In today’s social-media and creator economy, videos made by everyday users and influencers—so-called user-generated videos (UGVs)—are everywhere. Recent research reveals that as of June 2022, over 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute globally. (ScienceDirect) Given the enormous volume of content, creators and marketers face the question: how can my video stand out and drive engagement (likes/comments/shares) in a sea of uploads?
One intuitive tactic is: show a human face in the video. Human faces draw attention; they convey social presence, trust, and connection. In the 2025 paper by Xia Wang, Ying Ding and Ying Hu, they systematically examine how face presence in UGVs influences consumer engagement—and crucially they explore how much face presence, when to show it, and for whom this works best. (ScienceDirect)
In short: their results show that showing faces can boost engagement—but it’s not simply “more face always equals more engagement.” The effect depends on timing, proportion, and influencer characteristics (follower count).
Key findings: How, When, and Who
Let’s break down their three core questions and what they found.
1. How much face presence?
They found that there is an optimal moderate level of face presence. Specifically, videos where faces appear in around 30-40 % of the frames tend to generate the highest engagement. (ScienceDirect) Too little face presence means you lose the human-connection benefit; too much perhaps distracts or comes across as overly “talking-head” and reduces variety or novelty.
2. When to show faces?
Timing matters. Their eye-tracking study (one of the four studies in the paper) showed that showing the face early—at the beginning of the video—helps to grab attention and boost engagement, especially for influencers with lower follower counts (under ~100,000). (ScienceDirect) For influencers who are already high-profile, this “early face” benefit is less pronounced.
3. Who benefits most from face presence?
Interestingly, the benefit of face presence diminishes with increasing influencer follower count. In the dataset of 45,244 videos, the positive correlation between face presence and engagement weakened for influencers with over ~160,000 followers. (ScienceDirect) The implication: When you’re a smaller or “micro-influencer,” using your face smartly can give you a stronger boost; when you’re already large, many other factors (brand, audience size, trust) might dominate.
Why these effects? Theoretical grounding
The authors draw on several theoretical lenses to explain the findings:
- Social presence theory: The idea that a visible human (face) increases perceived “presence” or connection between creator and viewer.
- Parasocial interaction/identification: Viewers form a kind of one-sided “relationship” with the creator; seeing the face helps build that. (See research on parasocial relationships in influencer marketing). (Nature)
- Attention capture: Faces automatically draw human attention; their eye-tracking data show that early face presence increases fixations/attention, which then leads to higher engagement.
Additionally, related research (for example Li et al., 2024 on visual social presence in Chinese short-video platforms) finds that visual cues of the influencer’s face, posture, gestures increase engagement metrics (likes/comments/shares) through heightened social presence. (Atlantis Press)
Practical implications for creators and marketers
Given these findings, here are some actionable recommendations:
- If you’re a smaller creator or influencer (under ~100K followers):
- Include your face in the video, especially in the first few seconds, to grab attention.
- Aim for moderate face presence (~30-40% of frames) rather than full-frame the entire video.
- Use the face to build connection/credibility, especially if your content is tutorial, review or “authentic” style.
- If you’re a larger influencer (100K+ or especially 160K+):
- Face presence still helps, but the incremental boost is smaller; focus more on other differentiators (unique value proposition, production value, narrative, brand alignment).
- Experiment with more creative formats rather than relying solely on face presence.
- Regardless of size:
- Start your video with face presence so you “hook” the viewer quickly.
- Monitor your analytics: see how drop-off correlates with face/no-face segments.
- Consider content style: If your content is heavy on product review, behind-the-scenes or “talking to camera”, face makes sense; if it’s purely visual scenery (e.g., travel) maybe face presence is less critical.
Limitations and areas for future research
The paper acknowledges some caveats and points to future research directions:
- The dataset came from a single major UGV platform in China; cultural/platform differences may moderate the effect.
- Face presence was measured mostly quantitatively (percentage of frames); qualitative attributes (facial expressions, attractiveness, camera distance, lighting) were less explored.
- It focused on engagement (likes/comments/shares) rather than downstream effects (sales conversion, brand loyalty).
- Future work could examine live-video formats, platform differences (e.g., Instagram Reels vs YouTube vs TikTok), or interaction between face presence and other cues (voice, environment, background).
My reflections & additional thoughts
This study adds useful nuance to a commonly held idea (“put a face in your video and you’ll get more views/engagement”). Instead of “always more face”, it shows the sweet spot (30-40 %) and the importance of timing and creator size.
From a content strategy perspective, one way to interpret this is: Too much “face” may become routine or expected and may not drive incremental attention; too little may fail to tap the human connection. The early seconds of a video are crucial for hooking attention, and showing a face there helps.
Also, the diminishing returns for large influencers suggests that as you grow your audience, the “face-presence lever” becomes less effective relative to other factors (brand partnerships, storytelling, exclusivity, production). In other words, for emerging creators, face-presence is a relatively low‐cost high-impact tactic; for major creators, you may need to explore more advanced tactics.
Another thought: As audiences become more polished and selective, novelty and authenticity matter. A face that looks too “manufactured” might reduce authenticity, so creators should pair face-presence with genuine expression, interesting content, and strong value.
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