Direct marketers should ‘make hay while the sun shines’.
Influencer marketing has taken the internet by storm in recent years and remains a potent advertising tool as consumers’ appetite for authentic content endures. The stats show that we are preaching to the choir on this as well: according to Matter’s, 69% of consumers place their trust in influencers, friends, and family more than they do in a brand’s direct information. Insider Intelligence estimates that influencer advertising expenditure will exceed $6 billion in 2023.
As the influencer marketing industry matures, consumers are increasingly turning to influencers as an educational resource. The study shows that consumers prefer certain types of content, with how-to content, such as recipes and tutorials, being the most popular (42%), followed by digestible stories (35%) and photo or image-based posts with informative captions (33%).
Consumers continue to seek out influencers who spark a sense of familiarity. The preference for relatable personalities is the most appealing, with 61% of those surveyed showing interest, followed by expert personalities (43%), just-for-fun personalities (32%), and aspirational personalities (28%). Celebrity influencers’ preference has dropped to 11%, down from 17-22% in Matter’s 2020 report.
Despite the power of influencer marketing, consumer skepticism appears to be on the rise. Latest reports indicate that 63% of respondents noticed an increase in sponsored content from influencers on social media in the past year, up from 53% in 2020. As brand deals increase, questions about influencers’ sincerity in their recommendations are becoming more common. This skepticism has led to the rise of “de-influencing,” which encourages social media users not to buy a product.
Regardless of how influencers respond to this immediate trend, it seems that Influencer marketing is here to stay; however in the near to long term future it may be more appropriate for longer term marketing strategies such as brand building rather than more immediate product launching campaigns focused mainly on sales.
Moreover, in light of the negativity surrounding de-influencing, Mandy Mladenoff, president of Matter, stresses the importance for brands to focus on positive messaging. “Given the rise of de-influencing, especially on TikTok among Gen Z and Millennial audiences, brands need to have a bulletproof proactive and reactive strategy in place,” Mladenoff wrote in an email to Marketing Dive.
It seems Mladenoff’s suggested strategy falls in line with a longer term approach in using influencer marketing to cultivate brand awareness, which in spite of the trend of ‘de-influencing’ will remain a vibrant and viable use of influencer marketing in the years to come.
All in all, Social media platforms are continually bolstering their creator offerings, whether it’s YouTube launching a new process for monetizing Shorts, Meta’s Instagram prioritizing its Reels format, or TikTok revamping its creator fund and launching paywalled videos. So we can expect on a whole that there will be further emphasis on brand building in the long term, while at the same time there will remain a space for short term marketing strategies as new platforms open up.
So, in short Influencer marketing is here to stay, though it might not always be the best approach when looking for an immediate turnover when launching a new product. Learn more about marketing here
Author: Ryhan Higgins
Ryhan is a digital marketer who runs his own blog and teaches courses on affiliate marketing. You can read his tips and tricks at: https://www.affiliatetools4u.com/
