Unraveling prosumption: transformative trajectories in social media

The concept of prosumption blurs the traditional boundary between consumers and producers. It represents a consumer practice that involves direct engagement in both the production and consumption of goods or services, regardless of firm involvement (Campbell, 2005; Toffler, 1980). Prosumption has been studied in the field of consumer behavior under various terms, including craft consumer (Campbell, 2005), Do-It-Yourself (DIY) (Wolf & McQuitty, 2011), working consumers (Cova & Dalli, 2009) and digital prosumption (Andrews & Ritzer, 2018). These terms reflect different emphases, but prosumption has generally been considered in two main spheres: individual and collective.

The individual sphere focuses on the development of prosumption at a private level, as a site of autonomy and creative empowerment that enables individuals to take control of production processes (Campbell, 2005; Wolf & McQuitty, 2011). In this sphere, studies have examined the antecedents, motivations and processes through which consumers create or transform products (Watson & Shove, 2008; Wolf & McQuitty, 2011). It is closely related to the concepts of the craft consumer (Campbell, 2005) and DIY (Wolf & McQuitty, 2011), as it involves consumers independently developing prosumption projects in the private domestic sphere.

Prosumption can also emerge within social networks of collaboration, which constitute a sphere of collective prosumption, often associated with value co-creation (Bouncken & Tiberius, 2023; Cova, 2008). Collective prosumption has been examined in relation to the formation of new markets (Kjeldgaard, Askegaard, Rasmussen, & Østergaard, 2017; Martin & Schouten, 2014), empowerment (Cordeiro & Campos, 2015) and acts of resistance or contestation against dominant market structures (Cova & Dalli, 2009; Morais, Brito, & Quintão, 2019; Rocha, Campos, Casotti, & Nascimento, 2020). It can be considered a form of co-creation (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004) that goes beyond firm–consumer interaction, encompassing cases in which individuals produce for themselves or peer communities, without firm involvement (e.g. Rocha et al., 2020). Therefore, not all prosumption is co-creation, and not all co-creation qualifies as prosumption.

Recently, social media has expanded the prosumer concept to encompass consumers’ active roles in producing and sharing content within online communities (Chan, Zeng, & Yang, 2022). Digital prosumption describes a technology-based and participatory form of engagement in the production and consumption of goods, services or content (Andrews & Ritzer, 2018; Ritzer, 2015; Shah, Noor, Lei, Butt, & Ali, 2021). Within this context, influencers have increasingly been positioned as prosumers, as they create and share content while using prosumption to gain credibility and build professional identities among their audiences (Archer & Robb, 2024; Lang, Dolan, Kemper, & Northey, 2020). Some studies have already explored prosumers’ trajectories, highlighting technological, social, economic and cultural dynamics and identifying phases of enchantment and disenchantment with prosumption activities (Chandler & Chen, 2015; Denegri-Knott & Zwick, 2012; Morais & Brito, 2025).

Although prosumption literature has primarily focused on characterizing prosumer figures within individual and collective spheres, digital environments have introduced new dimensions to prosumption that go beyond material production. Nevertheless, little is known about the trajectory of prosumers, especially when considering the mediating role of digital platforms. Understanding this trajectory is essential for advancing knowledge on prosumption and how individuals can use it to enhance their social media presence. This understanding positions prosumption as a transformative process rather than a one-time behavior.

To address this gap, we analyze how prosumers’ trajectories, as mediated by digital platforms, evolve from the individual to an influence-driven sphere, illustrating a transformation from private to public engagement. We adopt a multimethod approach combining netnography (Kozinets, 2019) and in-depth interviews (McCracken, 1988) to examine online prosumption practices. The empirical findings offer concrete insights into how digital platforms mediate the shift from individual to collective prosumption and influence, shedding light on the nature of this trajectory and directly addressing the identified research gap.

The concept of prosumption, originally proposed by Toffler (1980), refers to consumers who also act as producers, often simultaneously, and has been examined across various fields. Energy sector studies indicate that prosumers follow a trajectory from passive to active, shaped by technology, regulation and market dynamics (Brown, Hall, & Davis, 2019; Parag & Sovacool, 2016). In the services sector, prosumption can emerge in collective contexts, primarily driven by individual motivation (Bouncken & Tiberius, 2023; Chandler & Chen, 2015). In the fashion sector, cultural factors and social structures play a central role in motivating prosumption practices (Tse & Tsang, 2021).

