Picture scrolling through Facebook and stopping on a short video from a fashion blogger you follow. She is wearing a handwoven dress, laughing, and showing how the fabric moves. Within seconds you have liked the post, tapped to read more about the brand, and maybe even tagged a friend. What is it about that clip that pulled you in? Was it the useful product details, the entertainment, or the simple sense that you trust her?
A study published in the Journal of Contemporary Marketing Science set out to answer that question for one specific group: millennials in Bangladesh who follow fashion and beauty micro-influencers on Facebook brand pages. The researchers wanted to know which qualities of an influencer’s posts actually move followers to engage, and what connects those qualities to the act of liking, commenting, and sharing.
The question behind the research
The study was conducted by Mollika Ghosh of Bangladesh Open University and ABM Shahidul Islam of the University of Dhaka. They point out that influencer marketing research has tended to cluster in Western and developed countries, and has often focused on whether influencers can drive people to buy things. Less attention has gone to a different outcome: engagement, meaning the everyday actions of liking, commenting, sharing, and tagging that happen on a brand page.
The authors also note that earlier studies usually examined influencer traits one model at a time. Some looked at the entertainment and information value of ads. Others looked at credibility, which includes how trustworthy and knowledgeable a source seems. Ghosh and Islam wanted to combine these ideas into a single picture and add one more piece: the relationship a follower feels toward the influencer.
That relationship has a name in the research, “parasocial interaction.” It describes the one-sided sense of closeness a person develops toward a media figure they follow, almost as if the influencer were a friend, even though the influencer does not personally know them. The researchers treated this feeling of closeness as the link that might explain why certain content characteristics lead to engagement.
How the study worked
The team focused on micro-influencers, who they define as content creators with a relatively small following, in this case between roughly 5,000 and 10,000 followers. Such creators are often seen by their audiences as “someone like me” rather than a distant celebrity, which can make their recommendations feel more personal.
The researchers built an online survey using a five-point agreement scale and measured five things: the entertainment value of influencer content, its informativeness, the influencer’s trustworthiness, the follower’s sense of parasocial closeness, and consumer engagement. Each was measured with five questions drawn from previously validated scales.
To make sure respondents fit the study, the survey included screening questions asking whether participants followed fashion and beauty influencers on Facebook brand pages, whether those influencers had between 5,000 and 10,000 followers, and whether the respondent’s age fit the millennial range. The survey ran from July to December 2023 and was distributed through Messenger, email, and WhatsApp. After removing invalid and outlier responses, the researchers analyzed 252 completed surveys. Most respondents were women, most were in their twenties, and many were university graduates working in private-sector jobs in Dhaka.
Participants were following influencers who promote locally made Bangladeshi products, including handloom clothing such as Jamdani and Khadi, handmade bags and jewelry, and herbal beauty items. The researchers analyzed the data using a method called structural equation modeling, which lets them test how several variables relate to one another at the same time.
What the analysis found
All seven of the study’s predictions held up. Each of the three content characteristics was linked to higher engagement, both directly and through the feeling of closeness. But the size of those links varied in ways the researchers found worth highlighting.
The strongest relationship in the entire model was between parasocial closeness and engagement. In plain terms, the more a follower felt a sense of connection with the influencer, the more likely they were to engage with the content. This connection acted as a kind of bridge, carrying the effect of the content characteristics through to engagement.
Among the three content qualities, entertainment value had the largest links. When followers found an influencer’s posts amusing, enjoyable, and pleasing, they were more likely both to feel close to the influencer and to engage directly with the content. The researchers describe entertaining content, in the form of reels, stories, short videos, and live videos, as a stronger driver than lengthy text-based posts.
Trustworthiness came next. When followers saw the influencer as honest, reliable, and genuine, that perception was associated with both a stronger sense of closeness and more engagement. The authors note that trustworthiness has often been studied as something that drives purchase intentions, but here it shows up as something that feeds the relationship and the engagement that follows.
Informativeness, meaning whether the content offered useful product details like features, price, and how to use an item, had the weakest links of the three. It still mattered, but less than entertainment or trust. The researchers offer a possible explanation: influencers often post paid and exaggerated sponsored information, and followers may interpret that kind of content with some skepticism, which can dampen its effect on engagement.
How the researchers interpret the pattern
Ghosh and Islam read these results as evidence that, on Facebook brand pages, the feeling of closeness between follower and influencer does much of the work in turning content into engagement. They argue that fun and authenticity tend to fuel that closeness more reliably than straightforward product information does.
The authors connect this to the idea that millennials voluntarily follow influencers they enjoy and believe, and that this relationship extends beyond any single purchase. They quote earlier work describing the underlying process as a form of “internal identification,” in which followers see something of themselves in the influencer.
Practical takeaways and caveats
For brand managers and marketers, the study suggests a few orientations. The researchers advise treating the influencer relationship as something to nurture rather than ignore, since the sense of closeness was so closely tied to engagement. They recommend content in formats like short “how to” videos, reels, and photos, and they encourage influencers to reply to follower comments, which followers may experience as direct communication.
The authors also suggest that influencers show genuine product details, disclose brand partnerships, and avoid fake or exaggerated claims, since trustworthiness was linked to stronger engagement. For the Bangladeshi context specifically, they point to ethnic, handmade clothing as a way to give followers an authentic experience.
Several limits are worth keeping in mind. This is an observational survey, so it describes associations rather than proving that one thing causes another. The sample was drawn from a single city, Dhaka, leaned heavily female, and focused on one product category and one platform. The researchers used purposive sampling rather than a random sample, partly because no published lists of local fashion influencers and their followers exist.
The authors suggest that future work could compare other generations, such as Generation Z, test different ad formats, examine whether sponsorship is disclosed, and use longer-term or experimental designs to get closer to questions of cause and effect. For now, the study offers a snapshot of why, for one group of young consumers, a sense of connection and a dose of entertainment may matter more than a list of product facts.
