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Influencer Marketing Meaning
Before diving deep into influencer marketing, let's first try understanding what an influencer is.
In marketing, an influencer is an opinion leader who can impact customers' purchase patterns.
Nowadays, when we think of influencers, we might think of people with millions of followers on popular social media sites like Instagram or Facebook. However, an individual does not need millions of followers on social media platforms to be classified as an influencer. In fact, any social network, no matter how large or small, can create influencers or opinion leaders. So, what are the different types of influencers? They are generally defined as follows1 :
Nano influencers - Influencers that have between 1,000-10,000 followers on a social media platform. Nano influencers typically benefit from high engagement rates and provide effective marketing results for startups and small businesses, due to their cost-effectiveness.
Micro-influencers - Influencers that have between 10,000-100,000 followers. Consumers still consider micro-influencers genuine and relatable despite their considerable following and, as a result, can generate positive engagement. Businesses should aim to find micro-influencers that operate in a similar niche. This allows for effective lead generation.
Macro influencers - Influencers that have between 100,000-1,000,000 followers. Macro influencers are also known as social (media) celebrities and appeal to a wide range of viewers. Thus, their engagement rates tend to be lower. Macro influencers are optimal for increasing brand awareness but may not be as effective for conversions as smaller influencers.
Mega influencers - Influencers that have over 1 million followers. Mega influencers have a broad audience, so their reach can be high. Mega influencers are also optimal for increasing brand awareness; however, marketers might encounter high fees when trying to partner with them.
Now that we understand the different types of influencers and the benefits they can bring to a brand, we define influencer marketing as follows.
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that promotes products or services through an influencer, most often on social media platforms.
Influencer Marketing Trends
So, why are more and more marketers adopting influencer marketing techniques nowadays? Well, primarily due to the popularity of social media platforms. At the beginning of 2022, Facebook had over 2.9 billion worldwide monthly active users, followed by YouTube and Whatsapp, with over 2 billion active users, and Instagram, with 1.478 billion monthly users.2
Fig. 1 - Social Media Influencers
Now, you may be wondering why so many people use social media. A survey conducted in 2021 found that the primary reason for using social media is to connect with friends and family, but 26.3% of respondents said they use it to find products to purchase.3 As a result, social media presents a significant sphere for marketers to promote their products.
Check out our explanation of social media marketing to learn about social media's ins and outs.
So, what are some trends we see with influencer marketing? First of all, the global influencer marketing market size in 2022 is valued at 16.4 billion USD - an almost tenfold increase since 20164 - and creator marketing spending in Europe in 2020 was over 1.3 billion EUR (around 1.28 billion USD).5 Regarding influencer, some key trends are as follow:
Instagram influencers with 1,000-5,000 followers have the highest engagement rate (4.59% in 2021), almost three times higher than influencers with over 1 million followers (1.67% engagement rate in 2021).6
TikTok influencers show a significantly higher engagement rate compared to Instagram influencers. Nano influencers on TikTok have an average engagement rate of 11.41%; meanwhile, mega influencers show an average engagement rate of 13.94% in the UK.7
Most business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers primarily use influencer marketing to increase brand awareness; this is followed by the objective of growing social media following, increasing sales, improving brand recognition, web traffic, and, finally, direct conversion.8
The three most significant challenges and concerns B2C influencer marketers face are costs, measurability, and authenticity.9
Over 84% of B2C marketers in the UK are planning on increasing their influencer marketing spending in 2022.10
The most popular forms of influencer marketing marketers use (from highest to lowest popularity) are sponsored content, social media takeovers, brand ambassadors, competitions and giveaways, product collaborations, affiliate marketing, and gifting.11
Have you ever wondered how much Instagram influencers earn on average per post?
Table 1 below shows Instagram influencers' expected remuneration (how much they earn) per Instagram post. We can see that the average price they receive increases with the number of followers they have. Interestingly, although influencers with a higher number of followers exhibit lower engagement rates, they earn more per post. This is likely due to marketers' willingness to pay to increase brand awareness by using influencers with a large following.
| Number of Followers | Average Expected Remuneration (USD) |
| 1-9,999 | 193.74 |
| 10,000-19,999 | 273.82 |
| 20,000-29,999 | 311.31 |
| 30,000-39,999 | 377.56 |
| 40,000-49,000 | 517.91 |
| 50,000-59,000 | 744.56 |
| 60,000-69,000 | 750 |
| 70,0000-79,000 | 809 |
| 80,000-89,000 | 1,001 |
| 90,000+ | 1,221 |
Influencer Marketing Strategy
Let's now take a look at key influencer marketing strategies. First, let's explore how marketers can ensure that their influencer marketing is optimized. There are three crucial elements of an influencer marketing strategy that help attract new customers and maintain longstanding relationships with existing customers (see Figure 2 below):
Listen - Marketers must listen to what their audience wants and needs. They should also pay attention to what interests their community and figure out which types of creators (influencers) and content engage their audience.
