Being an Influencer in Croatia: Self Accomplishment and Profit through One's YouTube Channel

Diplomski rad Biti influencer u Hrvatskoj: samoostvarenje i profit kroz YouTube kanal pisan je sa željom otkrivanja influencera na hrvatskoj sceni te njihovih navika, djelovanja i zarade. Kroz kvalitativno istraživanje, odnosno intervju s trojicom hrvatskih influencera, cilj je bio spoznati na koji način influenceri djeluju, kako održavaju interakciju s publikom, gdje crpe inspiraciju te koliko je vremenski potrebno da stvore sadržaj i zarade novce. Istraživanje na temelju trojice ispitanika nižeg, srednjeg i višeg statusa influencera ne može prikazati u potpunosti djelovanje svih influencera, ali daje temeljne smjernice koje su upotpunjene istraživanjem stvaranja statusa influencera na vlastitom primjeru autorice ovog rada. Istraživački rezultati na temelju intervjua pokazali su da influenceri u Hrvatskoj uglavnom zarađuju putem sponzorskih suradnji. Pritom treba uzeti u obzir kako mnogo influencera djeluje na principu kompenzacija s brendovima. Također, potvrđena je pretpostavka kako oglašivači u sve većem broju uzimaju influencere kao svoje alate u reklamnim kampanjama. Ključna namjera istraživanja bila je provjeriti hipotezu je li moguće živjeti od You Tuba u Hrvatskoj, što je ovim istraživanjem potvrđeno, ali se ne smije generalizirati. Bavljenje You Tubom zahtijeva mnogo truda, ulaganja, odricanja i fokusiranja samo na You Tube pa se može zaključiti da je influencerstvo na You Tubeu postalo zanimanje. To zanimanje može biti vrlo unosno, ali i poželjno jer se „biti youtuber“ nalazi u top tri zanimanja koju bi mlađi uzrasti odabrali kao svoj posao iz snova.This thesis titled Being an Influencer in Croatia: Self Accomplishment and Profit through One's YouTube Channel was written with the purpose of discovering influencers in the Croatian media scene as well as their habits, work and their profits. Through qualitative research, or more precisely, through interviews with three Croatian influencers, the goal was to get to know the way in which influencers work, how they interact with their audience, where they draw their inspiration from and how much time does it take to create content, which in turn, drives their profit. The research, done on three influencers with three different levels of influence - low, medium and high, can not absolutely represent the way in which all influencers work, but it does give the basic foundation which was, in turn, completed with research done on the way one can obtain the status of an influencer, based on the experience of the author of this thesis. The research results show that influencers in Croatia mostly earn profit through sponsorship deals. What needs to be taken into consideration is that plenty of other influencers work through compensation deals with various brands. Also, the hypothesis that advertisers are using influencers in their campaigns more and more has been confirmed. The key goal of this research was to verify the hypothesis that one can make a living in Croatia by working mostly through YouTube, which was confirmed, but can not be completely generalized. Working based mostly on YouTube takes a lot of effort, investment and focus so it can be deduced that influencers on YouTube have become a sort of a new proffesion. This proffesion can be quite lucrative, and it is a new proffesion that is highly desirable among the younger generations, which have listed it as one of their top three picks for a dream job