Influencer Trends to Watch in 2019
Broadening Definition of Influence, Increased Scrutiny on Measurement, Brands Taking Influencer Relationships In-House and More
2018 saw significant continued growth and evolution in the influencer marketing realm — total brand spending on influencer marketing was $81 billion in 2016 and is projected to reach $101 billion by 2020, according to a study from the Association of National Advertisers. Social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest developed new tools to cater to content creators and sponsored content, and more brands embraced influencer marketing as a leading element in their digital strategies. In the past year, the space has gained greater recognition as an enduring digital marketing strategy to reach targeted audiences, especially with illusive millennial consumers.
In fact, we are seeing more emerging brands stake their core marketing strategies on influencers — most notably, we saw Revolve file for their IPO in October, mentioning “influencer” an eye-opening 79 times in their S-1. In today’s consumer economy, brands need to find the right niche communities that share their mission and advocate for their product, speak to them in their voice, and pinpoint them that they are sales-ready. Brands that do this right can not only survive, but thrive in the era of Amazon.
Looking ahead to 2019, we can expect to a see a continued expansion around the types of influencers and the ways brands are utilizing them. However, the saturation of partnerships will also lead brands to rethink the way they approach collaborations, as well as how they measure their success. Let’s take a look at these trends in more detail.
More Creators — and More Kinds of Creators
Demand for influencers rose steeply in 2018, opening doors to a whole new class of content creators. From hyper-local to nano-influencers, we’ll see more niche creators being tapped by brands to target and penetrate very specific audience groups. Many brands will also begin to explore non-traditional influencer models finding ways to leverage current employees or creative professionals as influencers. This past year, Macy’s paved the way in this regard by beginning an influencer marketing program utilizing its employees as creators. Conde Nast explored a similar approach by employing editors as social media drivers.
We are also seeing influencers tapped for personal relevancy, beyond pure reach or engagement — for example, targeting influencers that are about to experience a key life moment or have personal experience with chronic condition. The scope will continue to widen in what constitutes “influence” as well. Inherently creative professionals like interior designers, artists, chefs or personal stylists will be recognized more by brands for the influence they wield.
Increased Sponsorship Saturation — but Deeper Relationships
Influencer collaborations have become a central part of any marketing strategy, causing a higher volume of sponsored posts across platforms over the past few years. As a result of this saturation, brands and influencers alike will begin to re-examine how they approach partnerships, implementing more selectivity. We have begun to see a movement towards longer-term collaborations between brands and influencers. Where, in the past, brands have worked with many different influencers in on-off engagements, they will now look to work more closely with a core group of influencers over time, perpetuating a greater sense of authenticity with audiences. While the amount of sponsored campaigns is unlikely to decrease, we’ll see an increased focus around the quality of collaborations and influencer-brand relationships.
Closer Scrutiny on Measurement
As influencer marketing has continued to gain credibility as a worthy long-term digital marketing strategy for brands, we’re seeing growing emphasis on measurement and data-driven techniques to compare influencer marketing return compared to other marketing strategies.
We’ll see more tools available to pull audience, engagement and traffic data as well as more specialized tools that can better analyze the nature of the traffic and quality of engagement. Sentiment analysis, analyzing the emotive quality of comments and engagement, beyond mere “positive” or “negative” signals towards tonality that measures consideration, intent, or skepticism will become an important resource for brands to better examine the success of influencer collaborations.
Growth of In-House Teams
With marketing teams finding value in and placing more priority on influencer campaigns, we can expect to see more brands look to bring it in-house. For the first time ever this year we saw the emergence of the “Director of Influencer Marketing” role within corporate marketing teams, and we can anticipate to see that continue well into 2019. While proprietary strategies will offer brands unique value, we’ll also continue to see agencies leveraged for creative guidance and external knowledge.
In all, 2019 will doubtlessly be a year of maturity and growth for influencer marketing. Not only will brands find more unique and creative ways to engage with consumers through influencers, but platforms and teams will continue to innovate and evolve to support the industry’s growth.
ACTIVATE is a fully end-to-end influencer marketing platform, covering influencer discovery, program workflow, measurement, and analytics. Our ACTIVATE Studio team also helps brands build out and execute their influencer strategy. Last year, the ACTIVATE platform enabled over 75,000 influencers to collaborate with brands.
Want to learn more about Bloglovin’ or ACTIVATE? Just drop us a note at research@activate.social.
