Publisher's Synopsis
In 2019 it was estimated that over 3.4 billion people actively used social media throughout the globe (Kaur et al., 2021) with Instagram alone having more than 1 billion users (Belanche et al., 2021). Social media sites like Instagram, Discord, TikTok, Twitter, Meta (Facebook), Snapchat and YouTube are all free to access, allowing users to instantly join a vast
and global user base. In these online spaces there exists the possibility for people to connect with each other, transcending the physical barriers of the terrestrial world. Social media has also become a profitable workplace, giving rise to the profession of influencing. Social media influencers can most easily be defined as opinion leaders (Belanche et al., 2021) who have an engaged following on social media. The profession becomes profitable when companies pay an
influencer to promote a certain product to their audience as a marketing strategy. There is a significant amount of economic opportunity for influencers as 65% of multinational brands have invested in influencer marketing and the combined investment was estimated to be $10 billion in 2020 (Hughes et al., 2019).
