How Influencers Grow: An Empirical Study and Future Research Agenda

Most research on influencers takes the perspective of marketers, examining how influencers can be leveraged to build brands. However, as influencers grow in popularity, they are becoming a marketing force in their own right, warranting deeper exploration from their perspective. This article shifts the focus to influencers as active marketers, using a multilevel mixed-effects growth model to identify factors associated with follower growth. Analyzing a dataset of 14,311,145 pieces of Instagram content posted over more than two years from 6,079 influencers across 57 countries, the authors examine how attention labor (content strategy and persona appeal) and relationship labor (captioning strategy and ecosystem connectivity) relate to follower growth. Whereas existing research primarily focuses on engagement with specific pieces of content, this study takes a broader approach, investigating how influencers’ content and engagement strategies are associated with differences in follower growth over time. By reframing influencers as marketers rather than media vehicles, this study contributes to marketing theory and provides insights for influencers, influencer agencies, and marketers who seek to better understand influencer growth.