Shall brands create their own virtual influencers? A comprehensive study of 33 virtual influencers on Instagram

Abstract Increasing customer-brand engagement on social media has been a focus of brand success for many years. Recently, virtual influencers have gained popularity as a new way for brands to increase customer engagement, but there has been limited analysis of this new phenomenon. As such, by investigating 33 virtual influencers on Instagram, this study explored whether brands should create or collaborate with virtual influencers and how they can increase customer-brand engagement. The findings reveal that non-branded virtual influencers are more engaged than branded virtual influencers. Also, virtual influencers’ communication strategies to increase customer-brand engagement were further discussed in the study to develop a typology of virtual influencers. Thus, this study fills a theoretical gap in the limited analysis of virtual influencers in customer-brand engagement, and suggests that brands collaborate with virtual influencers rather than creating their own virtual influencers in practice.