Businesses looking to secure their internet advertising space need to spend generously on their marketing efforts. Big brands and retail giants spend billions of dollars on their marketing campaigns. To keep up with such big names, you have to find ways to get your message across and get your brand noticed without breaking the bank.
Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to create brand awareness. Unlike in the past, when influencer marketing was limited to celebrities and bloggers only, today, you can find hundreds of thousands of micro-influencers working on social media with a decent fan following.
With the influencer marketing industry set to hit a whopping 15 billion by 2022, learning new and upcoming influencer marketing trends will ensure your marketing campaigns are creative and profitable.
Every new year brings new opportunities and trends in content marketing, SEO, and approaches ecommerce businesses can use to better engage with their existing and potential customers.
The top influencers stay ahead of these trends so that they help brands shine in the digital landscape.
If you want to know what influencer marketing is and what successful influencer marketing trends the current year will bring your way, you have come to the right place.
In this post, we're going to discuss the hottest influencer marketing trends that will help your brand stay on top of its digital marketing game.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Simply put, influencer marketing is a process that uses endorsements from popular influencers or public figures who have a massive social media following. These individuals are considered experts in their areas of specialization.
We're influenced by what we see. When we see our favorite personalities using any specific product, we get inspired and feel comfortable investing our hard-earned money into that product or service. Recommendations from your customer's favorite influencers act as social proof that encourages them to take your desired action.
Benefits Of Influencer Marketing For Your Brand
Influencer marketing is one of the most popular digital marketing channels that help buyers make informed purchase decisions. Below you’ll find some of the reasons why you should integrate influencer marketing into your business framework to increase conversions.
Builds Repo And Trust
The biggest reason why people follow influencers on social media is they're influenced by them and trust their recommendations. Influencers, as mentioned above, are believed to be industry experts, so any suggestions coming from them are respected and trusted by their supporters.
Research reveals that more than 40% of customers make their buying decision after following a tweet shared by one of their favorite influencers.
When you collaborate with any famous influencer working in your niche, your odds of getting more engagement on your website increase. Your target audience will start recognizing and trusting your brand as they can see the association of their beloved celebrities with your brand.
Helps You Convey Your Message To The Right Audience
Working with an expert allows you to convey your message to the relevant audience. For instance, if you sell fashion accessories, your target audience would be fashion-savvy individuals. So if you collaborate with a fashion artist or a model, your chances of reaching a highly relevant quality audience will automatically increase.
Doesn’t Appear Forceful
What we loved about effective influencer marketing strategies is that they don't appear pushy or forceful. Whatever content your influencer is sharing on their social media profiles will be well-received by their followers (read: your target audience).
According to research, more than two-thirds of customers use ad blockers. That means you won't be able to reach out to them if you're only relying on paid advertisement methods. So yes, influencer marketing can go a long way, if used correctly.
Boosts Conversions
When you collaborate with any known influencers, you get to target people who're already interested in your business niche. That saves ecommerce businesses lots of money as they don't have to carry forward a customer acquisition process from scratch. All they need to do is help those interested customers convert (that is possible with a solid CRO strategy).
Provides Value To Your Target Audience
Influencer marketing enables online business owners to provide value to their target audience. When you ask an influencer to share a detailed or technical review of your product on YouTube, your prospects get a chance to read quality content.
Supports Your SEO Efforts
A Moz research indicates that your domain authority decides your ranking position on search results. If you haven't heard of this term earlier, domain authority is a score a website gets based on how informative, relevant, and beneficial it is for the users.
One of the best ways to improve your domain authority is by getting quality backlinks from other high DA websites. Influencers usually have high DA websites, and you can ask them to link back to your site once they collaborate with your brand.
It’s Cost-Effective
The good news is you don't have to partner with celebrities only to get your message across. There are many micro-influencers with a decent following you can collaborate with to increase your reach and engagement.
Most of them do not charge more than $500 for a sponsored post, which is pretty reasonable considering you'll get a chance to target all of their followers. You can even ask them to promote your brand in exchange for free products or affiliate services.
Improves Awareness
If you're dealing with a unique niche and want to reach out to new audiences, influencer marketing can be your safest bid. Collaborating with an expert in your niche will allow you to connect with an already engaged audience.
When an influencer promotes your brand, it not only increases your brand visibility but also improves awareness.
Aids Your Content Marketing Strategy
Creating unique and engaging content is an ongoing struggle. Influencer marketing allows you to co-create content with your influencer to keep your content strategy in line with recent trends.
