Whether you love them or hate them,
influencers are here to stay.
According to research from Business Insider,
the influencer industry will be worth a jaw-dropping $15 billion by 2022.
It was further research that nearly 60%
of millennials rely heavily on online reviews before buying something new, and 79%
say they trust what friends share about products and services,
compared to just 28% who trust advertisements or commercials.
That means if you want your brand or
product to succeed, you should probably start incorporating
influencers in your future marketing strategies, in particular on Instagram.
Hey guys, it's Cam here
from Neighbourhood where we help brands find, sell, and keep their people.
Instagram is one of the more popular platforms for influencer marketing.
Home to countless exciting creators with ever-growing numbers of followers,
this platform continues to provide fresh ways for brands and social media
influencers to meet, interact, and form powerful partnerships with brands.
And while COVID halted or slowed down
businesses across many industries, Instagram influencers simply adapted
to the 'new normal' by offering content that wasn't just promotional but also
informative and useful to stop the spread of the virus.
It's safe to say that there are plenty of opportunities for Instagram influencers
to thrive regardless of the external circumstances.
Yet, it's worth asking ourselves what the future of the industry might look like?
What trends can we expect for the medium
and long-term? To find the answers to these questions,
stay with us as we give you the lowdown
on the Instagram influencer marketing and what their future holds.
Let's get started.
First on our list is new social media platforms.
One of the biggest challenges
for Instagram is the continuous emergence of new social media platforms like TikTok,
which have the potential to win over many of its most influential creators.
But how come new apps like Clubhouse
and TikTok gained such a huge popularity this past year?
Well, the coronavirus pandemic might have
something to do with it. With people stuck indoors,
all of a sudden there was a lot more time to get creative and inventive.
This is just one of the main reasons why
influencers swiftly jump on the TikTok bandwagon.
TikTok offers users the possibility
to create and share to the point, engaging short-form video content.
Many influencers found this to be
the perfect way to express themselves and gain a huge following.
TikTok has continued to grow in popularity
since the outbreak of the pandemic and is showing no sign of slowing down.
But new social media platforms are not the only novelty in the influencer world.
Fresh, experimental forms of creating
and sharing content such as artificial intelligence backed platforms and computer-generated
influencers are also gaining traction right now, and we expect to keep
seeing this trend evolve in the near future.
Number two, nano and micro-influencers.
It's important to bear in mind that not all influencers are created equal.
For example,
take someone like Shay Mitchell. At the time of writing, the actress turned
influence turned entrepreneur, has gained 30.7 million followers.
Celebrity influencers like her are super popular Instagram.
But what's getting brands and users alike
even more excited are the socalled, nano and micro-influencers.
Who are they exactly? As the name probably suggests,
these influencers only have a few thousand followers, but guess what?
Their engagement rates are even better than those with millions of followers.
Influencers with a smaller following feel more approachable, authentic and relatable,
compared to the Shay Mitchells of Instagram. Because of this, users are more inclined
to establish a connection with them, whether it be via commenting on their
posts, sharing their videos, or even sending direct messages.
So, what does this trend mean for brands then?
Simply put, regardless of their influencer marketing budgets,
brands will be able to leverage those popular micro accounts in their favour
by establishing profitable partnerships and publicising endorsements.
Number three involves diversity, inclusion, and social causes.
While most of us consider 2020 the single
greatest life changing year we've experienced in our lives,
it was also the year where social activism, environmental awareness,
and authentic inclusion began to shape more lives than ever before.
Social media and Instagram, above all, were instrumental in taking complex
discourses around race, equality, climate change,
and gender violence and brought them into our homes in a way that no news
report or other traditional media was ever able to do.
Brands and influencers were quick to embrace this new global wave of activism.
2020 was the year that marked the powerful
emergence of black influencers and influencers from historically
marginalised and discriminated communities.
These creators began to share fresh,
eye-opening content that forward-thinking brands immediately jumped and got onboard
with through successful projects and partnerships.
While there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure a fairer
and more equal world, it's worth noting that Instagram
influencers and the brands that work with them are moving in the right
direction. Onto number four, ongoing projects with brands.
If one-off sponsored ads and posts were the name of the game
in the past, the future of Instagram influencer marketing will more
consistently veer towards stable, long-term projects between influencers and brands.
