Influencer Strategist or Marketing Leader: Who Owns the Fan Relationship?

I’ve been identifying and placing senior marketing leaders in the music industry for many years now, at global labels, event businesses, entertainment powerhouses and everything in between. From my work and conversations with these organizations recently, I’ve noticed one debate that’s splitting boardrooms and marketing teams alike: who should own the fan relationship?

Influencer marketing has become what late-night infomercials were in the ‘80s: omnipresent. Meanwhile, TikTok and Instagram are like MTV in its prime, dictating what’s cool and who everyone should be listening to. So music brands are pouring millions into creator collaborations to stake their claim in the new fan economy. 

This change has sparked an identity crisis. Should a dedicated Influencer Strategist lead the charge, or should it still sit within the remit of marketing leadership? 

Why this debate matters now

For decades, marketing in music meant broadcast: build the story, push it out, buy the airplay. But today, fandom spreads peer-to-peer. Influencers are shaping how audiences discover artists, how they connect with them, and even how they buy tickets or merch.

In short, who owns the influencer strategy now decides who owns the fan journey. You need to put the power in the right person’s hands, otherwise the true commercial engine of your business (the fan relationship, which decides streaming numbers, chart positions, brand deals, touring success) will start to sputter. 

When marketing leadership should take control

There’s a strong argument for keeping influencer work within the core marketing structure. When the function is well-established, the benefits are obvious:

• Tighter brand control and a unified message across campaigns, platforms and channels
• Smarter budget alignment with campaign goals and audience growth metrics
• Fewer silos: one lead, one team, one dashboard; less duplication, clearer accountability

Still, the success of this model depends on whether your marketing leadership genuinely understands creator culture. I’ve seen it work brilliantly when teams are led by Marketing executives who’ve cut their teeth in social and digital roles, and have the expertise to treat influencer work as a core growth channel. They know how to translate social culture into commerce, and those are the people you want steering the function if you’re keeping influencer strategy within marketing.

When to build a standalone influencer function

When you’re running multiple creator campaigns per release, leaning heavily on influencer activation for tours or merch drops, and tracking creator performance with the same rigour you’d apply to paid campaigns – that’s when I’d tell you: you need a specialist. Someone with:

• Deep expertise, whose day job is scouting the right creators, negotiating partnerships, tracking performance, and staying ahead of platform shifts.
• A sharper focus on fan connections, who can build engaged communities, drive creator-led storytelling, and create sustained buzz that lasts beyond a single trend.
• A pulse on the creator economy, understanding the evolving world of micro-influencers, monetization models, and emerging content formats.

A quick caveat: If this role becomes too separate from brand and marketing, it may one, produce creator output that feels detached from core brand strategy, and two, lead to a lack of integration between measurement frameworks, budget governance and campaign coordination. 

Sidestepping those risks hinges on positioning the role as a counterpart, not a satellite. That’s exactly what I’m seeing in my recent work with music industry giants: dedicated Influencer Strategist designed to sit beside the Marketing teams instead of apart from it. The two functions operate symbiotically: one owns the message, the other owns the network.

Strategy first, structure second 

The “who owns it” question is fair, but it often drifts into debates about titles and reporting lines before anyone stops to think about what the business actually needs. When clients ask me what titles they need, or how their organizational structure should look, I first ask them: What are you trying to grow? What capabilities do you have? Which skills need to be built, or brought in? Once those answers are on the table, the structure figures itself out, and the ownership becomes obvious. 

If you don’t have that clarity, you’ll be making decisions based on guesswork. You’ll hire an Influencer Strategist because it sounds good, when the reality is that your influencer activity isn’t core to revenue, and your primary fan touchpoints still sit on owned channels. Or you’ll place the entire responsibility on the Marketing Executive because it’s worked so far – not realizing that the scale of your creator strategy and fan interactions are outpacing internal capability, and the new complexity requires its own architect if you want to keep momentum.

Shifting your focus towards outcomes and capabilities prevents title theatre. Decide what you need fans to do, define the creator moves that make it happen, inventory your muscle, and only then lock-in the ownership model. That’s how you build a function that actually delivers. 

My view from the search chair

The businesses that master influencer strategy aren’t just selling music. They’re cultivating ecosystems of loyalty, influence and repeat engagement that traditional marketing can’t buy. If influencer marketing has become the heartbeat of fan connection, then the ones owning it determine how strong that heartbeat is.

Whether you give that ownership to the Marketing Executive or Influencer Strategist, it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not the title that dictates success. The real differentiator is whether the people leading it understand that influence is now commercial infrastructure, fueling discovery, monetizing fandom, and underpinning brand equity. Those are the leaders shaping what effective marketing looks like in the music industry, and the ones every business should be building around.

So before debating titles or team structures, businesses need to get clear – on what will actually grow the fan relationship, on how your influencer strategy is evolving, on whether your team has the muscle to support that evolution, and if it doesn’t, where those capability gaps are. Once you have that understanding, the question “who should own the fan relationship?” will answer itself.

If you’re building out your marketing or creator function in the music industry, let’s talk. I’m always happy to share what I’m seeing in the market and help you find the talent who can move your brand forward.