Within consumer research, prosumption has gained prominence (Fracalanzza & Campos, 2019) with scholars proposing different terms to describe consumers who opt to produce their own products and services rather than purchase them (Bateson, 1983; Campbell, 2005; Cova & Cova, 2012; Cova & Dalli, 2009; Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010; Wolf & McQuitty, 2011). Prosumption can then take various forms, depending on several factors, including the nature of the activity, motivation, skills, materiality and digitalization (Andrews & Ritzer, 2018).

Prosumer training has been explored in studies examining the antecedents, motivations and processes by which individual consumers gather raw materials to create or transform products (Wolf & McQuitty, 2011). Individual prosumption is a site of autonomy and creative empowerment, where consumers take control of production processes motivated by aesthetic preferences, personal values, or dissatisfaction with mass-market offerings (Campbell, 2005; Watson & Shove, 2008). Wolf & McQuitty (2011) further highlighted the cognitive, technical and affective investments required in these practices, which often demand a high degree of expertise and dedication.

In this context, prosumption can be understood as a DIY activity, where consumers are “actively and creatively involved in the integration and transformation of complex matrices of material goods” (Watson & Shove, 2008, p. 69). The DIY prosumer thus progresses through a series of steps aligned with their motivations and desired outcomes (Wolf & McQuitty, 2011) to improve their skills and knowledge in transforming raw materials into final products. Individual prosumption can also be viewed as craftwork, where individuals produce their own goods by assembling products that focus on expressing their creativity and personal potential (Campbell, 2005).

Prosumption may also emerge in networks of collaboration, facilitating mutual learning, symbolic recognition and the legitimation of shared practices. These collective processes are fueled by shared identities, affective attachments or ideological commitments and can be considered a value co-creation process (Bouncken & Tiberius, 2023; Cova, 2008). Value co-creation processes can be aimed at both a social group and the market.

Collective prosumer action may lead to the formation of new markets. For instance, home brewers transformed their passion into viable enterprises by organizing consumer associations and engaging with the craft beer market (Kjeldgaard et al., 2017). Adult consumers of minibikes repurposed these products for recreational use, creating a new market segment (Martin & Schouten, 2014). In these examples, the pursuit of unique experiences drives the emergence of new consumption niches, with collective prosumption evolving from innovation to group organization and ultimately to market transformation.

Some prosumers focus on acquiring specific skills to gain a more empowered position relative to the market, often motivated by dissatisfaction with existing offerings. Rocha et al. (2020) highlighted a different type of prosumer, who is motivated by necessity rather than pleasure or ideology, driven by dissatisfaction and engaged in skill acquisition, often sharing their knowledge to generate broader collective impact.

Collective prosumption is also an act of resistance, whereby consumers challenge dominant market structures (Kjeldgaard et al., 2017). For instance, Morais et al. (2019) described prosumers motivated by ideological concerns – such as health and environmental issues – that are inadequately addressed by mass-produced goods. These individuals seek pleasurable, personalized consumption experiences and use social networks to legitimize alternative practices, driven by a distrust of institutional structures, including markets, politics and science. A complementary strand explores the concept of working consumers (Cova & Dalli, 2009), who add value to market offerings through their immaterial labor in social relations. Prosumption, in this sense, becomes a new consumer competence (Cova & Cova, 2012), reflecting an agentic positioning that challenges dominant market logics (Vicdan et al., 2024).

Currently, advances in information technology and social media have facilitated the co-creation of new forms of products, services and content (Cova & Cova, 2012). While Toffler’s (1980) concept of the prosumer remains foundational, in the digital age the term has expanded to include content creation and sharing in online communities, commonly referred to as prosumer-generated content (Chan et al., 2022).

