In the past, we mainly searched for information about brands, while brands in turn looked for ways to reach us. Today, we increasingly come across people showing us how they experience a brand or product. And they find us too: through TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms.
We see creators use, test and review products. Before choosing a restaurant, we watch videos to see what others recommend or what the place looks like ‘in real life’. And when an influencer is enthusiastic about a skincare product, that alone can be enough to make us want to try it ourselves.
This raises an interesting question: why do we listen to someone we have never even met? And perhaps even more importantly for marketers: why can the same influencer feel highly credible for one brand, while a collaboration with another brand feels completely wrong?
When you don’t know what to choose, you look at what others do
Imagine you are walking through a city or travelling abroad and looking for a good restaurant. One restaurant is almost empty, while the terrace next door is completely full. Without having tasted the food, that difference already tells you something. There must be a reason so many people chose that particular restaurant, right? The behaviour of others can influence our own decisions.
This principle is much older than TikTok or Instagram. In everyday language, people may quickly refer to this as herd behaviour, but in science it falls more broadly under social influence: people use the behaviour and choices of others as a source of information, especially when they are unsure what the best choice is.
Social media did not invent this mechanism, but it has massively scaled it. Where you might once have asked a friend which television she would buy, you can now see within minutes which shoes dozens of runners wear, which beauty products popular creators use or which hotels travellers recommend. The behaviour and experiences of others have therefore become an almost constant source of information.
Why can a stranger still feel familiar?
With influencers, it is not only about what someone says about a product, but also about who is saying it. When you regularly follow the same creator, you gradually see more and more of that person: their preferences, routines, opinions and daily life. As a result, someone we do not actually know in real life can still begin to feel familiar.
In science, this kind of one-sided bond is called a parasocial relationship. The concept dates back to the 1950s and describes the feeling of having a personal connection with a media personality, even though that person does not know the viewer personally. Social media has added a new dimension to this. Creators appear frequently, share personal experiences and speak directly to their audiences. This can create the feeling that we genuinely know someone, even though there is no actual reciprocal relationship.
This is also highly relevant for marketers. Research by Masuda et al. (2022) found that a stronger parasocial relationship with an influencer was associated with higher purchase intention for products recommended by that influencer. Interestingly, in their study, this relationship was more strongly associated with purchase intention than the influencer’s perceived expertise and trustworthiness.
Apparently, the feeling that we know someone can sometimes matter more than how knowledgeable or reliable we think that person is.
Why do we listen to one person but not another?
A parasocial relationship can therefore play a role in an influencer’s persuasive power, but familiarity alone is not enough. Someone may appear in your feed every day and still have very little influence on what you buy.
Research shows that other factors also matter, including authenticity, informational value and the perceived similaritybetween influencer and follower. When people feel that a creator shares similar interests, values or experiences, that person’s advice may feel more relevant.
Expertise and credibility also matter. An influencer who has been creating running content for years, for example, starts from a different position when reviewing running shoes than someone who normally posts only about interior design. Not because the first person is automatically right, but because the background of the source influences how we evaluate a recommendation. This makes influencer marketing more complex than follower count alone might suggest. One million followers tells you something about potential reach, but very little about how persuasive a recommendation will actually be. Recent meta-analyses therefore show that influencer effectiveness is not determined by one single characteristic, but by a combination of factors relating to the influencer, the content and the relationship with the audience.
Why doesn’t the same influencer work for every brand?
There is another important element: the brand itself. Imagine a well-known beauty creator enthusiastically talking about a new make-up line. That feels logical. But if the same person suddenly starts promoting running shoes despite having no history of sports-related content, the collaboration may immediately feel much less natural.
The person is the same, the reach is the same and perhaps the message is equally enthusiastic. Yet the combination changes. Research into influencer marketing shows that the fit between the influencer and the brand or product can affect how credible and persuasive a collaboration is perceived to be. When the partnership feels consistent with the person’s expertise or image, it can strengthen the message. A combination that feels forced can instead create doubt about why that person is recommending the product in the first place.
Choosing an influencer is therefore about more than reach alone. An influencer also brings a certain level of expertise, personality, style and reputation. The brand is then interpreted within that context.
The relevant question is therefore not only whether someone reaches a large audience, but also whether that person fits with what the brand wants to represent.
One million followers does not equal one million influenced consumers
For marketers, followers, views and likes are attractive metrics because they are easy to see. But reach and influence are not the same thing. The fact that someone sees a message tells us very little about how persuasive that message is or what the collaboration ultimately does to the perception of the brand.
The science behind influencer marketing shows that several factors come together: the relationship followers experience with an influencer, the credibility of the source, the extent to which people identify with that person and the fit between the influencer and the brand.
A large audience can certainly be valuable, but reach tells only part of the story.
For brands, the next interesting question is what such a collaboration does to the associations surrounding the brand. After all, an influencer already carries a certain image, set of characteristics and expectations. When a brand connects itself to that person, those associations can begin to shape how the brand itself is perceived.
A collaboration may, for example, contribute to perceptions of expertise, accessibility or attractiveness. But it can also create associations that do not fit the intended positioning at all.
These effects are not always easy to capture through explicit questioning. Someone may like or trust an influencer without being able to explain exactly what the combination of that influencer and a brand evokes.
At Neurensics, we therefore do not only examine what people say, but also which implicit associations and emotional responses arise around a brand. This helps reveal whether a collaboration genuinely contributes to the desired brand perception, or whether it evokes something very different from what was intended.
One million followers may tell you how many people someone can potentially reach. For a brand, it is at least as important to understand what meaning that person adds to the brand.
