The global pandemic has spurred strong growth in influencer marketing in 2021, a trend that is not going to stop. So, how do brands view this new era of influence marketing? What is their attitude with influential people? Are their methods and approaches in line with the reality of the market and the expectations of the influencers? In partnership with ARPP and the Union des Marques, Reach has conducted a study to understand the evolution of influencer marketing today…
Growing Influencer Marketing Market
When asked about their perception of influence marketing, brands are unanimous about the essential nature of influence marketing in their strategy:
- 92% of the respondents have incorporated it into their communication strategy.
- 86% of them consider influencer marketing to be an effective lever
The strength of influence marketing also lies in 3 main factors:
- audience targeting;
- subsequent qualifications;
- Creativity of the universe and content creator.
In addition, in influencer marketing:
- 58% of surveyed professionals mentioned the link that exists between the influencer and their community;
- 84% of consulting professionals also believe that influencers bring value to the brands they collaborate with.
Which social network to use?
95% of brands prefer Instagram to drive their influencer campaigns, which is well ahead of TikTok. However, the latter ranks first among the growing network, hence the desire of advertisers and agencies to integrate it into their digital marketing strategy in 2022.
About other platforms:
- YouTube is liked by 42% of brands and only 18% of influencers;
- LinkedIn is liked by 28% of brands and only 7% of influencers.
And if in the past the size of the community was the first criterion for selecting influencers, the engagement rate now comes first.
a winning collaboration
Today, it is clear that the market is ripe:
- 92% of companies have run an influence campaign in the past two years;
- 88% of content creators said they are satisfied with their association with brands with an average rating of 7.1 out of 10.
Nevertheless, transparency rules are the first barrier to collaboration between brands and influencers:
- 44% of companies don’t need influencers to mention business partnerships yet.
- 42% of influencers implement transparency rules they weren’t in phase with.
It is therefore one of the priorities to determine these collaborations so as not to stifle the creativity of the influencers. It specifically deals with the transfer of rights relating to the use of the created content.
Budget affects fast growing companies
Brands are increasingly using influencer marketing, and budgets are increasing accordingly, which is confirmed by 78% of respondents. The study also shows that:
- A third of the brands surveyed spend over €100k per year on influencer marketing.
- For responding brands, an “impact” budget was created in addition to the traditional marketing budget.
- On the other hand, for 42%, this impact budget comes entirely from historical marketing budgets.
Brands that focused on using influencers as a channel are increasing their influencer budget further as the channel continues to show favorable ROI compared to paid and social search channels.
To conclude, the influencer marketing landscape is evolving at such a rapid pace that we now have a whole new set of challenges and opportunities. Thus 2022 will continue to see strong growth for the entire influential industry.
Source: Reach