Untangling influence: The effect of follower-followee comparison on social media engagement

Social media platforms and marketers are keen on identifying truly influential creators. Number of followers (i.e., those who follow creators) and number of followees (i.e., those who are followed by creators) serve as cues to infer creators' influence. However, a cue of creators' actual influence is under-addressed and its effect on social media engagement remains to be explored. This research fills the gap in the literature by investigating how the cue of creators' actual influence (i.e., follower-followee comparison) may affect followers' engagement behavior. The study further examines the moderation effects of media-, topic-, and creator-related factors. The present work leverages a novel dataset provided by NetEase Cloud Music. The study employs a zero-inflated negative binomial model to perform the empirical analysis. Drawing on social influence theory, our work demonstrates a positive association between follower-followee comparison and engagement. The effect is moderated by media type, topic competitive intensity, and creator tenure. This research contributes to the extant literature by linking creators' actual influence with followers' engagement behavior. The present study proposes a novel cue, which adds to the literature on cue utilization in the digital environment. Further, this research expands the literature on creators’ characteristics through introducing a new moderator from a dynamic perspective. Finally, the study conducts a comprehensive analysis by integrating two distinct types of contextual factors. Our findings offer actionable managerial implications for creators, marketers, and social media platforms.