Suitable For Businesses Of All Types And Sizes
Influencer marketing can seamlessly blend with your digital marketing efforts regardless of the type and size of your business. As long as there is an influencer in your area of expertise, you can benefit from the best influencer marketing strategies to promote your products and services.
The key here is to discover the best influencers and build long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with them.
Top Eight Influencer Marketing Trends To Watch In 2023
1. Save Money By Collaborating With Micro Or Nano Influencers
Remember, more followers don't necessarily mean more engagement. Celebrities and macro-influencers do have a massive fan following, but sadly not all of their followers are real.
Micro-influencers, on the other hand, have a smaller but genuine fan base. That's perhaps one of the biggest reasons why collaboration with micro-influencers is going to be the hottest influencer marketing trend.
A 2019 report also reveals that influencers with fewer than 25k followers tend to enjoy better engagement rates than celebrities and macro-influencers.
In addition to this, there are several other benefits of collaborating with micro-influencers - repurposable UGC, affordability, and increased engagement to name a few.
2. Video Content Will Dominate The Influencer Marketing Space
Video content is another emerging influencer marketing trend expected to rule the influencer marketing space in 2023 and beyond.
With the growing fame and popularity of video-centric platforms like Tiktok and Instagram Reels, video content is the best way to connect with your target audience.
Many online businesses are already leveraging video content to educate and engage their audience.
Short and meaningful videos displaying reviews, tutorials, how-to's, and DIY stuff capture the viewer's attention. Gen Z and millennials are particularly interested in watching videos as they find them more time-saving and captivating.
Do not copy your competitor's ideas. Create fresh and original videos that provide value to your target audience.
3. Brands Will Look For Long-Term Partnerships
Another influencer marketing trend for 2023 is to maintain long-term collaborations instead of relying on one-off sponsored posts.
In all honesty, even if influencers have a huge fan following, it is still difficult for them to capture the attention of their followers in a single post. When they closely work with your brand on an ongoing basis, it gives their followers an assurance that they're truly associated with your brand and that what they are promoting is not merely paid content.
4. New Social Media Platforms Will Emerge
The digital landscape is expanding at a massive rate. It always has room for more social media channels. The global crisis we had last year has kept people indoors. Even today, many people avoid social interactions and spend more time at home. TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter had millions of new signups in 2020, and this trend isn't going anywhere in 2023.
Instagram Reel is another prominent social media app that gained popularity in 2020. All of these social media channels have thousands of influencers with huge followership.
CGI influencers have also joined the party recently, and they're coming up with more innovative and AI-driven ideas to create unique content that has the potential to go viral in no time.
5. Originality And Personalization Will Be The Watchword
When it comes to marketing, personalization, and originality are the keys. Present-day influencers have to be more careful about what content they create for the brands they have collaborated with.
Even if they have a loyal fan base, they can't convince people to buy something they're not interested in. That is why the content they create for any specific product or service must resonate with their audience.
6. Inclusion And Diversity Will Rule The Marketing World
Last year was all about social activism and diversity. Many prominent brands and businesses were held accountable for the nepotism and unjustified treatment of their workers. The media has also criticized the lack of POC in campaigns and the reduced contribution of Blacks and other minority groups during essential social issues.
Consumers also look at their favorite celebrities and influencers, hoping to introduce people of diversified cultures in their marketing campaigns.
Your goal as an online seller is to promote inclusion and diversity to validate that you're playing your part to bring positive change and partnering with influencers who share the same values as yours.
7. Employee-Focused Content Will Increase
User-generated content has become one of the founding pillars of the CRO funnel. The popularity of employee-generated content will particularly witness a noticeable rise. We have already seen the impact of user-generated content on conversions and sales. It's high time businesses consider their employees as their influencers. They can do this by introducing brand advocacy programs.
Macy's is a good example. The brand rewards those employees who use their products regularly and share content in the form of reviews.
8. Paid Amplification Of The Content Will Increase
The last influencer marketing trend on our list is paid advertisement. There is no denying that paid ads don't usually go along with influencer marketing campaigns. However, your business and influencer can benefit from the paid amplification of the content co-created by both parties.
Using prominent paid advertising channels like Facebook ads, brands will benefit from high-quality and personalized content produced by the influencers and push it to the audience who cares about reviewing it.
Whether you're a beginner or an established seller, Debutify will streamline your marketing effort. We share the same goal as yours- to drive leads and turn them into paying customers.
Ricky Hayes
Trisha Ballesteros