Did you know that in the past, the only people who could earn the label “influencer” were celebrities and stars everyone knew? What’s more, an influencer promoted any brands, products, and services across various industries and target audiences without specializing in a particular niche.
The word “influencer” refers to a person who has the power to effectively persuade others. They first gained prominence in 2009 when YouTube became popular as a platform for creating videos that could be shared with friends and family members. In 2013, social media platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat expanded influencer reach and empowered them with additional channels to share images and videos with their followers and friends.
Today, influencer marketing is undoubtedly at the peak of its popularity and people don’t need to be superstars to become successful influencers. Unlike before, however, they focus on one industry or niche and companies are more likely to partner with those whose followers are closest to their target audience.
In this article, we will explain everything you need to know about influencer marketing so you can fully benefit from it.
Let’s first dive into some highly convincing statistics that may amaze you even if you’ve already taken your first steps in influencer marketing.
Rise of Influencer Marketing with Key Influencer Marketing Stats
Influencer marketing has become a vital part of marketing strategies and its advancement doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. The rise of influencer marketing has been primarily driven by the growing popularity and accessibility of social media. Here are the key influencer marketing figures you may find truly astounding.
The Influencer Marketing Market Size is Ever-Increasing
It reached almost $14 billion in 2021, which is a huge rise considering that the market was worth only $1.7 billion in 2016. The rapid growth of influencer marketing in 2020 and 2021 is explained by the Coronavirus outbreak, which made social media our natural habitat. Moreover, the influencer marketing market size worldwide is estimated to reach $16.4 billion by the end of 2022.
The main reason why influencer marketing is so effective is that it targets potential customers at the right time and place in the purchasing funnel. This makes influencers a very effective ally for brands when it comes to reaching their target audience.
Influencer Marketing Is Here to Stay
The influencer marketing market size globally is expected to increase to $24.1 billion by 2025. Another study indicates that the U.S. influencer marketing platform market will increase by almost 30% by 2030.
This creates a huge opportunity for brands to reach their target audience effectively and establish their brand. It’s also an excellent way to boost sales, increase brand awareness, and get more people talking about your business.
The Popularity of Influencer Marketing Is Growing Across Industries and Niches
The State of Influencer Marketing 2022: Benchmark Report by Influencer Marketing Hub points at a nearly 40% share of the industries different from those that are typically using influencer marketing.
Thus, these niches mark a 10% increase in their influencer marketing presence, indicating its rising popularity beyond the traditionally presented industries like Fashion & Beauty, Health & Fitness, Travel & Lifestyle, Gaming, Family, Parenting & Home, and Sports. You can get a more precise idea of the influencer marketing users in the chart below.
The takeaway? You don’t have to run a fashion brand to benefit from influencers. You still may be wondering if it’s worth giving it a try. Just look at the next figures.
Influencer Marketing Offers Huge Potential for Building Trust and Converting Leads
Reportedly, 61% of consumers would trust an influencer’s recommendations on social platforms, and only 38% would trust what a brand says. This naturally boosts sales and conversions, generating more revenue. Some companies earn $18 from every dollar invested in influencer marketing. You can easily do the calculations and decide if such an investment is worthy for your business as well.
Influencer Marketing Is No Longer Reserved for B2C Companies
According to the above-mentioned Benchmark Report, the B2B sector accounts for 38% of influencer marketing users, 8% up from the last year’s figures.
This means that no matter what industry you’re operating in and what your target audiences are (businesses or consumers), collaborating with an influencer can go a long way in enhancing brand awareness and attracting potential customers. The big question is, how to find the right influencer for your field. Luckily, there’s a huge pool you can choose from.
50+ Million People Consider Themselves Influencers
Influencers are everywhere, and they are no longer just Hollywood celebrities. More than 50 million people consider themselves creators. That’s a lot of people who are creating content every day.
More Than Half of the Companies That Collaborate with Influencers Operate eCommerce Stores
It is clear that the eCommerce industry tends to expand its collaboration with influencers. Approximately 54% of the firms that collaborate with influencers operate eCommerce stores.
Influencers have their own blogs where they share their own experiences about using certain products and services. This is one of the main reasons why it is important for businesses to work with influencers. It will help them reach out to more people than they could on their own.
So, what exactly is influencer marketing and how can you use it to promote your brand? Let’s look at a working definition of the concept.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is the process of collaborating with influencers to promote and endorse your products on social media. These influencers recommend your product or service to their followers, helping you reach and engage more customers.
