1.
Understanding the strategies
of influencer businesses
– the case of Finland
Conference presentation at the Promotional media workshop, Department of Media Studies,
Stockholm University in Stockholm, December 1-2, 2022 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31513.29282.
Tuija Aalto PhD. Candidate (Doctor of Social Sciences), University of Tampere
Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences / Journalism
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A new industry
● The Influencer industry (Abidin et al 2020)
emerged during the 2010’s, enabled by social
media platform affordances.
● Influencing as media business practice per se
vs. celebrities relating to fans on social media
(relational work, see Baym, 2015). Connection to
TV and film industries’ audience building.

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● Platformisation, the rise of the platform as the
dominant infrastructural and/or economic model in
media, electronic communications and ICT
sectors (Evens & Donders 2018)
● Platformisation of cultural production
(Poell et al 2021)
○ Institutional aspects
(markets, infrastructure and governance)
○ cultural practices
(labour, creative, and democratic practices).

4.
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The main types of influencer industry actors
● Cultural intermediaries
○ mediating between advertisers, platforms and
influencers: multi-channel-networks or MCN’s,
(in Finland since 2014); influencer agencies
● Cultural producers
○ new companies founded by social media
content creators and influencers
○ Established media companies.

5.
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Method: will interview influencers and influencer
agency managers and apply qualitative content
analysis to the interview transcriptions.
● A total of 25-30 semi structured interviews
● Analysis of the interviews with the grounded
theory approach first, themes emerging from the
data.

6.
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The relationships between influencers and
broadcasters show up most prominently in
my preliminary findings
● As the influencers and creators have
demonstrated their ability to produce audiences,
they are an interesting resource to media
companies as gatekeepers to young audiences

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Tentative preliminary findings
● Traditional broadcasters and influencers engage
in the exchange of visibility in ways that benefit
both:
○ Traditional media companies gain access to
the relational capital of influencers,
○ Influencers may be able to raise their prices
● Influencers may gain entry to the IPR-based,
platform independent businesses of TV and
VOD.

8.
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The perceived power of social media creators or
influencers to “move audiences” has opened some of
them opportunities to
● be cast as guests and hosts of TV or radio shows
on broadcast channels
● enter the IPR industries (producing records,
books, TV/VOD series titles or exclusive podcast
deals)
I propose to call this power “relational capital”.

9.
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The relationships between influencers and influencer
agencies
● it seems that the influencers have strong
negotiation power
● the influencer agencies have re-invented their
business models
○ strategic consulting for brands
○ project-based relationships with influencers.

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○ To summarise, cultural producers, influencers
and broadcasters benefit from promotional
collaboration
○ while the cultural intermediaries find
themselves in rather precarious position and
must constantly renew themselves.

11.
tuija.aalto@tuni.fi
Twitter: @Tuija