Influencer marketing in Sweden: statistics, sources and method

1. In short: influencer marketing turned over just over SEK 1.1 billion in Sweden in 2025, but each Swedish figure measures something of its own.

Influencer marketing in Sweden turned over just over SEK 1.1 billion in 2025, according to a report by the Swedish Institute for Advertising and Media Statistics (IRM) commissioned by IAB Sweden. That is the highest level so far, after growth of just over 19 percent during the year. TikTok accounted for 44 percent of revenue and Instagram for 41.9 percent [1].

A share of revenue says nothing about how many people use a platform. On an average day in 2025, 20 percent of the population aged 9–85 used TikTok and 59 percent used Instagram, according to Nordicom’s Mediebarometern [2]. Among internet users aged 8 and over, 22 percent had used TikTok in the past twelve months and 15 percent used it every day, according to the Swedish Internet Foundation’s survey from January 2026 [3].

The audience and the creators are measured in other ways. 43 percent in Sweden say they follow influencers, according to the 2025 Eurobarometer as cited by the Swedish Agency for the Media (Mediemyndigheten). The agency also estimates that in February 2026 there were at least around 30,000 influencers in Sweden with 5,000 followers or more [4]. The Swedish Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) received 1,066 complaints about missing advertising labels in 2025 [5]. Figure 1 puts the series side by side.

The rest goes through the series one at a time. Section 2 covers the size of the market and why IRM’s figures for 2022 and 2025 do not form a time series. Section 3 shows how many people use social media and which platforms. Section 4 covers how many people follow influencers and how many influencers there are. Section 5 gathers the figures on enforcement and advertising labels, and section 6 explains why the figures differ.

2. The market is measured as revenue in the industry, and 2025 gave the highest level so far.

The figure for the size of the market comes from IRM, which measures advertising investment in Sweden. The measurement of 2025 was made in spring 2026 as a mapping of the industry and a survey of every player IRM has identified. Where answers are missing, IRM has filled in with public data and estimates [1]. So what is counted is the revenue of those who sell influencer marketing, not advertisers’ budgets or the size of the audience.

According to IRM, the market grew by just over 19 percent in 2025 to just over SEK 1.1 billion, and IRM expects growth of 9 percent in 2026. TikTok accounted for 44 percent of revenue and Instagram for 41.9 percent. Influencers with fewer than 10,000 followers accounted for 13 percent of turnover [1]. On its report page, IAB Sweden instead writes “over SEK 1.1 billion”. The full report, “Influencer Marketing 2024-2026”, is downloaded through a form on the same page [8].

What is counted

IRM splits influencer marketing into two parts. Sponsorship is revenue for an influencer writing about or using an advertiser’s products in a post. Production is included, because according to IRM it is hard to separate from distribution. Advertising is revenue for ad space, such as a banner or a commercial, next to an influencer’s content [9]. Whether agency and network fees are included is not stated in the definition [9].

The 2016–2022 series and the forecast for 2023 and 2024

IRM’s report Influencer Marketing 2021–2024, published in November 2023, gives the turnover for every year since 2016: SEK 458 million in 2016, 614 million in 2017, 765 million in 2018, 856 million in 2019, 864 million in 2020, 1,048 million in 2021 and 1,064 million in 2022. For 2023 and 2024 the report contains forecasts, 954 and 1,052 million respectively, not outcomes. Of the 2022 turnover, SEK 769 million was sponsorship and 296 million advertising [10]. Mediemyndigheten cites 2022 as SEK 1.1 billion, based on answers from 55 companies [4]. Of the sponsorship revenue, 61 percent came from Instagram, 21 percent from TikTok and 14 percent from YouTube [4]. IAB Sweden described the same shares as shares of “total revenue” [11]. Mediemyndigheten points out that the data is not complete, because figures are missing for Swedish influencers who address a global audience [4].

Why growth from 2022 to 2025 cannot be computed

The figures SEK 1.1 billion for 2022 and just over SEK 1.1 billion for 2025 look comparable, but they are not. IRM writes that the market grew by just over 19 percent in 2025 “after an earlier slowdown” [1], but the outcomes for 2023 and 2024 are not in the public sources we have read, only the forecasts from 2023 [10]. The shares per platform also have different bases: for 2022 they are of sponsorship revenue [10], and for 2025 IRM does not specify the base [1]. Figure 2 shows what is known about 2022 and 2025.

