The Power of Word Choice in Influencer Marketing

Be Consistent, Be Yourself The hero image with this story was shot by Canva.com. Professor Berger has watched and studied the evolution of word-of-mouth marketing – from telling a friend about your favorite shampoo, to social media influencer dominance. “In the early 2010s, people were starting to realize that word of mouth is much more […]

Be Consistent, Be Yourself
The hero image with this story was shot by Canva.com.
Professor Berger has watched and studied the evolution of word-of-mouth marketing – from telling a friend about your favorite shampoo, to social media influencer dominance. “In the early 2010s, people were starting to realize that word of mouth is much more impactful than traditional advertising (selling products on TV and radio). We trust it much more because it feels like it comes from a peer rather than a a recent Knowledge@Wharton podcast. “Companies and organizations have spent the last decade and a half thinking, ‘Well, word of mouth is really valuable. How do we get it?’ Companies who were used to that traditional advertising model said, ‘I’m used to buying attention for my stuff. Is there a way to do that?’ That started the influencer movement. It’s in some sense a new type of paid media…Now I pay an “influencer,” an online individual who has some sort of following, to talk about my product, my here to listen to the full interview.

man in light blue button-down shirt and dark blue blazer leaning against a wall and smiling. — Associate professor of marketing, Jonah Berger.
Photo: Knowledge@Wharton

As a professor of interview on the Side Hustle Pro podcast. “I think what makes people stand out is consistency and being themselves. The only thing that really will pop off is when you bring something new to the table. And usually, it’s just you and being yourself. If you’re too afraid to do that, you’ll stay stagnant.” Brands, she has said, typically seek influencers who have a strong, authentic relationship with their audience and can deliver content that aligns with the brand’s values and objectives.
During the research process, Berger and his colleagues dug into the language that influencers use on social media. They studied a large data set of hundreds of different influencers posting thousands of pieces of content across multiple different platforms and, controlling for different factors like number of followers and brands they were working with, studied whether sensory words had a bigger impact. “In a variety of different domains, we found that using sensory language rather than this other type of language had an impact,” noted Berger. “In TikTok, for example, just one additional sensory word in a video was associated with 11,000 additional likes and comments.”