The reasons are many, but the main one is, of course, money related.
It takes a lot of time to finalise
a sale, even with effective influencer marketing.
So it makes a lot more financial sense
to invest in longer term partnerships with fewer and more trusted influencers,
as opposed to keeping opening new single contracts with a large pool of creators.
So it makes a lot more financial sense
to invest in longer term partnerships with fewer and more trusted influencers as
opposed to keeping open, new single contracts with a larger pool of creators.
Influencers on the other hand,
can capitalise on this trend by offering comprehensive and convenient
packages that they can present to the brands that they would like to work with.
Influencers are also finding it useful to join
influencer marketing networks, which helps them to acquire more authority
and close more deals with credible individuals and brands.
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Number five,
hyper-specialisation of influencers. One of the reasons why Instagram influencers
are so popular, both with brands and with consumers is because they present
and establish themselves as experts in a particular niche
as this expertise, whether earned through time or talent, or both,
that drives user engagement and captures the interests of businesses.
The boom of influencer campaigns has led
to a more diverse range of influencers for companies to choose from.
Influencers are expected to become even more specialised in 2021 and beyond.
This hyper-specialisation of their content is largely due to the increased
competitiveness with the influencer marketing industry, marked by the emergence
of those nano-influencers that we were just talking about earlier.
Hyper-specialised influencers will
be able to attract brands that cater to particular niches.
This new wave of influencers is also expected to use a slightly different
language as they are keener on presenting themselves as, "content creators" as opposed
to, "Instagram influencers" or even, "Internet celebrities".
Next on the list is the option
to collaborate among influencers. In 2021 and beyond,
it is very likely that we will see more and more collaborations between
influencers, particularly on Instagram and TikTok. Influencer
houses for example,
have already become credibly popular, which makes it plausible that other
similar projects will continue to be launched in the future.
After all, Instagram influencers need
to see more return on their creative efforts and commitments,
and teaming up with like-minded people
through networks and communities can prove incredibly beneficial.
Number seven, video content. This might not be surprising, but video content continues
to be up there with the best and the most exciting digital marketing trends. In 2020,
the number of Facebook users watched live video content, doubled. Great videos have
the power to create high levels of engagement, inform, entertain,
convince audiences, and have long been one of the most effective marketing tools.
What's new then? Well, not so much the content itself,
but the way that it gets shared by Instagram creators.
Collaborative live videos for example, are all the rage at the moment,
and this trend is likely to keep growing in popularity.
Instagram itself has introduced new ways
to create videos such as with Instagram reels, which allow influencers to gain more
traction and reach out to a wider audience.
The name of the game when it comes to video is authenticity.
Showing real, unfiltered content is a huge
trend right now, and brands are quickly getting on board to reap its benefits.
This brings me to the final point.
Authentic, unfiltered content. As much as
Instagram keeps pulling new fun filters out of its basket to add to videos
and images, influencers are steering towards a different direction.
Authentic, unfiltered content. From showing bodies exactly like they are, to guiding
followers through product tutorials in a fun, playful way,
the atmosphere that authentic content
delivers is relaxed, friendly, and approachable. Content that is presented
as genuine and unfiltered has a much bigger pull with audiences.
After all, humans are driven towards what
feels similar, relatable, and familiar to them,
whether it be a person or a product or even a social cause.
So, why gloss it over and deliver content that looks unattainable and unnatural?
Brands and influencers have understood this
and are on a mission to offer content that levels with their audiences
and speaks to them in a way that they understand, like and relate to.
For this reason, we can expect influencers
to team up with brands that they generally love and appreciate, whether it be because
they offer amazing products or for their social and environmental activism.
By promoting brands in a way that feels
real and not purely 'salesy', influencers have the potential to convince more
followers to check out the brand that they are partnering with.
To wrap up our list, we'll bring things full circle by reinforcing our original point:
Instagram influencers are here to stay.
As a result, Instagram users will keep
being driven to discover new products and brands that truly resonate with them
and respond to their specific needs and expectations.
Authentic, unfiltered Instagram influencer
marketing content leads to meaningful, useful purchases, and that's surely a win
win situation for influencers, brands and consumers
right?
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So that's it from me.
Happy marketing!