How social media influencer makes popular marketing videos? An empirical analysis from the multimodal data

The growing prominence of Social Media Influencers (SMIs) underscores the imperative of understanding the mechanisms underlying video design elements. Addressing the paucity of research on interactions between multimodal components, this study employs an expanded signaling theory framework. We conduct a quantitative analysis of a multimodal SMI video dataset, supplemented by semi-structured interviews, to systematically examine the impact of cover and audio features on SMI performance while exploring the moderating role of danmaku volume. Both quantitative and qualitative findings confirm significant interactions among multimodal elements. This research advances methodological integration by unifying multimodal data within a single analytical model, thereby making substantial contributions to the study of multimodal interactions. Theoretically, it extends signaling theory through the lens of multi-signal interactions and qualitatively elucidates the operational mechanisms of these elements. Practically, it provides actionable insights for key stakeholders in the online video ecosystem, holding significant theoretical and managerial implications for strategic decision-making in online video dissemination.