Today’s episode is a special one. It’s a cross-collaboration with Beyond the Degree, the podcast from Haile Graduate Programs — so if you like hearing how executives and researchers actually make decisions, that show belongs in your feed too.

My guest is Dr. Jose Saavedra Torres, my next-door neighbor at Haile College of Business and one of my closest collaborators on campus. Jose studies why we trust the people who sell to us online, and every time you buy something because someone on your phone told you to, you’re making an economic decision without realizing it. That’s what we unpacked on the show.

Here’s the distinction Jose kept coming back to, and it’s the one most people get wrong. Credibility is about knowledge — can I trust this person’s expertise? Authenticity is about honesty — is this person being true to their own values?

Those two things sound similar. They’re not. Marketers have been optimizing for credibility for years. Jose’s research says authenticity is the bigger lever.

The reason authenticity moves people is something called a parasocial relationship — a one-sided bond where you feel like you know someone who has no idea you exist. Jose put it well: Cristiano Ronaldo has 900 million followers who feel like his buddies. He doesn’t know a single one of them.

This changes the actual mechanics of a purchase. Normally you search, compare, then decide. When an influencer you trust recommends something, you skip straight to the decision — your brain already did the research for you, because it thinks that person is your friend. I’ve done this myself. I’ve bought books off a single video, no research, because I trusted the person recommending it. Sometimes it’s great. Sometimes it’s a total miss for my taste. That’s the trade-off of buying on trust instead of evidence.

Jose’s advice for anyone building an audience, or any brand hiring one: authenticity lives or dies on consistency. Pick almost any big influencer — Mr. Beast is his go-to example. If Mr. Beast showed up tomorrow promoting anti-aging skincare, you’d feel the mismatch immediately. There’s no story connecting who he is to what he’s selling, and that gap is exactly what triggers skepticism.

This isn’t just a hunch Jose has from watching his daughters trust an influencer he was skeptical of — though that’s literally how the research started. It’s now a peer-reviewed finding. Jose and his co-authors surveyed 504 consumers and found that influencer authenticity significantly predicts both brand engagement and parasocial relationships, and that the fit between an influencer and the product they’re pushing measurably strengthens that effect.

Banerjee, N., Rawal, M., Saavedra Torres, J. L., & Bagherzadeh, R. (2025). Beyond the Facade: Exploring the Authenticity of Social Media Influencers and Its Influence on Consumer Brand Engagement and Advocacy. Journal of Promotion Management. https://doi.org/10.1080/10496491.2025.2571948

I think we’ve been asking the wrong question about influencer marketing. Everyone wants to know if an influencer is credible. The better question is whether they’re authentic — because credibility gets you a sale, authenticity gets you a customer for life. Brands chasing follower counts are optimizing for reach. Jose’s research says the money is in fit and honesty, not fame.

• Credibility vs. authenticity: credibility is expertise, authenticity is honesty — they’re not the same thing, and authenticity is the stronger driver of trust.

• Parasocial relationships change the decision process: consumers skip the research phase entirely when they trust the person recommending the product.

• Consistency protects authenticity: the moment an influencer’s endorsement doesn’t match who they are, skepticism kicks in.

• The data backs it up: read the full study — Beyond the Facade: Exploring the Authenticity of Social Media Influencers, Journal of Promotion Management (2025).