So, rather than spending money on traditional advertising, brands and companies pay influencers who have a following close to their ideal buying persona. Here’s an example of how this works:
Let’s say you’re launching a new app that’s supposed to help people lose weight. You reach out to an Instagram fitness blogger who has more than 100,000 followers and ask them if they’d be willing to post about your app on Instagram.
They agree and post a picture of themselves using the app while working out in the gym. The caption says something along the lines of “I’m using this new app called [name of your app] every day! During my workouts, it helps me stay motivated.” The caption links back to your website where people can download it for themselves.
When done right, influencer marketing can help you build brand awareness and increase sales. Now that you know WHAT, the next thing to discuss is WHERE.
Which Are the Best Social Media Platforms to Focus Your Influencer Marketing Efforts?
There are five platforms that obligatorily come to mind when thinking of influencer marketing campaigns. Let’s take a closer look at each option.
As an image and video-focused platform, Instagram offers a great opportunity to run your influencer marketing campaigns. It’s particularly effective for B2C companies.
Reportedly, seven out of ten brands use this social media for influencer marketing and regularly create content. The Live, Stories, Reels, Polls, and other handy features can be used by your influencers to get your brand message across to a wider audience and increase your visibility.
Twitter is another viable option to use influencer marketing to promote your brand and products. According to a Twitter survey, 40% of users follow their favorite brands on the platform. Also, almost half of users heavily rely on product recommendations from influencers.
Moreover, Twitter is among the most cost-effective options, partly due to the concise format of the posts. As of 2016, 96% of Twitter influencers charged up to $100 for a branded tweet.
YouTube
YouTube is the world’s largest video site. It allows influencers to create their own channels where they can upload videos, interact with subscribers and even sell products. The video enables influencers to present much more brand and product information compared to any social media post. Therefore, YouTube influencers have the chance of boosting brand awareness and increasing sales.
And the best news – YouTube videos achieve a more long-term effect than any social media as the videos remain available on the platform for years after they’re released.
With 2.93 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social media and the second most preferred platform for influencer marketing, following Instagram. From setting Facebook giveaways to paid ad campaigns – it helps you reach your audiences in a direct and personalized way.
So, influencers can reach large audiences on Facebook. In addition, the platform offers more targeting options through its advertising algorithms. Facebook audiences have different options to interact with the content – they can like, comment, and share posts, which increases visibility.
TikTok
TikTok is a platform that has over 1 billion active users and it’s a great place to reach influencers. It’s predicted that by 2025, about 66% of marketers will use the app for influencer campaigns and almost 55% will take advantage of TikTok influencers for marketing purposes.
Obviously, each option comes with its advantages and offers opportunities to run different campaigns while partnering with an influencer.
Types of Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Influencer marketing campaigns are a great way to drive traffic and sales directly to your website. There are different types of campaigns and each of them is focused on a specific goal and has its own objectives.
Here are the most common types of influencer marketing campaigns.
Affiliate Links and Coupon Codes
Affiliate links and coupon codes are two of the most popular forms of influencer marketing. Both can be used to generate revenue. However, they require different strategies and approaches.
Affiliate Links
An affiliate link is a special URL that allows people who promote your products to earn money when someone clicks it and makes a purchase. Affiliate links don’t have to be on an actual product page or category page.
They can be placed within another piece of content, for example, an article or Instagram post, that directs traffic to your website. This makes them highly versatile and allows influences to craft unique and compelling content.
Coupon Codes
Coupon codes are an effective way to encourage customers to purchase from your store. Coupon codes are a type of discount that can be used to buy products from a company. They usually have an expiration date and are often specific to the product being purchased.
And here’s another example of promoting promo codes in a video from a TikTok influencer:
Influencers will promote coupon codes on their social media channels using images or videos of themselves using the products. The coupon codes can be entered at checkout to receive a discount on the current order.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content is a form of native advertising that involves working with an influencer to create custom content for your brand. This can be a blog post, video, or photo series.
Regardless of the content format, the goal is always the same: To promote your product in a way that fits naturally into their existing audience and style of writing, filming, or photography.
This type of advertising is becoming more popular due to its effectiveness. It allows brands to reach their target audience directly without paying for expensive ads. They can target specific demographics effectively and increase brand awareness.
Running Contests and Giveaways
The goal of setting up contests and giveaways is to get as many people as possible to participate. It’s a marketing activity where you offer something of value to your audience in exchange for asking them to tag a friend or answer a question about your product.
Contests are a popular marketing strategy for brands of all types, especially eCommerce businesses.
