The term “influencer” has quickly become one of the most frequently used buzzwords in marketing. With the expansion of social media as both a career and a tool for consumer decision making, effective marketing efforts have comfortably settled into the overlapping space between creator and marketer.
As a result, the most successful brands – both big and small – are finding out that understanding how to access your audience through the people they connect with authentically can be the key to elevating campaigns. So, how does a brand looking to leverage influencer voices decide where to position themselves in the market? Let’s start from the beginning.
What Is an Influencer and How Do They Help?
Influencers are individuals with expertise or influence in specific areas or communities. Because of the everyday role they play in their followers’ online experiences, influencers are perfectly set up to engage with them through native actions as opposed to paid ads.
Although they often hold a “public figure” status on social media, influencers concentrate their efforts mostly on affecting sales. This distinction sets their role in the marketing process apart from a “spokesperson”-focused brand campaign that would normally employ a more traditional celebrity personality.
Despite platforms like X and Meta catering to brands by implementing more ad-focused platform updates, social media users are still hesitant to trust companies that advertise directly to them in the traditional sense. This means that for brands looking to increase trust in their products and amplify their digital campaigns, influencer marketing is one of the most effective tools available.
Anecdotally, you’ve probably already noticed this. Chances are that more and more brands on your timeline are rolling out products with the help of well known content creators. But it’s not just you – the numbers reflect a substantial change in the market.
Current State of Influencer Marketing
The ability of online figures to dictate consumption patterns has grown exponentially. In a Wyzowl study, around 44% of consumers said they prefer to learn about services and products through short video content. As a result, influencer marketing initiatives are expected to exceed $7 billion in ad spend in 2024 per eMarketer.
This number is still dwarfed compared to competing categories like digital awareness ads, but the 16% jump from 2023’s $6.16 billion reflects a clear upward trend in the way marketers are incorporating influencer spend into their plans.
In a report from Business Insider, 81% of brands say they plan to use influencers in their marketing campaigns in 2024 while 72% expect to increase their existing influencer spend.
That number will continue to rise as more brands see significant returns on their investments, but issues reaching and selecting the right influencers, confusion about effectively measuring their campaigns, and fears around working with outside creators are all standing in the way of many marketers truly making the most of influencer marketing.
Platform Use and Trends
While the most commonly thought of influencer platforms are usually Instagram and TikTok, the reality is that creative influencer marketing can be used to target whichever part of the internet you need to reach. Influencer platforms cover over two thirds of the population with 5.17 billion users worldwide and an estimated 320 million new users from January of 2023 to January of 2024.
This means that understanding the platforms at your disposal and the behavioral patterns of your audience is essential to effectively designing your campaign and leveraging your chosen influencer. So, what are some trends to keep in mind when selecting your platforms?
- A multi-platform approach is imperative: Influencers are rarely limiting their content to one platform, and marketers should be following this blueprint. Brand retention kicks in most effectively when users feel a brand’s impact on more than just one platform. Targeting multiple audiences across channels, whether with one influencer or multiple, will help you achieve saliency and get the most out of your campaigns.
- The “TikTokification” of content: Audiences are increasingly likely to respond most to short and attention grabbing content that limits its toll on attention span. Adapting to this trend means not only prioritizing hooks and bite sized content on TikTok, but also prioritizing shorter, more impactful promotions with influencers who focus on visual and written content.
- A shift toward low-fi content: As reflected in the consumer statistics above, audiences are becoming less likely to respond to engagements from brands directly. This is connected to an increasing demand for brands to be “authentic” in the way they interact with their audience. For many brands looking to use influencer marketing, this means avoiding overly produced content that may come across as an ad more than a partnership. You’re choosing influencers for a reason – avoid forcing them to mold to your brand and instead focus on adapting your campaign to what they do best!
