Marrakech- The “influencers’ economy” in Morocco has witnessed a remarkable growth in recent years, as it has become a dynamic intersection between the areas of trade, marketing, entertainment, and the influence of public opinion.
According to a study conducted by the “Dege Trends” Foundation, the volume of influencers in Morocco during 2024 amounted to 4.2 billion dirhams (420 million dollars), recording a 40% increase compared to 2022.
Today, this market represents about 15% of the country’s e -commerce transactions number, which amounted to about 20.7 billion dirhams (2.07 billion dollars) in 2022, and rose to about 22 billion dirhams (2.2 billion dollars) in 2023, which reflects the growing role of influencers in brand marketing strategies.
In a statement to Al -Jazeera Net, Moroccan researcher Idris Al -Farisi – one of the supervisors of the study alongside Yunus Al -Subaihi and Othman Al -Wazzani – stressed that these numbers clarify the increasing importance of influencers within the digital commercial system in Morocco.
The “influencers’ economy” allows this category to achieve financial returns from the content they make through social media and affect it on the purchase decisions of users.
Non -organized growth and new legislation
Despite the rapid growth of this sector, its lack of a clear organizational framework raised the need for direct legislation, which was translated in the Finance Law of 2025, which included a number of measures, including:
- Minding permit to all digital incomes resulting from advertisements, cooperatives and commission marketing, or any profitable activity on electronic platforms.
- Imposing a tax of up to 30% on these incomes.
- Monitor money transfers from abroad through the exchange office, with a special unit to track digital operations.
- The requirement to return any transfer in hard currency to Morocco within 90 days.
- The classification of influencers within the category of “digital services source”, which puts them under official financial and legal oversight.
The legal void is an obstacle to the organization of the moral and media aspects of the activity of influencers, in the opinion of the expert, Imad Belak (Al -Jazeera)
Despite these steps, the expert in digital marketing, Imad Belak, notes that the vacuum is still existing in terms of organizing the moral, media and advertising aspects of this activity. The influence today, he says, “stands between the tax hammer and the anvil of the absence of organizational protection.”
As for the Moroccan researcher Jawad Al -Shafdi, he believes that the need has become urgent to develop strict legal and negative legislation that regulates the profession, considering that a number of influencers are promoting advertising content without the slightest commitment to transparency, which is “a direct misinformation of the consumer.”
The influencers between professionalism and challenges
There are no official numbers for the number of influencers in Morocco, but recent studies indicated that their number increased to 20,000, an increase of 40% over the year 2022, and they are distributed among the “young influencers” (1000 to 100 thousand followers) and the “great influencers” followed by millions.
The influencers ’category is divided among those who have taken digital activity as an essential profession, and who considers it an additional work.
The influencer, Nisreen Al -Kettani, a contracting and master’s collection in engineering, says that digital marketing provides wide opportunities, especially since the good content finds a great interaction from a diverse audience, adding that this activity opens in front of it fruitful professional relationships and builds a strong personal mark.
As for marketing expert Salahuddin Mimouni, he confirms that the influencers who have high credibility as a result of their linguistic and cultural proximity to the Moroccan public have a clear impact on purchase decisions, especially in areas such as fashion, beauty and technical products.
It indicates that 75.1% of Moroccans use social media daily, creating a fertile environment to expand this market.
Expert Imad Balk says that the current marketing strategies are based on accurate tools such as “the personality of the buyer” to describe the target group, and the emotional interaction between the influence and the public allows to build a trust relationship that is difficult to achieve through traditional advertisements, as well as expanding the marketing message in ways that can be spread and influence.
Difficulties in continuity and credibility
But this expansion is not without challenges, especially with regard to continuity, controlling content quality, and interaction with algorithms changes. Nisreen Al -Kettani says that non -constructive criticism represents a psychological burden, but she deals with it as an opportunity for self -development.
On the other hand, Imad Belak indicates that some brands choose influencers based on the number of followers only, as well as the weak transparency in disclosing ads, and the difficulty of measuring the real commercial return from the impressive campaigns.
Mimoni says that the Moroccan public has become more aware, and more sensitive to excessive or uncomfortable promotion, noting that the rise of “trivial” content raises questions about his sustainability, as it achieves a rapid profit, but it lacks value and loses the confidence of the audience in the long run.
Transformations in content and audience behavior
The “Digi Trends” study recorded a decrease in the follow -up rate of influencers from 75% in the year 2022 to 51% in 2024. But in contrast, the percentage of influencers increased by the recommendations of the influencers from 35% to 57%, indicating a more selective audience, but it is more willing to respond to the messages he chooses.
As for the most popular topics among Moroccans, they come:
- Humor first by 43%.
- Followed by food topics (39%).
- Fashion (34%).
- Beauty (33%).
- Travel (32%).
But the study also monitored a growth in interest in the added contents such as:
- Health and Welfare (28%).
- Finance and Investment (27%).
- Self -development (25%).
- Educational content (23%).
Beck confirms that the greatest interaction is with the short and visual content (Rales, Tek Tok, YouTube Shortz), guiding or formative content, in addition to realistic stories and spontaneous talk in Moroccan or simple classical dialect.
Between credibility and banality
Another phenomenon monitored by Imad Belak related to the spread of the productive content of users, which brands have become encouraging to document customer experiences, which gives credibility and enhances belonging to the mark.
On the other hand, he warns of a psychological and social phenomenon experienced by some groups of the public, which is to follow up influential people who do not agree with local values or culture, which reveals an unrealistic psychological gap or aspirations.
As for the researcher Jawad Al -Shafdi, the brands hold the responsibility of strengthening these phenomena, through their preference, influential, achieving high viewership, even if they provide superficial or empty content, considering that this dynamism encourages the production of more “mediocytes” at the expense of marginalizing purposeful and creative content.
In turn, the researcher Idris Al -Farsi says that discrimination is necessary between the “light” content that can be entertaining and valuable, and the “surface” content that lacks any real content.
He believes that this diversity of content patterns reflects the diversity of Moroccan society itself, stressing that the light content has its position, but it must coexist with more deep and influential content.