Online communities amplify local expertise and create global repertoires of consumer knowledge (Mardon, Cocker, & Daunt, 2023). As a result, prosumers are no longer limited by individual realities; instead, they find that expanded opportunities for connection and entrepreneurship remain available to them if they continue to actively participate in creating their own products (Kelleci, 2025; Mardon et al., 2023; Morais et al., 2019). This process reflects new valuation modes in prosumption (Molesworth, Watkins, & Denegri-Knott, 2016). Tutorials, access to materials and visibility via social media platforms are key enablers, blurring the boundaries between autonomous production and structurally mediated engagement (Morais et al., 2019).

Digital prosumption centers on active, technology-enabled participation in producing and consuming goods, services or content, including practices as content creation (Ritzer, 2015), sharing economy (Shah et al., 2021) and collaborative networks (Andrews & Ritzer, 2018). Recent studies position influencers as a form of prosumer, given their role in content creation, community engagement and opinion leadership (Archer & Robb, 2024). These individuals simultaneously act as producers and consumers, often achieving celebrity and entrepreneurial status (Erz & Heeris Christensen, 2018; Mardon et al., 2023). Lang et al. (2020) argued that positioning themselves as prosumers enhances influencers’ credibility and professional identity among followers.

Although most studies explore the development of digital prosumption, some scholars seek to understand the trajectories of prosumers, shaped by technological, social, economic and cultural issues (Chandler & Chen, 2015; Denegri-Knott & Zwick, 2012; Tse & Tsang, 2021). Denegri-Knott & Zwick (2012) described two key stages in this trajectory: enchantment, driven by novelty and enthusiasm and disenchantment, when prosumption becomes routine, leading to disillusionment and disengagement. Digital platforms mediate these dynamics, but do not consider digital relations as a whole.

In sum, prosumption literature primarily focuses on characterizing prosumers and analyzing their development at individual and collective levels. Digital transformations have extended this discussion beyond material production, yet little is known about the evolutionary trajectories of prosumers, particularly as mediated by platforms. Understanding how prosumers move from individual acts to spheres of influence is essential to deepen our comprehension of their potential to influence consumption practices or even shape market dynamics. In this sense, this research seeks to understand how the prosumer’s trajectory, mediated by digital platforms, evolves from individual practices to broader influence.

To address our research question, we used a multimethod qualitative approach combining netnography (Kozinets, 2019) and in-depth interviews (McCracken, 1988). Netnography, a qualitative technique designed to explore cultural and social dynamics in social media, enables the derivation of insights from systematic, immersive and multimodal observation of digital traces (Kozinets & Gretzel, 2024).

We adopted netnography to gain a contextual and longitudinal understanding of how prosumption is enacted and represented across social media platforms. To complement this approach and contrast social media observations with personal accounts, we conducted in-depth interviews with selected users who engaged in or responded to prosumption practices online. This added narrative depth and enabled triangulation between observed behaviors and individual perspectives.

Following the six movements of netnography (Kozinets, 2019), fieldwork commenced in January 2020, during which we observed a growing trend of everyday consumers sharing DIY content and monetizing it through audience engagement. Table 1 presents a detailed overview of the methodological stages and strategies adopted throughout our netnographic inquiry. For each movement, we describe the actions undertaken, the data collected and how these procedures informed subsequent steps.

In the initiation phase (January 2020), we sought to understand how prosumption practices were shared across digital platforms. This preparatory stage involved aligning algorithmic recommendations to guide us toward relevant content. We adjusted our social media profiles to consume content related to prosumption and identified key hashtags and keywords to locate relevant practices. These included “DIY,” “decorating a house,” “makeup tips,” “beauty tips” and “making cosmetics”, selected based on platform metrics indicating high volumes of associated posts. This allowed us to observe a diverse range of practices and reflect the heterogeneity of prosumption, with a particular focus on the beauty and home care segments. We applied these keywords across Instagram and YouTube, platforms that support medium- and long-form audiovisual content and facilitate community interaction.

During the immersion phase (February to April 2020), we collected 350 screenshots and 150 videos from publicly available posts gathered through active searches using the identified hashtags: #diy, #decoracao (#decoration), #dicasmake (#makeuptips), #dicasbeleza (#beautytips), #fazendocosmeticos (#makingcosmetics). Posts were saved to a shared Google Drive project folder and researchers kept individual immersion journals to record observations. We focused on content with high levels of audience interaction. From this initial data set, we observed patterns in how prosumption was disseminated and identified key profiles that combined instructional content, personal narratives and audience engagement.

