---
title: "Influencer marketing research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “influencer marketing” appeared in 347 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in marketing (139), management (96) and information systems (52)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/influencer-marketing
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/influencer-marketing.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “influencer marketing” appeared in 347 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in marketing (139), management (96) and information systems (52). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “influencer marketing”

Research on “influencer marketing” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “influencer marketing” appeared in 347 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in marketing (139), management (96) and information systems (52).
- 83 of them were published in 2025, against 2 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Hong Kong Polytechnic University (11), Sunway University (8) and Hainan University (7).
- The journals publishing most of them were Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services (71), Journal of Business Research (49) and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (13).
- The most-cited of them is “Authenticity under threat: When social media influencers need to go beyond self-presentation” (Journal of Business Research, 2018), with 1,202 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 13 | 11 | 28 | 34 | 36 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 14 | 12 | 25 | 15 | 15 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 14 | 6 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 4 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 4 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 2 | 3 | 6 | 19 | 17 | 38 | 39 | 74 | 83 | 66 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 71 |
| 2 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 49 |
| 3 | [Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-the-academy-of-marketing-science.md) | 13 |
| 4 | [Electronic Commerce Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/electronic-commerce-research.md) | 8 |
| 5 | [Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/tourism-management.md) | 7 |
| 6 | [Information & Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-management.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [International Journal of Research in Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-research-in-marketing.md) | 6 |
| 8 | [Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-hospitality-and-tourism-management.md) | 6 |
| 9 | [Electronic Commerce Research and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/electronic-commerce-research-and-applications.md) | 6 |
| 10 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 5 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 11 |
| 2 | [Sunway University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sunway-university.md) | 8 |
| 3 | [Hainan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hainan-university.md) | 7 |
| 4 | Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus | 6 |
| 5 | [Swinburne University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/swinburne-university-of-technology.md) | 5 |
| 6 | UCSI University | 5 |
| 7 | [Beihang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beihang-university.md) | 4 |
| 8 | [City University of Macau](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/city-university-of-macau.md) | 4 |
| 9 | [Jinan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/jinan-university.md) | 4 |
| 10 | [Nankai University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nankai-university.md) | 4 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 106 |
| 2 | United States | 49 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 34 |
| 4 | Australia | 22 |
| 5 | India | 22 |
| 6 | Hong Kong | 18 |
| 7 | Malaysia | 16 |
| 8 | Italy | 12 |
| 9 | Canada | 11 |
| 10 | South Korea | 11 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | virtual influencers | 62 |
| 2 | social media influencers | 51 |
| 3 | [purchase intention](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/purchase-intention.md) | 45 |
| 4 | [customer engagement](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/customer-engagement.md) | 27 |
| 5 | [consumer behavior](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/consumer-behavior.md) | 19 |
| 6 | social media marketing | 19 |
| 7 | human influencers | 17 |
| 8 | authenticity | 15 |
| 9 | Instagram | 14 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,202 | 12.1 | [Authenticity under threat: When social media influencers need to go beyond self-presentation](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.07.008) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2018-07-18 | Alice Audrezet, Gwarlann Caffier de Kerviler, Julie Guidry Moulard |
| 2 | 943 | 11.9 | [More than meets the eye: The functional components underlying influencer marketing](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2020.03.003) | [Business Horizons](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/business-horizons.md) | 2020-03-28 | Colin Campbell, Justine Rapp Farrell |
| 3 | 700 | 9.0 | [Influencer marketing: Social media influencers as human brands attaching to followers and yielding positive marketing results by fulfilling needs](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102133) | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 2020-04-30 | Chung-Wha Chloe Ki, Leslie M. Cuevas, Sze Man Chong et al. |
| 4 | 694 | 10.6 | [Trust me, trust me not: A nuanced view of influencer marketing on social media](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.05.024) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2021-05-29 | Do Yeon Kim, Hye-Young Kim |
| 5 | 668 | 10.1 | [Understanding influencer marketing: The role of congruence between influencers, products and consumers](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.03.067) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2021-04-22 | Daniel Belanche, Luis V. Casaló, Marta Flavián et al. |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Who sets the price in live-streaming commerce?](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/price-setting-in-live-streaming-commerce.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “influencer marketing”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/influencer-marketing

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-influencer-marketing,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “influencer marketing”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/influencer-marketing}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).