For almost a decade now, influencer marketing has been on the rise as more and more social media platforms start utilizing it. Influencer marketing consists of social media personalities, or ‘influencers’ as they call themselves, advertise different products or services on their social media platforms. Basically, this is just a relationship that has been created between a business and an individual who is popular on social media with a significant following and who is able to showcase that business’s products or services.
Over the years, influencer marketing has greatly evolved and the trend changes almost every year. So, what are the latest trends of influencer marketing for the year 2022? Continue reading to find out more.
You may be interested in the following related articles as well.
The Data And Statistics Of Influencer Marketing
Before explaining the different influencer marketing trends, let’s take a look at how influencer marketing has changed over the past few years and how it might impact 2022 by looking at the current data and statistics.
- Throughout the year 2021, influencer marketing has been predicted to grow and become a $13.8 million market. We seen in 2022 too.
- In the past three years, over 240 platforms and agencies have emerged that are known to bring together influencers with different brands for brand marketing purposes.
- In 2021, it has been predicted that almost 75% of brands are going to follow this strategy and make it a part of their marketing plan.
- If their first attempt was effective, the majority of the brands will make use of the same influencers they used before in other subsequent campaigns.
- Brands tend to offer discounts or their products to the influencers as a form of payment.
- Your number of sales will tell you about the success of your influencer marketing campaign. For instance, the more people use their discount code to purchase your product/service, the more sales you will have.
- Different social media platforms have taken part in influencer marketing. Currently, TikTok seems to be the most popular one. However, you should pick a platform according to your target audience and not just focus on popularity.
- Instead of working with a social media influencer with a massive following, it is more effective to look for influencers whose followers will be more likely interested in what you have to offer.
1. Small Influencers
These days a lot of brands are collaborating with small influencers that have less than a million followers. Despite the low numbers, these influencers trend to have more engagement as compared to the ones with more followers. This is much better for a business since more engagement results in an effective and successful collaboration.
2. Collaborations That Last For A Long Time
Generally, brands prefer to collaborate with the same influencer after their first collaboration turns out to be a success. By doing this, both the brand and the influencer can build a strong relationship with one another. Moreover, as time goes on, the influencer will start to have a better understanding of the brand and what they offer. Also, the brand will have more trust in the influencer to produce high quality content that features their product.
3. The Continuous Growth Of Video Content
Video content is expected to grow in the year 2021 and more gorwing in 2022. TikTok alone generated 700 million active users on a monthly basis in 2020 and it shows no sign of slowing down. Therefore, influencers that are known for creating videos will be more in demand, in addition to the ones that have developed their own niche. For example, if your brand sells sports products, then you will want an influencer who specialized in areas like fitness and sports to help reach your audience. On the other hand, if that influencer is also known to create high quality videos, then they will be a better collaborator as compared to the ones who only post texts and photos.
4. The Need For Authenticity
Even though new content constantly comes out on a regular basis, what truly matters is the authenticity of it all. Meaning, producing content that is sincere, credible, and highly engaging. It is an influencer’s job to talk about the benefits of a certain product or service. However, they should also talk about the things they don’t like or didn’t work out for them. This shows that the influencer is not just promoting the brand, but they actually use the product/service. This adds a sense of authenticity to the whole thing and doesn’t make it look advertised.
5. Bringing In The Employees
A new trend that emerged in 2022 is using the employees to create new content for social media. This means that the company can use members from its team to advertise certain products or services. However, the effectiveness of this method is still not confirmed, since these employees don’t necessarily have a lot of followers that can help their content benefit the brand. On the other hand, it helps to follow brands that are using this strategy to see how high their success rate has been.
Conclusion
This unique marketing trend has been here for almost a decade and it is here to stay. Collaboration between brands and influencers have shown a high success rate for the company and more brands are starting to take advantage of this new method. Not only is this marketing strategy quick, it is proving to be very economical as well.
