Influencer marketing for the past decade has proven to have a powerful voice for brands in the age of digital marketing. The role of influencer(s) continues to have the ability to motivate social attitudes and behavior within their online community towards the brand(s) endorsed by the influencer. The communities built by these social media influencers continue to gain social acceptance with their authentic voices and aspirational content. There has been much research on the effectiveness of social media influencers for brands the past decade, and in this research, we will look towards virtual influencers (VIs), which are not human but are digital recreations with levels of human likeness. In our study, we want to get a better understanding of whether VIs are capable of achieving comparable success to the traditional influencer, as well as the advantages and shortcomings of both types of influencers hold.

ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS
 INTRODUCING VIRTUAL INFLUENCERS
 MEASURING INFLUENCER ON SHARING AND BEHAVIOR
 CONCLUSION

• Wendy Bendoni(Woodbury University, USA)
• Faina Danielian(Woodbury University, USA)