In the investigation phase (April 2020 to November 2021), we selected three public Instagram profiles that consistently engaged in prosumption practices within the beauty and home care niches: @umavidasemlixo (219K followers), managed by @cristalmuniz, (65K followers); @ju_feitoza (728K followers); and @jessivajuvenciooficial (290K followers).

These profiles were chosen based on thematic relevance, consistent content production and visible engagement (e.g. likes, comments and shares). We prioritized micro- and macroinfluencers (Campbell & Farrell, 2020), which allowed us to observe more organic content production without heavy commercial influence. This helped us gain a better understanding of the natural construction of relationships between prosumption activities, influencers and their audiences. The focus on beauty and home care stemmed from their recurring presence during the immersion stage. This selection enabled us to analyze consistent, multi-platform prosumption strategies in greater depth.

During this phase, each researcher was responsible for monitoring one profile, collecting posts that exemplified prosumption and audience interaction. This resulted in 534 screenshots and 123 videos, all of which were stored in the shared project folder. Researchers also continued journaling their observations. Each journal, averaging 100 pages, served as a reflexive tool for recording impressions, emerging themes and analytical tensions.

In total, the netnographic data set included 884 screenshots, 273 videos and 300 pages of immersion notes, enabling us to identify how prosumers narrated their trajectories, framed expertise, interacted with audiences and mediated prosumption practices. To deepen our understanding of the cultural dimensions of prosumption (Kozinets, 2019), we complemented the netnography with a round of in-depth interviews (McCracken, 1988) (August to November 2021). The relationship between netnography and interviews was dialogical rather than sequential. Social media observations informed the development of the interview guide, while the findings of the interviews prompted revisits and reinterpretations of digital content.

Interview participants were selected from users who engaged with the monitored profiles (e.g. frequent commenters, content sharers) or were referred through interpersonal recommendations. Participants were women aged 25–45, living in Brazil’s Southeast region, with diverse backgrounds including journalism, law and pharmacy. Rather than relying solely on snowball sampling, we used inclusion criteria to ensure a range of prosumption involvement – from passive followers to active DIY creators – capturing variation in age, gender and digital proficiency.

Ten interviews were conducted, each lasting approximately 80 min. They followed a semi-structured protocol (Belk, Fischer, & Kozinets, 2012; McCracken, 1988) to explore participants’ engagement with prosumption content, motivations and perceptions of influence and authenticity. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and anonymized, resulting in 157 pages of data.

In total, our data set comprised 1,157 netnographic records, 157 pages of interview transcripts and 300 pages of journal notes. All research procedures complied with ethical standards for digital and qualitative research. Only publicly accessible content was analyzed, usernames were anonymized and potentially harmful data were excluded. Interviewees were all legal adults in Brazil. All data were originally in Brazilian Portuguese and translated into English by bilingual researchers to ensure semantic fidelity.

Data analysis began in December 2020 and unfolded over 18 months through iterative integration rounds (Kozinets, 2019). All team members engaged deeply with the data set. We used a hermeneutic approach (Thompson, 1997), focusing on how meanings were co-constructed through the interplay of content, platform architecture and audience interaction. Initial rounds of analysis identified two preliminary spheres of prosumption: private and public.

We then initiated coding to explore how prosumers transitioned across these spheres, grouping the codes according to recurring discursive patterns, user behaviors and modes of value creation. Open coding initially produced 35 codes grounded in empirical observations and aligned with prior literature (e.g. Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010). Through collaborative refinement and constant comparison, we distilled these into 18 core codes. The coding process followed both inductive and abductive reasoning, enabling us to trace how forms of prosumption are shared and developed.

Through analytic memos and cross-method comparison, we develop three categories, which form the basis of the model presented in the findings. Categories are formed based on the prosumption forms that emerged from the codification process. Findings are presented in the following section.

Prosumers often go through a transformation trajectory involving three spheres of prosumption: individual, collective and professional. The trajectory usually begins with a motivating factor that prompts individuals to shift from being passive consumers, merely recipients of market offerings, to becoming producers of their own consumption solutions. Table 2 summarizes these spheres of prosumption, detailed in the following sections.

