Social media influencers are the iconic figures of the social media age. As media diets shift to social media, influencers sit at the center of communication flows within the new information ecology. This is a powerful position. As masters of large followerships, influencers can direct online attention and engagement toward certain topics-and away from others. Followers build long-lasting relationships with their favorite influencers and trust their authentic recommendations and advice. This makes them sought-after cooperation partners for corporations, but also for other organizations such as NGOs, political parties, or government agencies. Along with their growing cultural and economic relevance, influencer research has taken off for real in the last decade.

Looking back at the first years of influencer scholarship, this book brings together leading researchers to consolidate the field, theorize current developments, and map future directions. Adopting the perspectives of influencers, followers, and other industry actors, this book provides a reference work that offers readers a comprehensive international collection of analyses, reflections, and insights about social media influencers, the dynamics of the industry, influencers' entanglement with strategic communication, and their role in contemporary (digital) culture.

Offering a broad interdisciplinary overview of research emerging within social media influencing, this authoritative guide is an accessible resource for researchers, lecturers and students across marketing, media and communication, as well as cultural studies and digital anthropology.

Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.