For example, let’s say you want to give away five pairs of sneakers to five lucky winners. You could ask people to follow you on social media and tag three friends in the comments section of your post and the winners will be selected randomly.
Running contests and giveaways is a great way to get your brand in front of new audiences. Giving away free products or services can help you build buzz and increase engagement.
Contests and giveaways are easy to run and can be done in a variety of ways. They can be as simple as giving away a gift card or as complex as a multi-contest strategy that includes several prizes.
You can run a contest or a giveaway on your website or on any social network platform like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Need some more detail about running a giveaway on Facebook? Simply visit our dedicated blog post and follow the easy step-by-step guide to setting up a successful giveaway campaign.
Giveaways are similar to contests. However, they require users to follow your account, like, comment, and share your post, or submit their email address or phone number in exchange for the prize. This helps you build a larger following, which is beneficial for your future campaigns as well.
Influencer contests and giveaways follow the same principles as a standard giveaway. Only, the brand running the giveaway collaborates with an influencer. You can co-host the event, or you can let the influencer take over the giveaway marketing using their social media channels.
In the example below, the digital creator Sam Souder co-hosts a LUXCYCLEDco giveaway. This is a win-win as to enter the giveaway, users need to follow both Sam Souder and LUXCYCLEDco, thus increasing the influencer’s following and attracting potential customers.
This is an excellent way for brands to gain exposure and grow their audience without having to spend much money on advertising. What’s more, influencers share the contest with their followers, which is an effective way of getting more people involved.
Contests and giveaways have been used by brands for years as a way to provoke interest in their products or services. It’s still one of the most effective strategies to build an engaged audience and increase brand awareness. When done well, these campaigns can reach thousands of people, generating likes, comments, and shares across multiple platforms. They also allow you to collect valuable data from participants, such as email addresses, which can be used later in other marketing campaigns
Publishing Influencer Content on Your Owned Channels
There are two ways to approach this influencer marketing campaign:
- Reuse influencer-generated content directly on your owned channels. This is the easiest way and it requires the least amount of effort on your side. You can simply repost the content as it is, with a simple introduction and link back to the original article.
- Publish influencer-generated content on your owned channels, with slight changes. If you have the time and resources available, you can take this opportunity to repurpose influencer content in a way that makes sense for your brand. You might craft the captions of the post with something more relevant to your business.
Take a look at the example above. Foreo reused the content from an influencer with their own captions. Their copy begins with a product’s benefit, continues with credits, and ends with a call-to-action. What’s more, Foreo added hashtags for greater reach. It’s pretty effective, don’t you think?
Brand Ambassador Programs
A brand ambassador program is when you hire an individual or group to represent your brand. These ambassadors can be employees, contractors, or even customers who support and promote your business for free. In return, you provide them with some kind of reward or compensation (a percentage of sales, discounted products, etc.).
Notion provides a great example of how a brand ambassador program works. Its established multinational team of ambassadors is passionate about sharing and teaching Notion. Ambassadors build Notion’s community by managing groups online and globally and organizing training workshops, webinars, and courses. They are also responsible for content creation and sharing, including videos, resources, and apps in other languages as well.
In the example below, William Nutt, one of the Notion’s ambassadors, tweets about updating database lessons promoting the interactive ongoing course “Learn Notion A-to-Z.”
And in the YouTube video below, another Notion ambassador, Monica Lim, presents her review on a masterly Notion course while encouraging her audience to take the course. She also promotes her affiliate link providing an example of combining an ambassador with an affiliate program.
So, implementing a brand ambassador program can be your gamechanger that will help not only promote your brand but establish valuable relationships of trust and loyalty with your prospects.
Influencer Marketing Benefits for Your Brand
Influencer marketing is a powerful way to reach your audience and create positive brand awareness. Here are some of the benefits influencer marketing can bring to your brand.
Convincing and Converting Social Proof
Having satisfied customers share their positive experiences with your brand is one of the most effective ways to convert your prospects. What’s more, the more influential these happy customers are, the greater impact their words have.
This means that partnering with influencers who have gained popularity among your target audience is a sure-fire weapon in your marketing arsenal. This can be the game-changing social proof that will help your prospects make sure you can deliver the outstanding products and services they need.
Reduced Marketing Costs
Influencer marketing is a way to reach a broad audience quickly, inexpensively, and most importantly, more effectively than traditional marketing tactics. It’s a low-cost, high-value method to promote your products and services. Instead of paying thousands of dollars on a full-time employee or agency to create your ads, hire an influencer.
