Due to the increasing interconnectedness of the 2 billion people now on social media, influencer marketing has quickly become a non-negotiable marketing tactic for brands. And as the practice grows, so do the options for communicators—according to new research from influencer marketing platform AspireIQ, more than half of marketers are advancing their influencer marketing strategies across content, channels, and types of influencers.
The firm’s new report, The State of Influencer Marketing 2019: An Analysis of the Social Media Ecosystem, finds that marketers are running more campaigns than ever—in fact, 84 percent of marketers run more than one campaign per year, with more than half running over 5. In addition, 79 percent of brands either run or plan to run an always-on influencer campaign.
Repurposing influencer-generated content (IGC) on channels other than social, like websites, emails, ads, and in-store, has now become the standard
More than two-thirds of brands already leverage IGC and 21 percent say they plan to do so in the future. Additionally, the types of content brands are looking to create has evolved beyond static images. Eighty two percent of marketers say they will invest in more video content next year, 55 percent will invest in stories, and 43 percent will invest in written content.
Brands are also looking at new ways to maximize their efforts by changing the types of influencers they work with
More marketers have found success by partnering with micro-influencers, who have 42 percent higher engagement rates than macro-influencers.
“We’ve reached an era where influencer marketing is about more than promoting your brand on social media. Now, influencers power content engines to help brands tell a consistent story on all the channels where their users are active,” said Anand Kishore, founder and president of AspireIQ, in a news release. “In the future, brands and influencers will work even closer to build and foster communities that engage in a shared passion for what those brands make.”
Additional trends include:
Influencer costs are rising
The current average price per influencer post is $0.26. The baseline cost-per-engagement has almost doubled since June of 2018, and will likely continue to climb.
Influencer marketing pays off
On average, brands spend $6,249.81 per campaign, but see an ROI of 432 percent.
Investment in influencers continues to climb
With ROIs sky-high, 69.8 percent of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in the next year.
TikTok strengthens its stake
According to data from The Influencer Marketing Factory, 70 percent of influencers are between 14 and 19 years old, and brands spend an average of $10k for influencer marketing campaigns on TikTok.