What is the current state of influencer marketing?

According to Morning Consult’s findings, 57% of millennials are more likely to make a purchase if an influencer seems knowledgeable about a product. If an influencer is relatable, then 50% of millennials are likely to buy the promoted item or service. Following this, at 48%, is whether or not an influencer is genuinely enthusiastic about the product they are promoting. 

Sponsored posts that are funny and engaging accounts for 44%. This is in addition to the 38% who would more likely buy a product if the influencer is someone they aspire to be like.

There is no doubt that influencer marketing has an effect on business sales. These sales are taking place on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat. 

In fact, according to research by GlobalWebIndex, Instagram accounts for 41% of where U.S. and U.K. internet users go to engage with influencers. Taking second place is Facebook at 39%. YouTube is at 32%, while Twitter and Snapchat are at 27% and 12% respectively. 

Influencers can come from a wide variety of industries. For beauty, influencers include NikkieTutorials and PatrickStarrr. Vehicle enthusiasts can look to the opinion of Supercar Blondie. Celebrities like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Selena Gomez are also influencers with an especially high audience reach. 

GlobalWebIndex findings indicate that 22% of Gen Z individuals have made a purchase because of an influencer or celebrity’s post on social media. Millennials take second place at 20%. 

For beauty enthusiasts, 44.8% of people between ages 18 and 24 have been affected by social media influencers in terms of product purchases. Tinuiti’s forecast on marketing trends also found that 25.9% of U.S. beauty buyers between ages 25 and 34 are affected by influencers. As for those in the 35 to 65 age group, 18.8% of them are susceptible to social media posts. 

While social media platforms and channels like Instagram and YouTube are popular, TikTok is gaining traction. An example of this includes Walmart getting influencers to use the #SavingShuffle and #DealDropDance hashtags for a marketing campaign. According to Business Insider Prime’s report, these hashtags generated 1.7 billion and 3.8 billion views respectively. 

GlobalWebIndex’s analysis showed that 48% of U.S. and U.K. social media users believe trustworthiness is the most important quality for influencers. Of those surveyed, 46% of users want influencers to be informative. Meanwhile, 40% of them want influencers to be funny and entertaining. 

The trust between an influencer and their audience is undoubtedly important. An erosion of trust between them can negatively affect the sale of products and services. Influencers can remedy the erosion of trust by being truthful about their product reviews and disclose that they are being sponsored to talk about items.

Although it may be difficult to find these influencers and maintain a good working relationship with them, an experienced marketing agency can be the solution. Successfully tracking an influencer’s return on investment can also be tricky. As a business, getting this data is integral to an increase in revenue.

Find Your Audience can track the performance of influencer marketing campaigns. The team of marketing professionals uses promotional codes and tracking links as a way to calculate performance. This is only in addition to specialized software that can track campaigns and gather invaluable customer data through wifi. 

To take your influencer marketing to the next level, contact the Find Your Audience team at 647-479-0688 or hi@findyouraudience.online.