246. Finding Goldilocks Influencers: How Follower Count Drives Engagement.
Alexander Bleier, Simone Wies and Alexander Edeling
December 29, 2022
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Influencers are very important to marketers, but how to assess the pros and cons of different follower counts is a topic of great discussion.
What is the optimal number of followers for an influencer to have?
Today we’re speaking with Alexander Bleier, Alexander Edeling and Simone Wies. Our conversation discusses their research and explores the answers to this question and more.
Topics include:
The optimal number of followers for an influencer, if you’re working with them for an Instagram post or story.
Which operational choices might change this ‘goldilocks’ inflection point – and influence marketers’ ROI.
If it is possible to extrapolate these results to other platforms.
Click here for the Research Article
Alexander Bleier is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Prior to joining the Frankfurt School in July 2018, he was a faculty member at Boston College. Alex received his Ph.D. from the University of Cologne. Before entering academia, he gained practical experience with two top-management consultancies and a major retail and banking system provider in Germany as well as the German-Argentine Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Alex’s primary research interests lie at the intersection of digital marketing, customer relationship management, and consumer decision-making. A particular focus concerns the investigation of marketing communication and personalization strategies. His work has appeared in leading academic and practitioner journals such as Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Retailing, Harvard Business Review, and Harvard Business Manager.
Alexander Edeling joined KU Leuven, one of the oldest (founded in 1425) European universities as an Associate Professor of Marketing in 2021. Before that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Boston University (as a visiting researcher) and the University of Cologne, Germany, where he had obtained his doctoral degree in 2016. He works on quantitative marketing questions relating to the interface between marketing and finance as well as social media and influencer marketing. He is an alumnus of the University of Mannheim, Germany, and has worked for or cooperated with companies in automobile, telecommunication, social media, pharma, railway, and rail infrastructure. He likes tennis, running, skiing, history and traveling.
Simone Wies is Professor of Marketing Strategy & Performance at Goethe University Frankfurt. Prior to her appointment, she held the SAFE Junior Professorship for Marketing and Finance at the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE and a Post-Doctoral research position in Marketing at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. She received her M.Sc. in Marketing and Finance and Ph.D. in Finance from Maastricht University. Simone Wies’ research centers on the interactions among a firm’s marketing strategies, financing choices, and performance implications. Her work has been published in major marketing outlets such as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Marketing Science. She teaches in the Marketing Analytics M.Sc. program and Goethe Business School MBA program, is Director of the B.Sc. Marketing Track, and Director of the Ph.D. Marketing Track of the Graduate School of Economics, Finance, and Management.
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Alexander Bleier
Alexander Edeling
Simone Weis