A bibliometric analysis of virtual influencers as a trend in digital marketing

With the development of digital technology, virtual influencers are becoming an important part of a rapidly growing trend in digital marketing. The purpose of this paper, based on the conducted desk research, is to analyze publications related to virtual influencers based on data obtained from the WoS database. Using standard bibliometric indicators, this paper presents research productivity, paper and source type, the language of publications, distribution of publications by countries, as well as the most active organizations, authors, keywords, and citation analysis. The results show that the concept of virtual influencers began to be researched in 2020, but also that in 2023, a significant increase in the scientific literature was recorded. This research is one of the few attempts to analyse virtual influencers, which is certainly one of the future trends, using bibliometric analysis based on previously published articles, and the first one using the VOSviewer software for visualization of results.