Abstract

This study examines how human and virtual influencers differ in their use of authenticity and trust-building strategies in branded social media content, and how those strategies relate to audience engagement. A quantitative content analysis coded 480 sponsored Instagram posts (240 human, 240 virtual) for eight authenticity cues and four trust strategies, alongside engagement metrics. Human influencers relied significantly more on relational authenticity cues, such as self-disclosure, behind-the-scenes content, and imperfection, whereas virtual influencers relied more on sponsorship disclosure and social proof. The two groups invested comparably in trust building overall, and trust strategies predicted engagement to a comparable degree for both influencer types, with a hierarchical regression revealing no significant moderation by influencer type. These results suggest that audiences respond to credibility signals similarly regardless of whether the source is human or virtual, although human influencers retained an overall engagement advantage. The findings carry implications for influencer marketing strategy, disclosure regulation, and the conceptualization of authenticity as a set of communicative cues.

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