Influencer marketing has become a big part of many companies’ digital strategies. Once, this was just a specialized approach to marketing to marketing, but today, well, it’s becoming mainstream. Actually, a report by Influencer Marketing’s Hub reports that the global market is on the road to reaching $24 billion by the end of 2024. This just indicated how strong of a momentum this influencer strategies approach has taken, even despite the economic challenges.
Content Marketing Budgets on the Rise
With the influencer marketing teams gaining more traction, the majority of them are setting aside wider budgets for content marketing than ever before. The report by Influencer Marketing Hub shows that 65.8% of marketers have a standalone budget for content marketing in 2024. Actually, this figure has been steadily going up since 2020, from 55% to 59% to 61% to 63% in 2023.
Trust in Influencer Marketing
The report also states that most respondents believe that influencer marketing is a reliable technique. Well, out of all the respondents, 84.8% believe in that statement. Actually, looking into their surveys from 2017, the percentage of respondents acknowledging this fact has always been above 80%, with 2020 really showing great support of 90%. When businesses look into the analytics of website traffic, they can see that influencer marketing has really been playing a big role in increasing that traffic.
Influencer Marketing is Such a Huge Thing!
By the way, did you know that many consumers have stated that they purchased their products because they saw them with an influencer? Actually, a piece by The Drum claims that 45% of the Gen Zs in Europe want to purchase brands they have seen with influencers over what they see with celebrities or their peers. In a world where TikTok and Instagram are running the show, marketers are really taking advantage of these platforms.
Important Statistics in Influencer Marketing
If you still don’t believe that influencer marketing is a big thing, check out these stats:
- 69% of marketers are planning to increase their budgets for influencer marketing in 2024 – Aspire benchmark report
- 80% of consumers have something that had been recommended by an influencer – Rakuten
- Influencer marketing achieved an ROI that is 11x that of banner ads – Convince & Convert
Key Influencer Marketing Tactics
Let’s check what kind of tactics influencer marketing is using to make all these huge numbers a reality.
1- The Use of Multiple Social Media Platforms
Content creators have evolved to use more than one media platform to do their business. Today, you won’t just get an influencer using YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook alone. You see, influencers have realized that different social media platforms have a specific audience, and that’s where they are targeting. The most interesting thing is that they have loyal fans from all the platforms.
Rise of TikTok
Now, maybe you know, maybe you don’t, but according to the Digital Marketing Institute, TikTok is the most popular social media platform for branded marketing.
- Around 66% of business brands use this platform for their influencer marketing efforts.
- The other platforms, like Instagram and YouTube, come in lower at 47% and 33%, respectively.
This just shows you that video-based media is so powerful in transmitting information today. In light of such statistics mentioned above, content creators are garnering the power of each media’s tools to reach as many people as it is possible.
Furthermore, business brands are becoming even more visible and trusted by people with the help of these tactics. Why pay all that money to run TV commercials and billboards where people are reducing their time, when you can reduce the budget and gain the trust of even more people? People are spending more time online, and you cannot even dare deny that.
Long-Term Partnerships
What many brands are doing today is maintaining the relationship between the brand and the influencer, rather than just having a one-time campaign. This has become vital since the brand in making more sustained relationships with the audience of the influencers, making the audiences more trustworthy of the brand.
Actually, the majority of the brand in 2024, 63.2%, prefer to work with the same influencer across various campaigns. This number has been steadily increasing, according to Influencer Marketing Hub, from 57% in 2022 to 61% in 2023, and now 63.2% in 2024. This just shows that it is a trend that is gaining traction since marketers are seeing the value in it.
It is actually inauthentic for a brand to work with influencers who jump from brand to brand. You do not want to work with an influencer who today is working for you then tomorrow is working for your competitor. This will cause mistrust within your potential customers since they might not be able to appreciate your brand’s identity.
Live Shopping
One of the biggest trends in town is live shopping. In 2024, influencers and other big names will keep showing off and selling stuff to their followers using live videos and interacting stuff. By using this method, leading influencers are able to make vast sales within just a short time.
For example, in 2021, Li Jiaqi (Lipstic Brother) sold goods worth $2 billion in just one day. What a baffling sale! Actually, during a roundtable interview with The Drum in 2023, Ada Luo, the head of APAC, said that Live streaming has become a major thing in China.
It is estimated that around half of China’s internet users were part of a live-selling event in 2023. Additionally, 35% of respondents in a US survey said that they’d participate in a live sale, while 25% of UK respondents claimed the same.
According to Luo, influencers are making massive deals with brands for a substantial amount of money for the massive shift in inventory that can be brought about by the likes generated by their followers. It’s just a tit for tat game. In the coming days, you are most likely going to see a good number of companies employing this tactic in order to improve their brand influence.
Wrapping This Up
In the last few years, we have seen massive growth in the influencer strategies for marketing world, where more and more companies are taking advantage of the power of likes. It is because of this that we are seeing more businesses increasing their budgets for content marketing since they understand the positive influence it has. With some of the tactics we have mentioned above and others, businesses are taking on a whole new trajectory in marketing.
