Influencers in Montenegro: From Fashion to feminism
The influencers’ community in Montenegro communicates through Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube as the leading platforms for sharing their content. Lately, Tik Tok is becoming more and more popular. Influencers in Montenegro most often attract a younger audience and an audience in their 30s, depending on the platform and content.
Usually, they create their content – so-called prosumers (a term used for those who are both users and creators of content on social media). This novel (once) unconventional business and the influence of these personalities are perceived by various brands, PR agencies, and other actors in the public sphere.
WHO ARE THE INFLUENCERS IN MONTENEGRO?
Montenegrin influencers are often well-known people who have successful careers (athletes, actors, singers, models, entrepreneurs, etc.) and are originally from Montenegro. However, some of them live abroad or in the region (Stevan Jovetić 470K, Stefan Savić 365K, Emina Cunmulaj Nazarian 344K, Andrija Milošević 910K, Amra Olević Reyes 5.6M, Nikola Vučević 166.7K, Jovanka Radičević 23.6K, Katarina Bogićević 21K, Aleksandar Gavranić 20.2K).
It is visible that local influencers also have substantial engagement on their profiles (most often on Instagram and Twitter), and the content dominantly concerns entertainment, art, fashion, lifestyle, and sports. Some of them on Instagram are: Andrijana Vešović 213K, Nataša Gardašević 161K, Jovan Radulović 140K, Ignjat Kotlaja 62.9K, Boban Vulević 47.6K, Sandra Mitrović 46.1K, Milena Pajović 40.1K, Tijana Osmanagić 30.9K, Kristina Banjević 20K, Petar Raičević 8.3K…).
Influencer Jovan Radulović (Jodžir) shares that there is no formal community or association of influencers, but he notices that female colleagues are more connected, unlike male colleagues.
“There’s a lot of jealousy and vanity in this business, and I would not even call it a community.” However, I see that women cooperate more, but on the other hand, there is not so much cooperation between us men,” he said in an interview with the Media Institute (IMCG).
Young influencers are not as numerous as their older colleagues, but engagement on their profiles is not negligible, nor are the topics they deal with. Among them, Nikolina Pavićević’s Instagram profile called “Critical” (75K), which is exclusively educational and activist, is recognizable. Among the activist profiles, “Vala Ljeposava” on Facebook (14.5K) and Instagram (13.1K) was also recognized, which predominantly deals with feminism, and whose authors are unknown.
Fashion influencers Ksenija Bulatović (27.7K), Lana Šahbaz (22.5K), and Maša Ivanović (11.8K) also stand out among the young. Unlike Instagram, YouTube does not gather a large number of Montenegrin influencers. It does not mean that there are no YouTubers in Montenegro, but that they do not engage as influencers on Instagram.
Apart from the influencers mentioned above, some of whom also have profiles on YouTube, some of the prominent ones in Montenegro are Idzo 367K (content: sports), Luka Bojović 299K (content: video games, entertainment), Vanja Vučković 132K (range: joy).
The Tik Tok influencer community in Montenegro is not mainly developed. Several of them usually gather children and younger teenagers as followers on their profiles, and their content is entertaining. Among the popular ones are Bojanče 896.7K, Marko Vulević 11.1K, Irena Marković 5K, and Jodžir 8k.
The author of the Kritički profile, Nikolina Pavićević, states that an influencer is considered someone with many followers on Instagram, but also that these people can come from different spheres – from those who deal with lifestyle topics to experts such as psychologists and journalists.
“This means that people from various fields are influencers – sometimes lifestyle topics are covered(people mostly associate influencers with that), and sometimes psychologists, journalists, activists, comedians, educators, etc. In this fashion, different people will create different content that will attract different audiences. That content can be education about toxic relationships and how to get out of them, or it can be the exact opposite – romanticizing them,” she says.
Montenegrin influencers face a big challenge when it comes to gaining the attention and trust of the Montenegrin audience since they have to compete with regional and global influencers. On the other hand, the content provided by the Montenegrin influencer community is very uniform. It is based predominantly on fashion, lifestyle, sports, and entertainment, and young followers look for content that matches their occupations and hobbies on other sites, i.e., with regional or world personalities on social media. In this way, young people witness various positive and negative global and local trends.
GOOD EARNINGS, BUT ALSO WORKING 24/7
Our interlocutors share that you can make a comfortable living from this job, but they stress the importance of originality in this job. “Influencer earnings can be high.” If someone does quality work, recognition will come, then popularity, and all that opens up business. I also managed to open my own children’s playroom”, says Jovan Radulović.
As an advantage of this job, Nikolina Pavićević points out precisely the freedom for creative expression and making decisions about working hours and place. The disadvantages are uncertainty and verbal attacks.
“The advantage is that you make your schedule (although this often turns into “I didn’t want to work from 9 am to 5 pm, so now I work 24/7″). Furthermore, the advantage is that you can express yourself creatively and show some of your passion (if you still make money from it, I consider it a privilege because many people don’t have the opportunity to do what they want). I also consider it advantageous that you can work anywhere. As with all public jobs, the challenge is that exposure to the public brings threats, sometimes attacks (mostly verbal), and the uncertainty of ‘what will happen tomorrow. In particular, Instagram has endured a lot of changes in recent years, and it seems to me that each of them has had a bad effect on content creators,” Pavićević said.
Radulović says that the advantage is a good salary, and the disadvantages are the envy and condemnation of people who believe that because of popularity, something “shouldn’t be allowed.” “Let’s say I don’t swear in private, but I do when I tell some jokes. All humorists swear, but I “can’t,” and that’s why I’m the target of condemnation,” he says.
MEDIA LITERACY AGAINST NEGATIVE TRENDS
Jovan Radulović highlights the cases of hate speech in comments, and in addition to personal insults, he cites an example of a message of national intolerance. He believes that influencers are responsible for suppressing such content and that they should remove such comments.
“There are various examples of hate speech in the comments. Let’s say I noticed that when I congratulate Independence Day or another national holiday, in addition to people seeing me off, it happens that various fights and insults on a national basis start. In such cases, when I see that an argument is starting, I forbid comments,” said Radulović.
Although Pavićević follows pages of an educational and informative nature, she notices that there is also controversial content presented humorously.
Pavićević states that influencers can also harm children’s mental health.
“Influencers can inspire minors to adopt healthier patterns and thoughts, but they can also harm psychological health, for example, through materialism or objectification. “Since there is a lack of media literacy and critical thinking, children do not start using social networks with prior knowledge. As they grow up on social networks, it would be a mistake to say that the content marketing to them does not influence them,” explained Pavićević.
The administrator of the Kritički profile also notices the role of certain personalities on social media as opinion makers and the space for potential cooperation with different actors in society.
“60% of Millennials are more likely to take advice from a YouTuber than a traditional media personality.” It means that, e.g., non-governmental organizations can cooperate with people with the same values as them, which would contribute to realizing their goals. Such coordinated action could lead to some progress”, concluded Pavićević.
The administrator of the Kritički profile also notices the role of certain personalities on social media as opinion makers and the space for potential cooperation with different actors in society.
“60% of Millennials are more likely to take advice from a YouTuber than a traditional media personality.” This means that, e.g., non-governmental organizations can cooperate with people with the same values as them, which would contribute to realizing their goals. Such coordinated action could lead to some progress”, concluded Pavićević.
In addition, cooperation between influencers and traditional media is almost absent; at the forefront, as our interlocutors say, we need to improve media literacy, especially among youth.
This article was brought to you with financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and publishers of the Media Institute of Montenegro and does not necessarily reflect the views of the donors.