Fueling influencer creep, reinforcing platform authority: the work of social media experts

This study investigates the emergence of social media experts as new entrepreneurial actors within platformized cultural production in Turkey, who monetize platform-specific knowledge through consultancy, workshops, and digital goods. Utilizing a novel sampling method termed algorithmic snowballing, we conducted ten months of digital ethnography on Instagram alongside 21 in-depth interviews to examine the key characteristics of their work. Findings demonstrate that opaque platform governance creates fertile ground for their expertise claims, while ‘influencer creep’ (Bishop, Citation2023) expands their market. Against this backdrop, social media experts construct authority through adaptive craft knowledge, performative demonstrations of competence, and relational practices grounded in ‘generosity’ (Rose, Citation1992) and parasocial engagement with clients. Yet their expertise is far from neutral. They actively fuel influencer creep by encouraging clients across diverse professions to adopt self-branding, entrepreneurial subjectivities, and influencer-like strategies. Simultaneously, social media experts function as informal agents of platform governance, reinforcing platform authority through modes of regulation, curation, and moderation. They simplify complex and evolving platform rules, sustain the narrative of algorithmic neutrality, promote the use of paid advertising tools to gain visibility, and discourage critiques of moderation practices. Their advice also streamlines cultural production into high-volume, standardized, searchable, and trend-oriented formats aligned with platform logics.