Different Shades of Cooperation: Mapping Political Parties’ Involvement With Influencers

As social media influencers receive increased attention as intermediaries in the political domain, political parties are seeking to expand their involvement with them. However, knowledge of how parties get involved with influencers remains limited. This study presents a qualitative mapping of parties’ influencer engagement, drawing on a secondary analysis of two datasets containing a combined 25 expert interviews with party communicators from Germany. It theorizes influencer involvement as the parties’ management of social interactions. Employing an adapted version of Godes et al.’s (2005) framework for analyzing a firm’s management of social interactions, it systemizes the 35 identified cases of influencer involvement as instances of different management strategies. While the moderator strategy—characterized by relationship-building and information exchange—emerged as the most prevalent, the participant strategy—marked by partisan collaboration—enjoyed the highest popularity. Overall, the findings indicate that the parties’ influencer involvement is still in a formative phase, marked by experimental practices, resource constraints, and ambivalence toward influencer autonomy.