Keyword – perceived effectiveness

Attila Zoltán, Kenyeres – Zoltán, Szűts:

Is the Virtual Less Authentic?

This paper examines the credibility of human and virtual social media influencers on the basis of international publications indexed in the SCOPUS database presenting relevant empirical research and published between 2020 and 2025. The vast majority of the 73 studies that meet the criteria and are included in the analysis suggest that human influencers are either clearly or rather more credible than their virtual counterparts. However, another significant group of publications argues that it is impossible to make a clear distinction between human and virtual influencers on the basis of their credibility, because the perceived credibility of influencers is determined by the product/service, the context, the preferences and personal characteristics of the recipient as well as other features. Thus, in some circumstances, the human influencer is more credible, while in others the virtual is. These circumstances are also discussed in this paper.

Keywords: human influencer, perceived authenticity, perceived effectiveness, social media, virtual influencer