Where is influence marketing heading in 2022? New research from IM-focused AI platform HypeAuditor reveals valuable insights into the industry, focusing primarily on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube—detailing the evolutions that occurred in 2021 and the predicted trends for the year ahead.
The firm’s third annual State of Influencer Marketing 2022 report analyzes Instagram influencers’ accounts to see the average yearly growth of followers in order to identify the most trending Instagram categories in 2021. The data revealed that “finance and economics” grew the most in 2021 at a rate of 26.75 percent, followed by “health and medicine” at 23.68 percent.
Individual “finfluencers” have also seen tremendous growth, like 25-year-old Colin Yurcisin who has grown at a rate of 122.6 percent in 2021, as well as entrepreneur Armando Juan Pantoja and author Robert Kiyosaki whose accounts grew 111.7 percent and 30.7 percent respectively. With the rise of online banking, cryptocurrency, and economic uncertainty, the corresponding growth of “finfluencers” across social media platforms is not surprising.
The data also found that 49 percent of Instagram influencers were impacted by fraud in 2021. Despite this high number, the percentage has decreased by 14.3 percent since 2019, making this the second year in a row that HypeAuditor has discovered a decrease in fraud. This positive trend illustrates the efforts made by Instagram to fight fraud on its platform more effectively.
Overall, the report highlights that the influencer marketing industry remains strong. The research conservatively estimates that the global Instagram influencer market will grow from $13.8 billion in 2021 to $22.2 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.6 percent during the forecast period. The rise of social commerce, and the redistribution of the advertising budget from television and offline, towards digital advertising, are some of the key factors driving this growth.
In 2021, TikTok saw its growth explode amid the pandemic and reached a billion active users, according to the platform. However, the report highlights that the engagement rate for all tiers of TikTok influencers in the US has decreased.
As we saw in 2020, mega-influencers (1+ million followers) have the highest ER at 15.63 percent. Bella Poarch was the top growing account on TikTok, surpassing Charli D’Amelio by gaining 35 million followers at a rate of 71 percent, compared to D’Amelio’s 25 million new followers at a rate of 24 percent. New to 2021’s list was Billie Eilish, gaining 22 million followers at an immense growth rate of 152 percent. Mega-influencers can charge brands on average over $1000 per post according to the report.
“The influencer marketing industry continued to gain momentum and popularity in 2021, in part due to the increased reliance of consumers on social media as e-commerce platforms. There’s no doubt that the opportunities available will grow indefinitely this upcoming year as well,” said Alexander Frolov, co-founder and CEO of HypeAuditor, in a news release. “But with more opportunities arising in the market, it is inevitable that challenges in navigating influencer marketing, for both influencers and brands, will escalate with them. Our ‘State of the Influencer’ report provides influencers and brands alike with the necessary analyses and trends to consider when implementing effective influencer marketing strategies.”
Other key findings from the report include:
- On average, brands will get $4.98 of Earned Media Value for each $1 paid for Instagram Influencers promotion
- The top three most mentioned brands by influencers on Instagram are Target (53,800 mentions), Shop.ltk (214,180 mentions), and Amazon (37,580 mentions)
- 46 percent of US Instagram users are aged between 25 and 34 years, a 4 percent increase from 2020 indicating a migration of the platform’s younger users towards other platforms like TikTok
- Brands can expect to pay from $60 for a YouTube sponsored video when partnering with a nano-influencer to over $2500 when partnering with a mega-influencer