India's rapidly expanding digital creator economy—growing by 322% since 2020—has positioned nano-influencers (individuals with 1,000–10,000 social media followers) as a psychologically distinct and understudied population. Unlike passive social media consumers or high-profile macro-influencers, nano-influencers actively curate personal narratives for public evaluation, subjecting themselves to daily feedback loops of metrics, comments, and social comparison without the institutional support available to larger creators. This unique digital labor raises substantive questions about their psychological functioning, particularly regarding self-esteem and mental well-being—two constructs foundational to clinical psychology and health promotion.

The present study employed a quantitative cross-sectional correlational design to examine self-esteem and mental well-being levels among 80 nano-influencers aged 18–35 years (Male = 45, 56.3%; Female = 35, 43.7%), primarily active on Instagram (85%) and YouTube (15%). Two validated psychometric instruments were administered via Google Forms: the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965) and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS; Tennant et al., 2007). Descriptive analysis revealed that the majority of participants reported normal self-esteem (72.5%; M = 16.74, SD = 4.62) and moderate-to-high mental well-being (96.2%; M = 36.36, SD = 7.36). Shapiro-Wilk normality tests confirmed non-normal distribution for the RSES (W = .891, p < .001), justifying the use of non-parametric Spearman's rho correlation analysis.