Individual prosumption occurs in a private sphere, where individuals engage in DIY-style activities (Wolf & McQuitty, 2011) to produce material solutions that meet their needs. The triggers for individual prosumption can be emotional, activist, financial or stem from dissatisfaction with available market products. For instance, Liz shared how she started questioning the amount of waste she generated after moving into a new home on her own, which led her to begin producing items at home instead of purchasing them:

While the excerpt above highlights a personal reflection that leads to individual prosumption, significant life events – such as marriage or parenthood – can also serve as important triggers for this process. Often influenced by religious or cultural beliefs, these moments push individuals to adopt traditional domestic responsibilities. Tasks like cooking, cleaning and childcare become essential, as illustrated by Juliana Feitoza, responding to a follower:

Once individuals acquire basic knowledge and access to raw materials, they begin engaging in artisanal production. These activities, usually carried out at home and individually, are experimental in nature and marked by trial and error. Clair, for example, described her process of making soap:

Starting individual prosumption thus requires a learning process. Individuals actively seek knowledge and training to engage in their desired activities. The internet, especially social media, has become a primary source of knowledge. In addition to online content, individuals also use instructional tools and exchange information within their social circles. Another interviewee, Claudine, said:

In this sphere, prosumers seek to create material goods to satisfy personal needs while simultaneously consuming content to enhance their skills. Ju Feitoza, for example, shared a case in which she made a flower arrangement because she could not find anything she liked in stores:

However, the process is not free of tension. Lack of information – or conflicting information – can discourage individuals. Jéssica Juvêncio, for instance, attempted to replicate a makeup look by a professional artist but became frustrated:

Once the prosumer reaches a certain level of skill, they begin using digital platforms not only to learn but also to share their creations with others. As they gain confidence and begin showcasing their work to friends and family, they move into collective prosumption: what was once made at home becomes part of a digital community. Prosumers use platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok to share video tutorials and demonstrate techniques. For instance, Ju Feitoza shared:

By connecting with others – often homemakers – they seek knowledge and affirmation of their identity as a “virtuous spouse” or “cosmetic expert.” Sharing tips and building credibility help grow their follower base (McQuarrie, Miller, & Phillips, 2013). For example:

In this stage, content creation focuses on audiovisual formats, sharing opinions, techniques and consumption experiences. Interaction fosters co-creation of value (Cova & Dalli, 2009). In one exchange from the netnography, we find:

Prosumers also express brand preferences and deep product knowledge, using them to develop unique recipes, such as:

Nevertheless, at this stage, individuals are still in the process of adapting what they have learned as they work to develop their prosumption activities in search of optimal results. This stage is marked by advanced skill development through trial and error, as described by Leila: “It’s trial and error, right? You do it, mess it up […] Then do it again, and keep testing. People think these products won’t harm you, so they experiment” (interview with Leila).

Collective prosumption is often signaled publicly. Ju Feitoza, for example, shared her daily activity with followers:

When the follower base grows beyond the initial social circle, some prosumers may transition to the professional stage. However, not all do – some remain in collective or individual stages, depending on personal interests, resources and recognition.

As prosumption activities become a source of content, prosumers attract an audience interested in the theme, entering the professional prosumption sphere when large-scale production occurs and jointly assume the role of opinion leaders (Veirman, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017). The final stage of the trajectory begins with the professionalization of content creators, who now become digital influencers with a substantial social media following. What may have started as a leisurely, hedonic pursuit gradually transforms into an influential role, where they widely share their content and gain the status of opinion leaders (Veirman et al., 2017).

In this sphere, interaction with the community becomes more intense and may even lead to the development of new prosumption activities. Like in this example:

This stage is often marked by influencers sharing content that displays their material success, such as home tours, studio setups, and large-scale product purchases:

In this scenario, as follower counts grow, prosumers often evolve into digital influencers (Campbell & Farrell, 2020), expanding into entrepreneurial ventures, offering online courses, selling products and partnering with brands. Through these activities and partnerships, along with technological advancements, prosumers continue to advance in their trajectory, transforming hobbies into full-time professions. Platforms like YouTube offer monetization systems, and brands sponsor posts, such as “#publiposts” (Nascimento, Campos, & Suarez, 2020), which begin to support these prosumers economically.

