YouTube Influencers Fostering Audience Engagement Through Parasocial Relationships

As the growing popularity of lifestyle YouTube influencers risks the possibility of over-saturation of sponsored content on YouTube, brands should determine the effectiveness of influencers and identify the characteristics of lifestyle YouTube influencers to make sponsored content successful. Drawing upon parasocial relationship theory, this study incorporates match-up hypothesis and source credibility theories to determine characteristics of lifestyle YouTube influencers and their content that increase their audience engagement and makes social media influencer marketing effective. Using the content analysis of lifestyle YouTube influencers, this study reveals that micro-influencers have a higher engagement with their audience through parasocial relationships than mega and macro-influencers.