From viral reviews to vibrant businesses, influencers can breathe new life into town centres

Influencers like Malin, a Yorkshire butcher-turned influencer with 726 thousand YouTube subscribers, are a beacon of hope in UK towns like Huddersfield. Huddersfield is among the locales with long-term visions to rejuvenate modern-day town centres, according to Kirklees Council.

This move comes as many emerging influencers face significant financial and economic struggles.

Governments have long been concerned with town centre and high street regeneration across the UK, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A key part of the former Conservative Government’s “Levelling Up Agenda” was to find new uses for surplus spaces in some town centres.

Rate My Takeaway exemplifies the potentials of social media influencers to foster successful business opportunities online and offline – if they have sufficient support.

Malin said he's leveraging his new Rate My Takeaway Kitchen to revitalise the Packhorse Centre’s “derelict food court” in the heart of Huddersfield Town Centre.

Malin follows in the footsteps of other UK influencers, such as Joe Wicks. Wicks, a personal trainer, used his “The Body Coach” fitness brand on Instagram in 2014 to become a successful business owner, selling cookbooks and body transformation plans. By 2016, Wicks was earning £1 million a month.

Against this backdrop, these social media creators are more than just influencers, “getting paid to do what you love,” as Associate Professor Brooke Erin Duffy puts it in her 2017 book. They’re also powerful economic forces with potential for wider cultural expression and power to reform local economic and social landscapes.

YouTube alone injected over £1.4 billion into the UK’s GDP in 2021, according to Oxford Economics. They’ve supported a staggering 40,000 full-time equivalent jobs across the country.

However, the UK Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s 2022 “Influencer Culture” report exposed creators’ challenges. Platforms’ revenue-sharing models require massive subscriber or follower counts. Additionally, many brands pay in gifts or with the promise of exposure, rather than the cash creators need to pay their bills.

This issue disproportionately affects creators from historically marginalised communities and economically and socially deprived regions like Yorkshire, according to my recent research published in Social Media + Society.

While many influencers eagerly embrace brand deals, most come from national or international clients, leaving untapped potential for regional Yorkshire collaborations in sectors like travel, museums, sport and education to boost creators’ incomes.

Professional training and networking opportunities also paint a stark contrast between London-based and Northern-based creators. London’s once-praised but now-closed YouTube Space was a valuable model for co-working and networking opportunities, according to several UK influencers I interviewed.

YouTube’s Black Voices Fund and the BBC’s Creator Labhave paved the way, offering further entry points for marginalised creators. These schemes arm creators with essential monetary, production and networking resources to level up their creative industries careers.

However, there’s still no widely accessible programme focused exclusively on regional diversity and inclusion for emerging influencers.

Social media platforms could launch dedicated “Creator Regional Inclusion Funds” to support emerging influencers, many UK influencers told me in interviews.

Additionally, the UK Government’s Creative Scale Up Programme and the Cultural Investment Fund could inject resources into the growing creator economy, acknowledging influencers’ pivotal role in the rapidly evolving social media landscape.

Some influencers also told me in interviews that launching public “Creator Hubs” in northern regions like Yorkshire could provide access to professional production equipment and foster community networks.

Government-supported Creator Hubs at public libraries and universities could be a vital catalyst for building strong communities of nano-influencers to unleash regional brand collaborations. Regional Creator Hubs could be integrated within wider “Digital Inclusion Hubs”.

Back in Huddersfield, the Rate My Takeaway Kitchen aims to foster new opportunities for budding influencers. It has a unique media room where customers can create their own reviews. Malin will edit and post them on his social media accounts.

“You never know, we could find the next internet superstar,” Malin said.

The Rate My Takeaway model could be expanded to support other influencers and help rejuvenate town centres elsewhere.