Influencer marketing has undergone significant changes in the past year. The budgets are higher, the competition stiffer and the strategies far more varied than in the past. As more DMOs adopt influencer campaigns, it’s important to stay ahead of the pack with the current trends and approaches. While exciting and able to achieve great returns, this form of marketing is still nascent and prone to drastic fluctuations that are in parallel with the ever-changing social media landscape. Not sure where to start with your influencer marketing tactics in 2019? Check out our key points below:
Video Is Very Effective
Video continues to take the digital world by storm, and the case is no different with influencer marketing. According to Mediakix, Instagram Stories, YouTube Videos and Instagram Videos are among the most effective content types for influencer marketing, with 89% of marketers saying that Instagram is important to their influencer marketing strategy.
It’s about Their Brand, Not Yours
A few years ago, influencer marketing used to be about finding an influencer with a large following, and then getting this person to promote your destination for a price. Nowadays, the power dynamic is shifting in the influencers’ favor, and they are increasingly becoming picky about the brands they choose to work and promote. They are looking for destinations and campaigns that will benefit their brand and persona—not the other way around. This is because if they engage in promotions that are too forced or too different from their persona, they run the risk of repelling their follower base who increasingly craves authentic, useful content.
The Landscape Now Includes Influencer Agencies and Companies
Influencer marketing agency, MediaKix, estimates that influencer marketing spend will reach $5 billion by 2020. As this form of marketing reaches monolithic proportions, the world’s biggest brands increasingly seek out agencies that can support large scale campaigns that deliver influencer content across multiple channels with high-budget, high-caliber creative.
Mediakix states of their purpose: “The main reason brands partner with influencer marketing agencies is that successfully executing influencer marketing campaigns is incredibly complex. Influencer marketing agencies can handle a broad range of difficult tasks, such as:
- Identify high-performing influencers to reach specific audience demographics
- Negotiate influencer contracts
- Maintain consistent communication with influencers and their managers
- Ensure brand safety and FTC compliance
- Launch multiple cross-channel campaigns
- In-depth post-campaign analysis and ROI assessment
Additionally, large agencies have the capacity to use their already existing departments for PPC, video creation, copy, social media advertising, display advertising and beyond. This makes the competition for great influencer campaigns fiercer, and the standards for great influencer content much higher. Those looking to avoid the time-consuming process of finding influencers and creating effective campaigns are gravitating toward agencies that can do all of this for them.
Bigger Isn’t Better
Celebrity and mega influencers used to be the big catch for DMOs trying to engage audiences. But, more recently, studies have shown that influencers with smaller follower bases can be more effective for reaching high-value customers or audiences. Last year, we learned about the power of the micro-influencer (an influencer with a base of 10,000-50,000 followers), this year many are lauding the power of the nano-influencer (an influencer with a base of 1000-5000 followers).
As consumers become more immune to influencer advertising, and the government regulations tighter (paid promotions now have to be explicitly stated by influencers in their material), the demand for ‘ordinary’ people has grown. Richard Godwin, in an article for The Guardian, summed up this movement as such: “It’s a logical progression, if you think about it. Ordinary people are much easier for brands to deal with than your Rihannas or Zoellas. Cheaper too: they don’t usually require cash, just some free product. What they lack in reach…they make up for in intimacy—or ‘real-time personalization of the brand’ as one influencer puts it. You’re far more likely to book a holiday on the suggestion of a discerning friend than some random celebrity. And these nanos really hustle! ‘I love challenging myself with how I can advertise and market something, and seeing the impact it has on people is really rewarding,’ one recruit told the NYT.”
