The past few months have been marked by serious crises involving influencers. Content creators under scrutiny by Brazil’s parliamentary inquiry into online betting, the Felca case exposing crimes committed by content creators against minors, and, more recently, the Brazilian Federal Police investigating influencers’ alleged involvement in a campaign targeting the Central Bank.
Amid all this, some questions have started circulating across the industry: With this crisis of credibility, are we witnessing the end of influencer marketing? Is it still worth investing in content creators?
The short answers: No, influence is not “dying.” And yes, investing in content creators is still worthwhile. But the landscape has undoubtedly become more complex than ever. And that calls for a deeper discussion. Let’s dive in.
It’s Not the End of Influence. But the Rules Have Changed
According to YouPix’s 2026 report, 82% of brands consider influencer marketing strategic to their business, an increase of six percentage points compared to the previous year (and this figure has been steadily rising in recent years).
Considering that 70% of Brazil’s population follows at least one influencer, according to Opinion Box, this finding is hardly surprising. When it comes to expanding the reach of messages and becoming part of relevant conversations, content creators remain valuable allies.
The remarkable growth of this market, particularly since 2020, has fueled a powerful aspiration around becoming an influencer. The result? There have never been so many influencers.
According to Wake Creators, Brazil now has 14 million influencers, representing 6.7% of the country’s population. Demanding algorithms, combined with AI, have enabled content production to scale at an unprecedented pace. The result? Formulaic content and saturated audiences.
With attention becoming increasingly fragmented, we are witnessing the decline of view-driven influence and the rise of connection-driven influence.
“How many people saw it?” is no longer a meaningful measure of success. It is becoming a vanity metric. What truly moves the needle now is “How many relevant conversations did we become part of?”
The industry has even begun placing RoR (Return on Relevance) alongside ROI (Return on Investment).
And What About Reputation?
The exponential growth in the number of influencers has not only saturated the market and its audiences. It has also created another impact that needs to be addressed: in the fierce competition for monetization and brand partnerships, many creators have adopted an anything-goes mentality.
This has fueled reputational crises involving influencer marketing, affecting both content creators and the brands associated with them.
That is why thorough influencer selection, supported by in-depth reputational screening, has never been more important.
And brands recognize this. According to YouPix 2026, for the first time, reputation emerged as the leading decision-making factor when brands select content creators, ranking ahead of creativity and brand affinity.
In this environment, we need to focus on what actually builds trust in a brand.
According to Textual’s proprietary survey, “Conversations That Build Reputation,” launched this January, experts have a greater influence on building brand trust (76%) than celebrities (46%).
In other words, perhaps we need to rethink influencer selection not only in terms of reputational screening, but also by asking what type of influencer we are choosing for our campaigns.
Is This the Moment for Niche Influencers?
Everything discussed so far points to three fundamental pillars of effective influencer marketing in 2026: relevance, connection, and curation.
Quality over quantity. And an invitation to take a closer look at creators who are often overlooked: niche influencers and subject-matter experts.
They tend to have loyal, highly engaged audiences, even if those audiences are often smaller than those of macro-influencers. And in today’s fierce competition for attention, reaching a genuinely engaged community is incredibly valuable.
These creators also produce content that aligns with how algorithms work: both Meta and TikTok favor community-driven content consumption.
Another advantage is that, compared with macro-influencers, specialists generally address a more focused audience and cover a narrower range of topics. As a result, their potential reputational risk may be lower — provided that rigorous reputational screening is conducted, of course.
That does not mean macro-influencers have completely lost their place in the spotlight. They remain important for certain objectives.
But choosing between them can no longer be as simplistic as it once was.
The old formula — “awareness = macro-influencer” versus “bottom-of-funnel = niche influencer” — no longer holds.
What matters is understanding which conversations the brand wants to be part of and how those conversations connect with the creator’s audience.
So, Where Do We Go From Here?
Influencer marketing has become more complex, but it remains highly relevant. And there is no longer room for amateurism.
To succeed, brands need to make strategic decisions at every stage of the process, starting with thoughtful creator selection and extremely rigorous, in-depth reputational screening.
It is no longer enough to check whether an influencer has been involved in controversies.
We need an almost predictive approach.
What topics does the creator discuss? How do they typically express their views? Could those areas of conversation conflict with the brand’s values and objectives?
And let’s not forget that 2026 is an election year in Brazil, which makes the environment even more sensitive.
Once reputational screening is complete, the next step is narrowing down the list of potential creators. At this stage, brands must avoid simplistic assessments that use follower counts as the primary indicator of relevance.
Instead, they should evaluate whether the content is meaningful, whether it aligns with the brand’s messages, and whether the influencer’s audience can genuinely move the needle, regardless of its size.
And, of course, niche influencers and subject-matter experts should not be overlooked.
Their relevance continues to grow, and they can support a wide range of objectives, from awareness (yes, the goal we once associated almost exclusively with influencers who had millions of followers) to conversion.
To close, I would like to leave you with a thought:
The only way influencer marketing can reach its full potential is by being guided by reputation and relevance, always aligned with the objectives of each initiative.
There is no longer room for superficial creator selection or simply replicating outdated formulas.
Investing in influencer marketing only makes sense when expertise, rigor, and strategic thinking guide the entire process.
At Textual, we believe in influencer marketing that genuinely contributes to corporate reputation. That belief guides everything we do through our #MaisInfluencia practice.
Want to learn more? Get in touch with us here.