This visible professionalization inspires others, illustrating the possibility of socioeconomic advancement through content production. Tainara Reis, for example, offers a self-makeup course for beginners, designed for those who want to improve their skills and share their progress on social media. Priced at R$547.00 (approximately US$100), her course includes over 40 lessons (Hotmart, 2025).

Nevertheless, professional prosumption presents challenges and tensions, particularly in terms of developing skills for new business models. That is, how can a prosumer act as a professional influencer and still carry out entrepreneurial activities (Mardon et al., 2023) without abandoning the core prosumption practice? Ju Feitoza, for example, has several partnerships with brands and seeks to integrate her prosumption activities. In one of these partnerships, the brand responded: “We loved hearing that the portability and power of the extractor made a difference in your cleaning. And that mixture you used looks amazing!” (official profile @ju_feitoza on February 26, 2025).

We identified that prosumers develop their activities through a progressive trajectory, evolving from individual to professional spheres, unlike previous studies that focused solely on the increase or decline of prosumption (Chandler & Chen, 2015; Denegri-Knott & Zwick, 2012; Tse & Tsang, 2021). Our findings demonstrate how these spheres interact to shape prosumption trajectories, as illustrated by the framework presented in Figure 1.

Consumers often experience a trigger that prompts them to reconsider their consumption habits, motivating them to engage in prosumption. Triggers for individual prosumption include market perceptions, personal values, skill development and the desire to enhance one’s social media presence (Andrews & Ritzer, 2018). Individuals typically begin their trajectories with individual prosumption.

In this stage, prosumption is primarily focused on carrying out practices in the domestic sphere to produce material goods for personal use. Learning is a fundamental practice in this moment: to produce satisfactory results, consumers must acquire a high degree of personal expertise and commitment (Wolf & McQuitty, 2011). As individuals acquire foundational knowledge, they feel increasingly confident and fulfilled, which motivates them to share their creations publicly.

This leads to the sphere of collective prosumption, where prosumers begin to display their work on social media as a means of building an audience (McQuarrie et al., 2013) not only producing content for communities (Chan et al., 2022) but also share practices and knowledge, collectively building a repertoire of techniques (Mardon et al., 2023). These exchanges help legitimize prosumers within their communities (Morais et al., 2019). Thus, sharing becomes a central practice (Kelleci, 2025), fostering engagement, interaction and a sense of empowerment (Molesworth et al., 2016).

As engagement deepens, some prosumers transition into a professional sphere, expanding their reach on social media and guiding others in their own prosumption trajectories. With a growing follower base, these prosumers begin to act as opinion leaders (Erz & Heeris Christensen, 2018), becoming influencers (Campbell & Farrell, 2020) and produce content on a larger scale, often monetizing their practices based on their cultivated communities (Mardon et al., 2023). At this stage, they also act as mentors, tutoring aspiring prosumers and enabling them to follow a similar evolutionary path (Erz & Heeris Christensen, 2018).

Significantly, not all prosumers progress through every stage of this trajectory. The proposed framework includes a color gradient to illustrate variation: while most individuals experience the individual and collective stages, many remain within the second stage, producing primarily for small, like-minded communities. Professionalization is more likely among those who actively engage with social media platforms, which offer the visibility and network effects necessary for entrepreneurial ventures and mentorship opportunities (Mardon et al., 2023).

As prosumers reach the final stage, they influence broader audiences and often turn their activities into entrepreneurial ventures. Ultimately, prosumers who reach a professional level help guide the next generation by sharing knowledge and strategies, teaching newcomers how to navigate the prosumer trajectory. While many prosumers emphasize self-reliance and individual agency as key motivations, their trajectories are deeply shaped by interdependence, both in terms of technological reliance on digital platforms and the need for communal validation and affective recognition. This challenges simplistic notions of autonomy in digital contexts and invites a reconceptualization of co-creation not as a balanced partnership, but rather as a form of mediated interdependence.

