger characteristics and blog post content, which are further moderated by social media platform type and campaign advertising intent. When a sponsored post occurs on a blog, high blogger expertise is more effective when the advertising intent is to raise awareness versus increase trial. However, source expertise fails to drive engagement when the sponsored post occurs on Facebook. When a sponsored post occurs on Facebook, posts high in hedonic content are more effective when the advertising intent is to increase trial versus raise awareness. The effectiveness of campaign incentives depends on the platform type, such that they can increase (decrease) engagement on blogs (Facebook). The empirical evidence for these findings comes from real in-market customer response data and is supplemented with data from an experiment. Taken together, the findings highlight the critical interplay of platform type, campaign intent, source, campaign incentives, and content factors in driving engagement.