Although influencer marketing is going from strength to strength, it’s still as susceptible to fluctuating trends and altering perspectives as any other marketing process.
Because influencer marketing relies on staying on top of these trends more so than most other traditional methods, it is important to take stock of where influential power is coming from at any one time. Halfway through 2017, we’re asking – where is the influence?
Instagram’s analytic insights
One of the last social platforms to have become truly commercialised, Instagram has recently introduced more detailed analytic software, allowing marketeers much greater access to campaigns that they run through the channel. As Instagram often goes hand-in-hand with influencer marketing, this ability to analyse, receive detailed KPIs and better understand ROIs of any campaign is a real game-changer, and more and more brands are investing in Instagram-led influencer projects.
Influencers using brands’ channels
As well as the huge rise in UGC among brands’ content outputs, there has recently been an upswing in influencers using brand channels to publish content. Often referred to as ‘guest blogging’, ‘social takeovers’ etc, this is a great way for brand and influencer to come across as a genuine partnership where neither voice or message is diminished. This is a trend born from the rise of content marketing, and is really set to continue for the foreseeable future.
Platform agnosticism
As tricky as it may be to manage or even conceptualise, influencer marketing has never required more of a multi-pronged approach. Yes, it may be tempting to restrict your influencer led campaigns to specific channels for easy assessment of their results. However, recent trends would suggest that the opposite is actually the most effective way to go. Spreading your content over multiple channels and in multiple forms is more likely to elicit your desired results than keeping it more small-scale.
Live video cannot be underestimated
With pretty much all the major social channels now supporting a live video feature, it is a foolish marketeer indeed that ignores its continually growing power. Influencers are no exceptions to live video’s force, and consumers are looking more and more to it as a source of information and interaction with the personalities they are influenced by.