Identify - Based on the information marketers gathered during the listening phase, they should identify which creator suits their demographic the most. The creator might not have the most followers, but they should create content that engages the community.
Deploy - The created content should be authentically deployed into the platform. Having creators follow rigid guidelines and content structures comes across as inauthentic. Marketers should let creators create the type of content they are familiar with and inspired to create, as this will lead to a stronger relationship with the community.13
Creators with the largest followings (reach) can be effective in broadcasting brand messages in ways that rapidly increase brand awareness. Creators with smaller followings (niche) can provide more targeted and cost-effective audience engagement— but your teams may need to manage a much larger number of niche creators in order to achieve the desired impact.14
According to Deloitte, influencer marketing nowadays is about emphasizing connection and relevance. To do this, marketers should:
Focus on the quality and sincerity of the messages that creators transmit regarding the brand,
Focus on how trustworthy a creator is in the brand's industry,
Assess whether the creator can transmit behavioral changes within the desired community,
Assess the creator's audience and whether they would fit the brand well.14
Additionally, marketers should try to engage influencers and creators throughout the marketing process, including strategic planning, etc., to foster a personal relationship with them. This strategy also helps the creator form an authentic connection with the brand.14
Influencer Marketing Platform
Nowadays, many marketers use influencer marketing platforms to ease the influencer marketing process. These platforms help marketers track progress, manage influencer relationships, view marketing results, etc. They provide oversight of the influencer marketing process.
For example, GRIN is a creator management platform that connects brands to creators, helps brands communicate with creators and manage the creator-brand relationship, and provides a tool for analyzing and reporting influencer marketing campaigns.
Another example of an influencer marketing platform is Creator.co, an influencer marketing platform for eCommerce brands. The platform allows marketers to automate their influencer marketing campaigns, connect their eCommerce store to participate in affiliate programs, and manage their social media accounts, among many other features.
Check out our Affiliate marketing explanation to find out whether an affiliate is an influencer.
Influencer Marketing Examples
Now that you understand the basis of successful influencer marketing let's explore a couple of influencer marketing campaigns in action.
In 2020 Dunkin Donuts partnered with Charli D'Amelio, a TikTok influencer who gained popularity by making dance videos. D'Amelio has over 147 million followers on TikTok, so the brand partnership caught quite a few people's attention. The influencer posted a series of TikToks eating Dunkin Donuts and drinking her signature "The Charli" drink. Partnering with a mega influencer helped Dunkin Donuts increase awareness of its general brand and mobile app. The collaboration resulted in a successful increase in sales and a whopping 57% increase in customers downloading the Dunkin Donuts app.15
We can observe another example of influencer marketing through Taco Bell.
Taco bell partnered with Doja Cat to announce the potential return of its Mexican Pizza food item. The prequel of the collaboration started when Taco Bell announced that it would discontinue Mexican Pizza in November 2020. The news left many Taco Bell fans upset, including Doja Cat, who tweeted several times about her strong feelings regarding the removal of the item. Doja Cat's tweets gained a lot of traction within the group of equally upset Mexican Pizza fans. As a result, Taco Bell partnered with the influencer to create a video on TikTok dedicated to Mexican Pizza. The video got over 8 million views and 200 thousand shares, increasing brand awareness for Taco Bell.16
Influencer - Key takeaways
- In marketing, an influencer is an opinion leader who can impact customers' purchase patterns.
- There are four types of influencers: nano, micro, macro, and mega influencers.
- Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that promotes products or services through an influencer, most often on social media platforms.
- An influencer marketing strategy should focus on listening to community wants and interests, identifying an influencer that engages the community, and creating content that is authentic to the influencer's style. These steps help marketers attract new customers and retain existing, loyal customers.
- Influencer marketing platforms help marketers track progress, manage influencer relationships, view marketing results, etc. They provide oversight of the influencer marketing process.