3. How many people use TikTok depends on the question: 15, 20 or 22 percent.

An average day: Mediebarometern

Nordicom’s Mediebarometern is based on a random sample of the population aged 9–85 drawn from the population register. 6,004 people answered by web or phone during most of 2025 [2]. The survey measures daily reach, that is, the share who say they used a medium the day before [12]. The questionnaire is in Swedish and mainly reflects a Swedish-speaking population [13].

On an average day in 2025, 84 percent of the population used some social medium. Instagram reached 59 percent, Facebook 58, Snapchat 32 and TikTok 20 percent [2]. The differences between ages are large. Among 15–24-year-olds, 70 percent used TikTok on an average day, among 45–64-year-olds 7 percent and among 65–85-year-olds 2 percent [2]. Mediebarometern counts YouTube as moving image, not as a social medium. It reached 52 percent on an average day [2].

The past year: Svenskarna och internet

The Swedish Internet Foundation’s survey Svenskarna och internet asks internet users aged 8 and over. Novus collected the answers in January 2026 from a randomly recruited panel. 3,776 people answered, with a participation rate of 59 percent, and the result is weighted to SCB by gender, age, education and geography [3]. Since the answers came in during January, the question about the past twelve months mostly covers 2025.

In the past twelve months, 77 percent had used YouTube, 69 percent Facebook, 66 percent Instagram and 22 percent TikTok. 17 percent used TikTok at least every week and 15 percent every day [3]. Among those born in the 2000s, 69 percent had used TikTok [3]. According to the Swedish Internet Foundation, TikTok has stayed at the same level in 2024–2026, after a peak in 2023 [3]. The report gives no figures for how many people follow influencers [3].

The past three months: SCB

SCB’s survey on the population’s use of IT is part of Sweden’s official statistics and asks a third kind of question. The answers were collected in spring 2025 [6]. 75 percent of 16–74-year-olds had used social networking sites in the past three months, that is, created a profile, shared information or communicated there. In 2021 the share was 72 percent [6]. The report gives no figure per platform [6].

4. 43 percent say they follow influencers, and at least around 30,000 influencers have 5,000 followers or more.

How many people follow influencers

The figure for how many people follow influencers comes from the European Parliament’s Flash Eurobarometer on social media 2025. According to Mediemyndigheten, 43 percent in Sweden follow influencers. Among 15–24-year-olds the share is 79 percent and among those over 55 it is 15 percent [4].

The Eurobarometer was a web survey among people aged 15 and over in the EU’s 27 member states, with a quota sample rather than a random sample. Ipsos collected the answers for the European Parliament [7]. The figure shows what respondents themselves report, not how they use the platforms. We have read the Swedish figure only in Mediemyndigheten’s report.

How many influencers there are

There is no set line for who counts as an influencer, and Mediemyndigheten writes that the industry is therefore hard to map. Instead the agency searched Kolsquare, a tool advertisers use to find creators. In February 2026 it held an estimated 30,000 influencers in Sweden with at least 5,000 followers. The total number is higher, because not all influencers are in the database [4].

Commercial tools count in other ways. In September 2026 Click Analytic counted 39,670 Swedish creator accounts with at least 10,000 followers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, of which 22,894 were on TikTok. The company itself points out that it counts accounts, not people, because the same creator can be on several platforms [14]. It is a vendor estimate, and we have not been able to review how the tool decides which accounts are Swedish.

5. Enforcement counts cases and complaints, not the share of posts that are correctly labelled.

Konsumentverket judges that the law is only partly followed when marketing is done through influencers [15]. In 2025 the agency received 1,066 complaints about missing advertising labels. After a review in spring 2025 of platforms where children and young people spend a lot of time, the agency opened 52 targeted supervision cases against advertisers and influencers [5]. In the press release about the effort, the agency spoke of “some 50” cases and wrote that it had taken samples but not reviewed all content on the accounts [16].

In total, Konsumentverket’s supervision of hidden marketing has led to around a hundred targeted supervision cases in recent years. Around ten of them have been handed to the Consumer Ombudsman for legal action [5]. The figures describe the agency’s work and what gets reported. They do not say what share of all Swedish posts lack a label.

The closest figure for a share comes from the EU. In a joint sweep in 2023, the European Commission and consumer authorities in 22 member states, Norway and Iceland went through posts from 576 influencers. 97 percent had published commercial content, but only 20 percent consistently labelled it as advertising. 358 influencers were taken forward for further investigation [5, 17]. The sweep covers the EU as a whole, and the result is not reported for Sweden separately [17].

