How Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Impact Influencer Marketing Effectiveness

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVE In today’s digital marketing landscape, firms are increasingly leveraging social media influencers to drive consumer engagement and extend brand visibility (Campbell and Farrell, 2020). Influencer marketing has become a dominant strategy, with a growing share of advertising budgets being allocated to collaborations with online personalities (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2024). While prior research has largely focused on the impact of content characteristics (e.g., color complexity, message hedonic value; Foroughi et al., 2024; Kanuri, Hughes and Hodges, 2024) and influencer attributes (e.g., expertise, follower count; Hughes, Swaminathan and Brooks, 2019; Beichert et al., 2024) on endorsement effectiveness, a critical yet understudied dimension is how influencer messages are delivered. To fill this gap, this research aims to investigate how verbal and nonverbal aspects of message delivery affect the visibility and user engagement of influencer-sponsored content on social media platforms. Drawing from the Ecological Theory of Social Perception (McArthur and Baron, 1983), which posits that individuals perceive and interpret cues in their environment through a combination of contextual and behavioral signals, hypotheses are advanced on the role of both verbal and nonverbal cues in shaping the reception of the message. Specifically, for the verbal component, this work focuses on analyzing the valence of the message, while for the nonverbal elements the main emphasis is on the role of the influencer presence throughout the content and on proxemics (i.e., the management of space and distance during communication; Bonoma and Felder, 1977). METHODOLOGY The research involved the empirical analysis of a large dataset comprising real-world influencersponsored videos posted on Instagram, in the form of reels, and TikTok. Through image and textual analysis, verbal and nonverbal delivery features were coded and related to campaign performance, expressed by the total number of visualizations (i.e., impressions) and the level of engagement (i.e., likes and comments). With respect to the verbal component of message delivery, a key variable is represented by the valence of the message, which was measured as the emotions (e.g., positive or negative) conveyed through the posts’ descriptions. On the nonverbal side, relevant measures were the distance of the influencer from the camera and the extent of their presence throughout the video. A number of relevant covariates were also controlled, including follower count, brand category, posting time, and background setting (e.g., indoor vs. outdoor). RESULTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS The findings of this study underscore the critical role of message delivery in the effectiveness of influencer marketing. In this regard, both verbal and nonverbal cues were found to significantly influence campaign outcomes. For the verbal dimension, emotions conveyed by the posts’ caption were found to exert a significant impact on posts’ performance. Among the nonverbal elements, a particularly salient factor was the facial presence of the influencer, measured as the extent to which they appeared on screen. This variable was positively and significantly associated with higher posts impressions, supporting recent findings on face presence in social media marketing (Wang, Ding and Hu, 2025). By highlighting the role of expressive behavior and spatial dynamics in driving digital engagement, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of what makes influencer campaigns succeed. In doing so, this research advances the influencer marketing literature by integrating the analysis of the delivery dimension (the “how”) to the well-studied “what” (content) and “who” (influencer) dimensions. Moreover, these findings offer actionable insights for optimizing influencer marketing campaigns: marketers should not limit creative briefs to guidelines on the concepts to share but also include recommendations on how the message should be delivered by the endorser. REFERENCES Beichert, M. et al. (2024) ‘Revenue generation through influencer marketing’, Journal of Marketing, 88(4), pp. 40– 63. Bonoma, T.V. and Felder, L.C. (1977) ‘Nonverbal communication in marketing: Toward a communicational analysis’, Journal of Marketing Research, 14(2), pp. 169–180. Campbell, C. and Farrell, J.R. (2020) ‘More than meets the eye: The functional components underlying influencer marketing’, Business horizons, 63(4), pp. 469–479 Foroughi, B. et al. (2024) ‘Determinants of followers’ purchase intentions toward brands endorsed by social media influencers: Findings from PLS and fsQCA’, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 23(2), pp. 888–914. Hughes, C., Swaminathan, V. and Brooks, G. (2019) ‘Driving brand engagement through online social influencers: An empirical investigation of sponsored blogging campaigns’, Journal of marketing, 83(5), pp. 78–96. Influencer Marketing Hub (2024) ‘The State of Influencer Marketing 2024’. Available at: https://influencermarketinghub.com/ebooks/Influencer_Marketing_Benchmark_Report_2024.pdf. Kanuri, V.K., Hughes, C. and Hodges, B.T. (2024) ‘Standing out from the crowd: When and why color complexity in social media images increases user engagement’, International Journal of Research in Marketing, 41(2), pp. 174– 193. McArthur, L.Z. and Baron, R.M. (1983) ‘Toward an ecological theory of social perception.’, Psychological review, 90(3), p. 215. Wang, X., Ding, Y. and Hu, Y. (2025) ‘The impact of face presence in user-generated videos on consumer Engagement: Insights into How, When, and who’, International Journal of Research in Marketing