‘Don’t lie to me to get free stuff’: how small businesses are fighting back against influencers

From diva-like behaviour to freebie requests that never result in a review, ‘entitled’ content creators are a growing blight on small-business owners. Now entrepreneurs are calling them out

Nicole Flanagin remembers exactly the moment an influencer came after her business. It was the early hours of a March morning and the cat cafe owner in Lenoir, North Carolina, got a message. “At 1.37,” she says, “a friend sent me the link to this girl’s TikTok.”

The 41-year-old was already having a bad 24 hours. A mother of four, Flanagin also works at a pet rescue shelter and had spent the previous day unsuccessfully fighting for a dog not to be put down. She got home exhausted and promptly conked out in bed. Then she woke up to the message.