Influencers, personal branding and political ideology on Twitter

Abstract

Social media has been a participant of the growth of the role of the influencer as a new model of opinion leader who combines personal branding with a prescriber role, including messages with political content. In this context, this research has applied a content analysis to 790 messages from ten Spanish influencers with a high impact on Twitter. We analyzed in particular the pursued objectives, the topics discussed and the ideological content of the tweets. In this regard, although these messages reflected an ideological political objective, the discourse is quite moderate, if not de-ideologized.