Understanding the strategies of influencer businesses – the case of Finland

Influencers and social media content creators represent a growing part of the Finnish creative industry workforce.

Influencers and social media content creators, and new kinds of intermediary companies positioned between influencers, advertisers and platforms, make up a growing part of the Finnish creative industry.

The new media industry companies have been able to benefit from the emergence of platforms, showing growing revenues, while the incumbent media businesses have suffered from the loss of ad revenue for the first two decades of the new millennia.

While influencer marketing is a fast-growing sub-category of social media marketing, not much is known within media studies of the strategies of influencer industry actors. My dissertation will elucidate that sector of media industry.

I’m still in the process of mapping the fields of media scholarship to be able to confidently position my research in it. I presented a conference paper in a recent Promotional media industries PhD workshop. My preliminary research findings suggest that influencing is an integral part of advertising and television industries, as an essential element of audience building.
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You can browse the deck on Slideshare, Academia.edu or ResearchGate.