6. The figures differ because they measure different things, in different groups and in different ways.

Money is not people

TikTok has 44 percent of influencer marketing revenue but is used by 20 percent of the population on an average day [1, 2]. That is no contradiction. IRM measures kronor, Nordicom measures people. Use is concentrated among the young: 70 percent of 15–24-year-olds use TikTok on an average day, but 2 percent of 65–85-year-olds [2]. There may also be more creator accounts on TikTok than on other platforms. In Click Analytic’s estimate, 57.7 percent of Swedish accounts with at least 10,000 followers are there [14]. Why advertisers put such a large share of the money on TikTok is something the sources do not say.

A third picture comes from Konsumentverket’s consumer survey, based on 11,013 respondents in a nationally representative panel. There, Instagram is reported as the most common platform for seeing marketing from influencers [5].

Different questions about use

Nordicom asks about yesterday. The Swedish Internet Foundation asks about every day, every week and the past twelve months. SCB asks about the past three months, and the Eurobarometer whether people follow influencers [3, 4, 6, 12]. Within the same survey, a shorter period gives a lower figure. At the Swedish Internet Foundation, 15 percent use TikTok every day and 22 percent have used it in a year [3]. Between surveys, the group, the wording of the question and the timing also play a part, which is how Nordicom’s daily figure can be 20 percent [2].

Different groups

Nordicom asks the whole population aged 9–85, whether or not they use the internet. The Swedish Internet Foundation asks only internet users aged 8 and over. SCB’s figure covers ages 16–74 and the Eurobarometer people aged 15 and over [2, 3, 6, 7]. The counts of influencers have their own thresholds: at least 5,000 followers at Mediemyndigheten and at least 10,000 at Click Analytic [4, 14].

Different times

The Swedish Internet Foundation collected its answers in January 2026, Nordicom during most of 2025 and IRM in spring 2026 [1, 2, 3]. Mediemyndigheten’s 2026 report still describes the market with IRM’s figures for 2022, and its summary calls sponsored collaborations, especially on Instagram, the most important source of income [4]. In IRM’s measurement for 2025, TikTok is larger than Instagram [1].

Self-report, counts and who is behind them

None of the figures in Figure 1 measures what people actually do on the platforms. The usage figures rest on what respondents themselves report in surveys. IRM’s figure rests on what players in the industry report, filled in with estimates where answers are missing [1]. The counts of influencers come from commercial databases [4, 14]. The samples differ too: a random sample at Nordicom, a randomly recruited panel at the Swedish Internet Foundation and a quota sample in the Eurobarometer [2, 3, 7].

None of the series here is published or commissioned by TikTok or any other platform. IRM’s report is commissioned by IAB Sweden, an industry body, and rests on data from the industry itself [1]. The platforms’ own figures, and surveys a platform has paid for, are not included.

Global figures from vendors are a third kind. A claim that every dollar in influencer marketing returns 5.78 dollars appears in Swedish in a translated roundup with no source given [18]. An English-language page with the same figure names itself as the source [19]. We have not been able to trace the figure to a measurement, and it does not concern Sweden.

7. About this article: primary sources read in October 2026, with known gaps.

All sources were read on 15 October 2026, and the figures are taken from the sources’ own text, tables and charts. The exception is the Eurobarometer, where the Swedish figure comes from Mediemyndigheten’s report. “Independent” marks authorities, official statistics, universities, EU institutions and industry bodies such as IAB Sweden and IRM. “Estimate” marks commercial vendors. No source is tagged “TikTok”, because none comes from or is paid for by TikTok.

We have not computed any figures of our own: no growth between 2022 and 2025 and no outcomes for 2023 and 2024 (section 2).

What is not covered

Global market estimates and the TikTok market at large are not included, and search volumes have not been measured. IRM’s full report has not been read, so the exact amount for 2025, YouTube’s share, the split between sponsorship and advertising and the number of respondents are missing. IRM’s public report on influencer marketing from 2023 has outcomes up to and including 2022 and forecasts for 2023 and 2024 [10]. The Eurobarometer’s own website could not be read, so the wording of the question, the number of respondents in Sweden and the fieldwork period have not been checked against the original.

When the page is reviewed

Mediebarometern 2025 was published in May 2026 [2], and Svenskarna och internet 2026 rests on answers from January 2026 [3].