influencer

A person who or a thing which influences.

A person who is able to influence consumption, lifestyle, or political preferences of their online audience by creating or engaging social media content, often as a part of a marketing campaign.

By now you have probably heard of influencers, that group of internet-famous people who have more than a million social media followers and can make big money by plugging various brands. And you may have even heard of microinfluencers, who do the same thing for a still sizable but somewhat smaller social media audience — from the tens to low hundreds of thousands.

The idea of an influencer economy or streaming economy might have caused eyes to roll just a couple years ago, but the reality is that this segment of the economy is growing fast. More importantly, it is the part of the economy (and type of engagement) that is most appealing to the increasingly important millennial and Gen-Z cohorts.