From Expertise to Audience

Although many studies have examined social status in offline contexts, the combined influence of digital metrics—such as the number of followers a person has—and traditional cues, such as expertise on online status perceptions, remains underexplored. Drawing on the stereotype content model, this study investigated how expertise and number of followers jointly affect perceived social status, dominance, and warmth across both real-life and social media contexts. The findings show that high expertise and a large number of followers significantly boost perceptions of status and dominance yet have no meaningful impact on warmth. These results underscore the interplay between digital and traditional status cues and offer practical insights for personal branding, influencer marketing, and social media platform design.