Choosing the Right Influencer(s)
As you take all of these factors into consideration, you’ll obviously want to understand how to select your influencers. Segmenting your influencers by audience size will immediately help you hone your search and better align your campaign with your goals. Here is an example of how to easily understand your options when it comes to audience segmentation:
Visualizing segmentation in this way is a great first step to figuring out where your goals fall in the grand scheme of influencer marketing. For instance, if engagement is your goal, it helps to remember that it’s usually inversely related to an influencer’s audience size. Nano and micro influencers achieve engagement at a higher rate and are more likely to have a closer relationship with their audience. At a cheaper price point, this can also allow you to invest in a handful of creators who will build an authentic relationship between you and their audience in the same way.
On the other side of the spectrum, a macro influencer with a broader reach will net lower engagement rates and action-based conversions, but if you’re more interested in widespread awareness and reach, then this may be a worthwhile trade-off.
Keeping audience relevance in mind is also important. Just because an influencer has a small-but-passionate audience does not mean they will automatically be receptive to any brand that’s placed in front of them. So if you’re only interested in getting eyes on your brand, you’ll likely want to look elsewhere.
Inversely, a macro or mega influencer has a broader range of interests within their audience, but if you offer a niche product or service, you’ll want to consider whether or not it’s worth using them for your campaign.
However, like most rules of thumb, this understanding of audience size is a tool – not a rule. Allow yourself to be flexible and find out how you can best align yourself with these insights. For instance, as we learned earlier, a multi-channel approach is the standard for most brands, so it may help you to think of ways to partner with a couple micro influencers on one platform while selecting a macro influencer for another. If you’re working on building a grassroots campaign, you’ll likely be more interested in partnering with niche influencers across the board instead.
Give yourself room to experiment and get creative!
Integrating Influencers Into Campaigns
Many marketers are unsure of how to incorporate influencer marketing into their primary business goals. This means that many influencer campaigns are treated as standalone experiments without clear objectives or reports attached to them, and when marketers do attach goals to their influencer campaigns, they usually default to outcomes like brand visibility.
Instead of leaving your influencer campaign on an island apart from your standard goals, being aware of the way you use these tactics can help you fold your approach into your broader strategy. Here are some types of campaigns that can integrate well with influencer marketing:
- Customer acquisition programs: Take advantage of promotions, discounts, and other CTAs, and use your influencer to drive traffic and conversions. As this is an action-oriented goal, partnering with smaller scale influencers will be your best choice. Consider focusing on content that shows how your product blends into the user’s everyday life, with an influencer who can speak authentically to its impact and give a review that will inspire action.
- Product launches: Generate buzz, create interest, and induce adoption for a new product by partnering with larger scale influencers who can get eyes on your brand in a major way. Tap into their larger platform and focus on the significant reach that can be gained via this approach.
- Brand awareness: Use influencers and their platforms to gain reach among a larger or more target audience in service of lifted brand awareness and sentiment. For a goal like this, a mixed channel approach with influencers of various sizes – depending on your budget – will give you the best chance at sticking with your target audience to remain top of mind.
- Content marketing: Partner with influencers to share content that engages, educates, and/or informs. Find what works best for you here; what’s most important is that the creators you partner with can create new and engaging content that aligns with your brand and performs in ways necessary to your campaign.
TL;DR: Influencers Are Your Friends, Not Your Competition
Regardless of whether you’re just beginning your influencer marketing journey or looking to build on an existing foundation, understanding the full range of options at your disposal will help you get the most out of your marketing campaigns.
Consumers are looking to influencers more than ever for product and service recommendations. If you’re not taking advantage of that trend, your brand is not only falling short of its full potential, but also falling behind the competition as well. The world of influencer marketing is fairly new and rapidly expanding, but understanding your audience, your platforms, your budgets, and your goals are all key to understanding the field.
Keep these key factors in mind, adjust your campaign accordingly to incorporate your chosen creators, and find out for yourself just how effective properly used influencer marketing can be.