Our investigation across multiple prosumption spheres provides deeper insights into their motivations and trajectories, extending the understanding beyond production itself, as explored by Wolf, Ritz and McQuitty (2022). Prosumers’ motivations go beyond hedonic enjoyment (Morais et al., 2019) and transcend social invisibility and market constraints (Rocha et al., 2020). The prosumers in this study seek not only personal fulfillment but also socioeconomic advancement, particularly when they become digital influencers (Campbell & Farrell, 2020).

Our study contributes to the prosumption literature in several ways. First, we emphasize the transition from individual practices to collective and digital influence, unlike previous studies that focus solely on either physical (e.g. Rocha et al., 2020; Wolf & McQuitty, 2011; Wolf et al., 2022) or digital prosumption (Chan et al., 2022). Moreover, we demonstrate that prosumption is a transformative process rather than an instantaneous phenomenon. Although prior research has examined individual trajectories, particularly in offline contexts – such as DIY projects (Wolf & McQuitty, 2011) or home brewing (Wolf et al., 2022) – less is known about the diverse pathways to prosumption, particularly within digital and collective spaces shaped by social media.

While previous studies have conceptualized prosumer trajectories comprising ascending and descending phases (Chandler & Chen, 2015; Denegri-Knott & Zwick, 2012), our research proposes an evolutionary trajectory. We demonstrate how prosumption can transition from the domestic sphere to a sphere of public influence on social media, enabling the prosumer to establish a professional presence that, in turn, reinforces their engagement in prosumer activities. Unlike influencers (Erz & Heeris Christensen, 2018), prosumers primarily engage with social media to share their creations and enhance their technical knowledge.

Companies can benefit from understanding prosumer trajectories, particularly how individuals progress from personal production to collective sharing and, in some cases, professionalization. Businesses could develop tools, platforms or services that support each stage of this trajectory, helping consumers share their creations or transition into entrepreneurship. Besides that, brands can support prosumers in leveraging social media to share their expertise by creating branded communities that facilitate these interactions.

Insights into prosumer professionalization can inform entrepreneurship programs. Workshops, online courses or mentorship initiatives could be designed to guide prosumers interested in transforming passion projects into viable businesses, particularly within digital contexts. Governments and institutions could support prosumption by offering training programs that help individuals develop digital skills, effectively market their products and expand their online presence.

As limitations of this study, we highlight the focus on two consumption niches and the absence of a broader range of profiles at different stages and formats of prosumption for comparison. Future research could further map these trajectories to better understand consumer transitions and identity projects. In addition, future work could explore the role of social media in fostering consumer communities and legitimizing prosumption practices.

Another promising area for future research involves investigating how social media algorithms affect the visibility and success of prosumers. As our study highlights the role of digital platforms in prosumer professionalization, future research could investigate how platform algorithms facilitate or hinder audience growth, ultimately shaping prosumers’ potential to become influencers or entrepreneurs.

The authors would like to thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV-EAESP), Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto (PPGEP – UFOP) and the Instituto COPPEAD de Administração at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) for their support during this research and the postdoctoral fellowship of the first author. The authors are also grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers of RAUSP for their valuable contributions throughout the publication process. Finally, the authors thank the CCT and CCB communities for their insightful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript, provided during workshops and conferences.

Author’s contribution: Isabela Carvalho de Morais – Corresponding Author, Conceptualization (Equal), Data curation (Equal), Formal analysis (Equal), Investigation (Equal), Methodology (Equal), Project administration (Lead), Supervision (Lead), Writing – original draft (Equal), Writing – review and editing (Equal). Thaysa Costa do Nascimento, Conceptualization (Equal), Data curation (Equal), Formal analysis (Equal), Investigation (Equal), Methodology (Equal), Project administration (Equal), Validation (Equal), Writing – original draft (Lead), Writing – review and editing (Equal). Flávia Pimenta Fracalanzza, Conceptualization (Equal), Data curation (Equal), Formal analysis (Equal), Investigation (Equal), Methodology (Equal), Validation (Equal), Writing – original draft (Equal), Writing – review and editing (Equal). Karin Brondino-Pompeo, Conceptualization (Equal), Writing – review and editing (Supporting).