Maybe you have noticed the term ‘Influencer’ being thrown around a lot these days. I’m sure a mental image of some young person dancing in a random or taking very staged photos “living their best life” comes to mind. But the term is based around a much more fascinating economic phenomenon: content creation and consumption of the internet.
If you think back to the early 2000s, the best way to make money on the internet was an online store. eBay and other services provided products that you could shop for online. This required you have products to sell and a way to advertise them to buyers. With the launch of services such as YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitch (and many others), if you are an entertainer, a subject matter expert, or just want to have fun, creating content for people to view has become the most accessible way to make a living on the internet.
Content creation or being an influencer is no longer a hobby or a side hustle – it’s a full-time job. It is effectively a small business that exists in a microcosm of the internet. It is an economy built by platforms with likeable content. Influencers gain popularity and profit from ad revenue or sponsorships of products and services. One day you’re following an athlete and like a post related to a touchdown. The next day the post has changed to an updated version of a Wheaties commercial.
As streamers sign multimillion dollar platform exclusivity deals, and the popularity of online content continues increases, the question becomes: How will these platforms leverage this market in the future? How will this economy, that has sprung up on privately owned and managed platforms, change with the business of the internet? Only time will tell, but it is an interesting phenomenon to watch as people begin to sell created content in place of tangible goods.