Digital corporate communication and social media influencers

Strategic influencer communication constitutes a valuable extension of the corporate communication toolkit. Now that the industry’s gold rush of the early years is fading away, this chapter takes a critical-distanced look at strategic influencer communication as a relatively new domain of digital corporate communication. In particular, it explains which functions influencers serve from a corporate communication perspective; it reviews the state of research on strategic influencer communication; it explains how an influencer relations approach and corporate influencer programs help corporate communicators to harness the disruptive power of influencers to their advantage; and it critically examines the advantages and challenges that come with influencer collaborations. Finally, this chapter uses the example of an influencer campaign that got out of hand to illustrate the pitfalls in transferring management mindsets from traditional media environments onto a newly emerging digital field such as influencer communication.