Social media influencing as digital work: The case of Finnish fashion and life-style influencers

New media technologies have been linked to changing forms of work and its organization. Networked and social media have also created new online personalities: the blogger and the social media influencer. Much research has been devoted to investigating how, why and to what extent they connect companies and brands with consumers. Attention has been paid on social media influencing as a form of precarious ‘digital labor’ – to influencing as laborious activities that produce added value but which do not necessarily pay. However, less attention has been paid to social media influencing as paid digital work. ‘digital work’. Through six focus group interviews conducted with 21 Finnish fashion and life-style influencers between November 2019 and September 2020, this article sheds light on this blind spot and brings new insights to the discourse of influencing as representative of the new form of work in the digital era.