Due to the rapid growth of influencer marketing and the amount of fraud in the industry, the word “influencer” has gained a negative reputation in some communities. Thus, many influencers do not like to be called influencers. What is the influencer synonym that should be used then?
Who is an influencer?
What’s the definition of influencer? Generally, an influencer is considered to be a person who shares their life and opinions with their audience on social media. As they are often trendsetters or experts in a certain field, they often have influence in the eyes of their followers.
The best influencer synonym
In our opinion, the best alternative word for influencer would be content creatoror simply creator.
Most creators have become influencers because of their ability to create beautiful, inspiring, insightful, or motivational content. In a way, this is the core value of an influencer that should also be included in the definition of an influencer.
Influencer synonyms by channels
Often, influencers are also defined by the main channel where they are creating their content. People who write blogs are called bloggers (actually, even some Instagram influencers refer to their Instagram accounts as blogs and call themselves bloggers).
Influencers who create content on Instagram are called instagrammers. TikTok influencers may called tiktokkers. Creators who share videos on YouTube refer to themselves as youtubers. Those who run podcasts are named podcasters. And those who stream on live streaming platforms, like Twitch, are named streamers.
Of course, different words for an influencer can be complemented with channels: for example, the synonym for an Instagram influencer can be an Instagram creator or Instagram blogger.
Other words for influencer
Those influencers who have really earned the respect of their audience can be called opinion leaders.
In a way, an opinion leader is the original form of influencer: it is someone whose opinions are heard, trusted, and respected. Nowadays, we often refer to industry experts who are writing opinion articles, whose opinions journalists ask for, and who are highly trusted in their circle, as opinion leaders.
Influencers who have a long-term exclusive partnership with a certain brand, are called brand ambassadors.Sometimes, influencers are also called leaders, bellwethers, motivators, inspirers, trendsetters, fashionistas, or celebrities.
Read more: Brand ambassadors vs influencers
Local influencer synonyms
In some languages, there is a specific local synonym for “influencer”. For example, in Estonia (the country where Promoty was born in) a local influencer synonym is suunamudija which in direct translation, means path kneader –someone who is leading and shaping the way to others.
In several countries, the direct translation from the word influencer is used. For example, in Finnish, a widely-used synonym for influencer is vaikuttaja. In Estonian, it’s mõjuisik or mõjutaja.
What is the preferred influencer synonym by the influencers?
In fact, we did a survey among 174 Estonian influencers, asking them how would they like to be called. Here are the answers!
As expected, more than half (64%) of influencers like to be called content creators. The second most popular choice is influencer, followed by the local words mõjuisik (a direct translation of influencer) and suunamudija.
Surprisingly, 6 respondents said that they are just regular people who share their everyday lives. One respondent said they’d like to be called an instagrammer and one respondent referred to themselves as someone who does brand collaborations.
What is it all to do with us?
Promoty is an influencer relationship management platform that allows brands to manage all their (potential) influencers, collaborations, chats, and content in one place. Here’s a short demo video of how it works! 👇🏼
Using Promoty’s Influencer Discovery, you can search for influencers worldwide, filtering by their social media metrics or audience data. Additionally, you can see detailed account insights for every influencer – which helps you to find the right TikTok and Instagram influencers for your brand. 🤍
Additionally, you can use our influencer CRM to manage your current and potential collaboration partners, detect branded content, and chat with influencers. Create a free account to get started!
