Abstract Influencer marketing has become big business. But while influencers have the potential to spread marketing messages and drive purchase, some posts get lots of engagement and boost sales, while others do not. What makes some posts more impactful? This work examines how sensory language (e.g., words like “crumble” and “juicy” that engage the senses) shapes consumer responses to influencer-sponsored content. A multimethod investigation, combining controlled experiments with automated text, image, and video analysis of thousands of sponsored social media posts, demonstrates that sensory language increases engagement and willingness to buy the sponsored product. Furthermore, the studies illustrate that these effects are driven by perceived authenticity. Sensory language leads consumers to infer that influencers actually use the product they are endorsing, which increases perceived authenticity, and thus engagement and purchase. These findings shed light on how language shapes responses to influencer-sponsored content, deepen understanding of the drivers of authenticity, and suggest how to develop more impactful social media campaigns.

From salespeople and entrepreneurs to politicians and influencers, marketplace actors often communicate with their hands. Yet despite how integral these movements are to communication, little work in marketing has examined their effects. Might moving one's hands while speaking increase persuasion? And if so, what types of movements are more impactful, and why? A multimethod investigation, including automated video analysis of thousands of presentations, application of a large multimodal model on almost 200,000 video segments, and preregistered controlled experiments, demonstrates that hand movement can boost impact. Further, the results demonstrate that certain hand gestures (i.e., illustrators) are particularly impactful. By making content easier to understand, illustrators make speakers seem more competent, which increases persuasion. Taken together, these findings shed light on hand movement's impact, deepen understanding around nonverbal communication, and highlight how automated video analysis and multimodal models can provide insights into consumer behavior.

Influencer marketing is a popular strategy to connect with consumers. However, influencers’ use of overly high-arousal language in promoting products (e.g., “it's totally AMAZING!”) has raised questions about their true motivations. This article investigates how high-arousal language in micro- versus macro-influencers’ sponsored posts might shape engagement. A multimethod approach, combining automated text, image, video, and audio analyses of thousands of Instagram and TikTok posts with controlled experiments, demonstrates that high-arousal language increases engagement with micro-influencers, but it decreases engagement with macro-influencers, seemingly because it makes micro- (macro-) influencers appear more (less) trustworthy. Yet the negative effect of arousal for macro-influencers can be mitigated if their posts provide counterbalanced valence (both positive and negative assessments) or if they indicate an informative, rather than commercial, goal. These findings deepen understanding of how language arousal shapes consumer responses, reveal a psychological mechanism through which language arousal affects perceptions, and provide actionable insights for crafting more effective social media content.