They often have large followings, so you can reach more people than traditional advertising methods do. Furthermore, they have built trust with their communities, and they’re more likely to turn a casual visitor into a customer than an advertisement would.
A study by Convince and Convert indicates an impressive eleven times higher ROI of influencer marketing as compared to banner ads. And the 2020 Influencer Marketing Hub Benchmark Report points to an average of $5.78 earned for each dollar invested.
Effortless and Faster Results
As a business owner and manager, time is your most valuable asset that cannot be recovered. It’s easy to find yourself spending hours creating an ad for your products or services.
With influencer marketing, you let the influencer do the heavy lifting for you. They do all the crafting of the images and videos, creating the copy, and scheduling the content across channels. This is part of their daily job and they know exactly how to market themselves and your product.
In addition, they already have an existing audience that is interested in what they talk about. Influencers don’t need to waste time building an audience from scratch, which means they can get results faster than traditional advertisers.
Increased Brand Awareness and Reach
Influencer marketing has become a popular tactic for marketers and brands looking to connect with consumers in a more authentic way. It’s an effective strategy to gain visibility and inspire a consumer to purchase.
So, the power of influencers lies in their ability to connect with their audience on a personal level, building trust and credibility. Influencers have loyal followers who trust their recommendations and reviews.
By collaborating with influencers, you can gain exposure among their followers. This will make your brand, products, and services known to potential customers and help them connect with you more easily.
Support for Your Own Content Marketing Strategy
Creating a content strategy is a critical part of running your business. It shows the way you communicate with your prospects and customers, builds their trust, and keeps them coming back for more content.
However, creating content isn’t easy. And your time is precious especially if you have other responsibilities, like managing employees and growing your business.
That’s why many companies turn to influencer marketing. Influencers provide great content for your brand with no hassle. Typically, they create content in their unique style and own voice, making the audience see your brand in a fresh light.
Increased Sales
Influencer marketing is a great way to promote your brand or product and it’s one of the most effective ways to increase your sales. A study reveals that 87% of consumers are likely to make a purchase after being inspired by an influencer.
This means that if you partner with an influencer who has a large following, you can drive more customers to your business through their recommendations.
Universally Efficient Strategy That Works for Every Type of Business
Whether you’re looking for a celebrity influencer or a micro-influencer, there’s a perfect fit for every brand. Influencer marketing can help you achieve your goals irrespective of the field in which you operate and the size of your company.
For instance, if you have just started selling products online, you may want to work with an influencer who already has an established following on social media and can help spread the word about your product or service through their own channels.
If your budget is tight, you can hire a micro-influencer. These are everyday people with smaller followings who are still able to get their fans excited about products through their content strategy on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or YouTube videos.
If you want to go big, however, there are plenty of celebrity influencers with millions of followers who may charge you $1+ million per post.
Frequently Asked Questions on Influencer Marketing
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is the process of collaborating with influencers to promote and endorse your products on social media.
What are the benefits of influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing can bring many benefits to a brand, including convincing and converting social proof, reduced marketing costs, effortless and faster results, increased brand awareness and reach, support for your own content marketing strategy, increased sales, and being a universally efficient strategy that works for every type of business.
What are the best social media platforms for influencer marketing?
The five best social media platforms for influencer marketing are Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok.
What types of influencer marketing campaigns are there?
There are several types of influencer marketing campaigns, including affiliate links and coupon codes, sponsored content, running contests and giveaways, publishing influencer content on your owned channels, and brand ambassador programs.
How does influencer marketing reduce marketing costs?
Influencer marketing is often a low-cost, high-value method to promote products and services. Instead of paying thousands of dollars on a full-time employee or agency to create ads, a brand can hire an influencer who already has a large following and has built trust with their community. This can result in reaching more people than traditional advertising methods and a higher ROI compared to banner ads.
How effective is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing can be highly effective, with some companies earning $18 from every dollar invested in influencer marketing. Additionally, 61% of consumers trust an influencer’s recommendations on social platforms, which can increase sales and conversions and generate more revenue.
Is influencer marketing an effective way to increase sales?
Yes, a study reveals that 87% of consumers are likely to make a purchase after being inspired by an influencer. By partnering with an influencer who has a large following, a brand can drive more customers to their business through their recommendations.
Do I have to run a fashion brand to benefit from influencers?
No, you do not have to run a fashion brand to benefit from influencers. Influencer marketing is growing in popularity across industries and niches, with nearly 40% of industries using influencer marketing different from those typically associated with it. This indicates that influencer marketing can be effective for businesses of all types.
