HOW LANGUAGE AROUSAL SHAPES RESPONSES TO INFLUENCERSPONSORED CONTENT

Influencer marketing has become big business. But while influencers have the potential to diffuse marketing messages and drive sales, some posts get lots of engagement, while others do not. Could a subtle change in language boost engagement? This work investigates how language arousal in micro versus macro influencers’ sponsored posts can shape engagement. Four studies, combining a text analysis of thousands of influencer’s social media posts and controlled experiments, demonstrate that a more aroused language increases engagement for micro influencers, while it decreases engagement for macro influencers. This effect occurs because a more aroused language boosts (reduces) feelings of interpersonal closeness between micro (macro) influencers and their audience, which makes the influencers seem more (less) credible. These findings deepen the understanding of how language arousal and influencer type shape consumer behavior, reveal a psychological mechanism through which language arousal affects consumer perceptions, and provide actionable insights for composing more effective social media content.