Abstract
Introduction According to the industry' latest definitive benchmark, the "India Influencer Marketing Report 2025," released by WPP's The Goat Agency and Kantar in June 2025, the sector was valued at |3,600 crore in 2024 and is projected to grow by 25% in 2025. For content creators, this financial influx signifies a transition from casual social presence to a professionalized economy where earnings are derived from online content, ranging from fixed-fee brand endorsements and affiliate marketing to long-term ambassadorships. While influencers have been widely researched globally, there are limited studies on the Indian influencer economy. Recent studies that do cover them primarily focus on topics such as their cultural impact, consumer culture, trust between brands and customers, para-social relationships, and the ethical risks of being an influencer. The global scholarship on influencers has also examined how inequalities across race, gender, social and socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation shape the influencer economy. Another strand of scholarship investigates monetary and non-monetary transactions, such as gifts, free products, discount coupons, or gift cards, within the influencer economy (Duffy, 2017; Christin and Lu, 2023). The payment amount is highly context-dependent, making it vague and open to interpretation. This ambiguity, Carbone (2019) argues, opens the door to different forms of discrimination. However, there is limited scholarly attention to how monetary and non-monetary compensation is negotiated in practice. This gap also indicates the presence of diverse spheres of circulation within the influencer economy. We use the anthropology of barter exchange as a framework to investigate the economic circuits in which early-career influencers engage. Treating the influencer economy as having distinct transactional cultures, we envisage interpreting value creation and circulation within local contexts. Recent studies on barter demonstrate that it is not a remnant of the old order but is present across various demographics (Stapleton, 2022). Borrowing from Gudeman (2001), we interpret the initial value circulation in the influencers' lifecycle through a lens of 'self-currency', i.e., the non-monetary exchanges a participant in this economy requires to be engaged. Thus, rather than a monetary valuation, the commodity itself is exchanged for its inherent value. Further, Gudeman (2001) argues that in the contemporary economy, there exists a trader's dilemma: should one try to increase their profits or maintain their relations? Thus, this investigation centers the influencer economy in India to inquire into the subterranean circulation of values and their logics. Objective/Research Question To investigate the above scholarly gap, we ask: How does barter as an exchange logic appear in the influencer economy? Methods In the influencer industry, as Trevisan & Farinosi (2024) argue, fashion influencers are among the most successful. Influencer marketing has the largest reach in the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle segments. Thus, we focus on fashion micro-influencers in our study, as research suggests that marketers are shifting away from mega and macro influencers toward micro-influencers, who appear more relatable and thus able to attract more commercial prospects (Britt et al., 2020). For this investigation, the third author conducted an interpretivist ethnographic enquiry. The methods used in the field were content analysis and semi-structured interviews. 10 female Instagram micro-influencers were selected and interviewed from Kolkata, India. In addition, we interviewed 2 brand owners (both females). All of them engaged in the lifestyle and clothing sectors. The influencers were selected through a snowball sampling method. In the definition of micro-influencers, influencers have a following between 10,000 to 100,000. All the microinfluencers that we interviewed and whose Instagrams we studied fell within this category. The interviews and their social media actions demonstrated the high frequency of collaborations between them and various other stakeholders (for instance, friends and brands). Following this thread, we investigate the spheres of circulation as a social phenomenon during various stages of influencers' growth. The collected data were analyzed through thematic interpretation. Some of the major themes that emerged are: social ties in content production, commodity exchange, relatability, and network size. For ethical purposes, all identity markers have been anonymized. Results Our interview findings indicate three distinct phases of growth for influencers. First, the altruistic phase, where micro-influencers create content with acquaintances. The second stage is the commodity barter phase, where the influencers create content for brands and boutiques in exchange for a commodity. The third phase is the monetisation phase, which involves producing content for brands in exchange for money. Both the altruistic phase and the commodity barter phase are embedded in the logic of barter. In the altruistic phase, aspiring influencers form friendships to collaborate with aspiring photographers, editors, and beauty professionals to create content. The idea being that this free labor, donated by everyone, will lead to the growth of all involved. In terms of Instagram growth, this would translate into more followers and, in turn, an expansive fan base. Apart from their labour, micro-influencers create relatable content. This 'relatability' means that the community of followers resonates and approves of the content created; in addition, the community feels that the micro-influencer is similar to them in terms of social position and life choices. In platform terminology, the altruistic phase is key to achieving network effects and building a community. This phase is followed by the commodity barter phase, in which either the micro-influencer or the brands can reach out to the other party to collaborate. Our respondents stated that they created content while wearing the brands' products (mostly clothes) and, in return, kept the products themselves. If there are multiple commodities, they are still paid a single remuneration. In such barter collaborations, brands bear the production costs (for instance, hiring professional photographers). Money is not considered an exchange tool in such barter collaborations, and it is not discussed. Until the micro-influencer has reached a minimum number of followers (close to 50k) and is working on multiple barter collaborations, they are not offered collaborations with monetary compensation. The key ingredient is the exchange of one's followership (network size) for the commodity (for instance, a dress) in the commodity barter phase. Whereas in the altruistic phase, there is an exchange of labour to increase the network size for all participants. The findings consist of the anthropologies of exchange, where diverse spheres of circulation exist, and in the digital world, it is not exclusively impregnated by monetary logics. In a similar line to the extant literature on anthropology of barter, there is the exchange of self-currency the network size becomes a non-monetary commodity being exchanged. Just as in the trader's dilemma, our respondents want to achieve monetary gains through content production, yet they are aware of the social ties (here, the community of followers). Thus, micro-influencers carefully choose only those collaborations that will be appreciated by their followers. Future Work Building on these findings, we envisage investigating the monetization phase of micro-influencers. In addition to the above research interest, we are looking at the aesthetic performativity of fashion micro-influencers. Thus, we ask, How do micro-influencers negotiate authenticity in a competitive social media landscape in India.
