Part 4 in a series about Influencer Marketing in the 2020s
In 2019, influencer marketing grew steadily to become an $8 billion industry. According to The State of Influencer Marketing 2020: Benchmark Report, influencer marketing is projected to grow to $9.7 billion by the end of 2020. This explosive growth is driven by the popularity of visual social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Influencer marketing is the largest growing digital marketing channel used by top brands around the world. It is a common tool in the marketing toolbox as social media influencers use their voices and the power of their following to amplify a brand’s message. Influencer marketing is a type of word-of-mouth marketing that enables a brand to connect with their audience by channeling the social media platforms their consumers use most.
“Word-of-mouth has always been the most powerful form of advertising,” said Charlie Brugnolotti, SVP of Sales with Find Your Influence. “There is no substitution for peer-to-peer recommendations and influencer marketing allows brands to scale those conversations.”
Influencer marketing is important because it works. Whether measuring top of funnel marketing metrics like impressions or bottom of the funnel marketing metrics like driving purchases to yield the greatest return on investment, influencer marketing works at any scale, for any brand, on any platform.
According to data from Find Your Influence, the industry’s leading influencer marketing platform, engagements across all social media platforms more than doubled from 2018-2019.
Find Your Influence data shows total engagements across all platforms has more than doubled from 2018-2019.
Brands today lean more on alternative marketing approaches like influencer marketing because more traditional mass media methods like print, radio, and television advertising are losing ground as the way consumers digest content is changing. Other digital marketing techniques, like social advertising and search engine marketing (SEM), have limited appeal as audiences everywhere use ad blockers or otherwise learn to tune out the endless “noise” of marketing.
As consumers age, the way they consume advertising changes too. Millennial and Gen-Z consumers have been inundated with advertisements since birth. They based the toys they wanted, the cereal they ate and so much more from the advertising they consumed. This was effectively delivered for years via broadcast.
Once social media platforms were introduced, the digital advertising revolution began. “After ad blockers became available to consumers, brands had to turn to other resources to reach their audience,” explained Brugnolotti. “Working with social media influencers is the natural next step for brands to reach their target audience, on the platforms they invest their time, with creators they have come to trust.”
Products and brands have always been reviewed, long before the advent of social media. Influencer marketing is important for brands to ensure their key product features are reviewed and shared by influencers to a built-in, trusted audience.
Interested in learning more about how Find Your Influence can help pair your brand with the internet’s most powerful voices? Request a demo today.