References
- Find Your Influencer. What are the Different Types of Social Media Influencer?. 2021. https://www.findyourinfluencer.co.uk/blog/different-types-of-social-media-influencer
- We Are Social, Hootsuite, DataReportal. "Most popular social networks worldwide as of January 2022, ranked by number of monthly active users (in millions)." Chart. January 26, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 29, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
- GWI, We Are Social, Hootsuite, DataReportal. "Most popular reasons for internet users worldwide to use social media as of 3rd quarter 2021." Chart. January 26, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 29, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/715449/social-media-usage-reasons-worldwide/
- Influencer Marketing Hub. "Influencer marketing market size worldwide from 2016 to 2022 (in billion U.S. dollars)." Chart. March 2, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1092819/global-influencer-market-size/
- TikTok for Business, IAB Europe. "Creator marketing spending in Europe from 2016 to 2020 (in million euros) ." Chart. June 1, 2021. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268342/creator-marketing-spending-europe/
- HypeAuditor. "Engagement rate of Instagram influencers in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020 and 2021, by number of followers." Chart. July 9, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253260/instagram-engagement-rate-influencers-uk/
- HypeAuditor. "Engagement rate of TikTok influencers in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020 and 2021, by number of followers." Chart. July 9, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253284/engagement-rate-tiktok-influencers-uk/
- Cure Media. "Objectives of influencer marketing according to business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers in the United Kingdom as of spring 2022." Chart. May 12, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1320348/influencer-marketing-objective-uk/
- Cure Media. "Leading influencer marketing concerns/challenges according to business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers in the United Kingdom as of spring 2022." Chart. May 12, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1320247/influencer-marketing-concerns-uk/
- Cure Media. "Expected change in influencer marketing spending by business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers in the United Kingdom in 2022." Chart. May 12, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1320252/influencer-marketing-spending-uk/
- Cure Media. "Types of influencer marketing used by business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers in the United Kingdom as of spring 2022." Chart. May 12, 2022. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1320138/types-influencer-marketing-uk/
- Table 1 - Expected Remuneration of Instagram Influencers in the UK, Source: Intellifluence. "Expected remuneration per post of Instagram influencers in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States as of May 2021, by number of followers (in U.S. dollars)." Chart. August 4, 2021. Statista. Accessed September 30, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1258574/instagram-influencers-remuneration/
- Kimberly A. Whitler. Leveraging Influencers To Drive Growth: Insight From Managing Director Of Deloitte Digital. Forbes. 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberlywhitler/2021/10/23/leveraging-influencers-to-drive-growth-insight-from-managing-director-of-deloitte-digital/?sh=3375fe6168e5
- Deloitte. Authentic Influence: Deepen customer trust through a smarter approach to influencer marketing. Deloitte Digital. 2021. https://www.deloittedigital.com/content/dam/deloittedigital/us/documents/offerings/offering-20211117-creator-eminence-Authentic-Influence.pdf
- Rosa Tsvetkova. 8 Shining Examples of Influencer Marketing Campaigns. Brandwatch. 2022. https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/examples-of-influencer-marketing-campaigns/
- Anneta Konstantinides. Doja Cat says her song about her love of Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza was 'contractual' and she made it 'terrible on purpose'. 2022. https://www.insider.com/doja-cat-tiktok-taco-bell-mexican-pizza-2022-3
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Frequently Asked Questions about Influencer Marketing
What is the meaning of influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that promotes products or services through an influencer, most often on social media platforms.
What is the example of influencer marketing?
An example of influencer marketing would be a company partnering with an influencer (nano, micro, macro, or mega) to promote a product, service, or brand through social media posts, giveaways, competitions, etc.
How do I create an influencer marketing strategy?
An influencer marketing strategy should focus on listening to community wants and interests, identifying an influencer that engages the community, and creating content that is authentic to the influencer's style. These steps help marketers attract new customers and retain existing, loyal customers.
What are the disadvantages of influencer marketing?
The primary disadvantage of influencer marketing is choosing the wrong influencer (one that is not suited to the brand). This could leave customers feeling like the campaign, the influencer, or the brand is inauthentic.
What platform is most used for influencer marketing?
The platform companies use for influencer marketing depends on their brand priorities. There are a variety of influencer marketing platforms for finding the right creator, using affiliate programs, eCommerce and influencer integration, etc.
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