The Influencer Economy: Exploring the Work of Social Media Cultural Production

Social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have created a new group of workers who are commonly referred to as ‘influencers’, ‘content creators’, or ‘creators’ . These terms have a loose connotation and generally refer to people with a large number of followers/subscribers who engage in digital cultural production on social medial platforms and can mobilize their audience’s attention to generate income. It is estimated that the influencer marketing industry, marketing based on the contents created by influencers on social media, will grow to be worth up to $15 billion by 2022 compared to $8 billion in 2019 (Geyser, 2019). Leading corporations are increasingly incorporating influencer marketing in their budget; Estée Lauder, for example, announced that the company is committing to spend 75% of its marketing budget towards influencer marketing (Gerdeman, 2019). While this growth has implications for the organization of work and the experiences of workers, most research in this area is conducted by scholars of media and communication studies (e.g., Baym, 2018; Duffy, 2017; Marwick & Boyd, 2011) and management and organizational scholarship on the topic is scarce. More research is needed in order to understand the nature of this work, the experiences of workers, and the role of different social identities such as those based on gender or race in this market. The aim of this symposium is to initiate a conversation about studying social media cultural production and the influencer economy in management and organization studies. The dialogue will focus on questions concerning theory, methods, and future directions. This symposium will provide conceptual depth in terms of philosophical underpinnings for digitally-mediated cultural production, and will explore theoretical frameworks and methodological tools most suitable for studying social media content creators.