Let’s begin by asking you a question - when was the last time you logged onto a social app and didn't see an influencer? Probably back in 2010? Well, that’s the beauty of the modern era, we’ve got new apps, new updates, new professions, and new ways of earning money. And this is where influencers come in! It is no secret that influencers have totally revolutionized the world of marketing and social media algorithms. These guys have dominated the modern industry and have now become the face of multiple brands. Influencers are not the only ones cashing out from the social media dominance but brands have gotten their fair share of the deals as well. In the Covid era, the sales and profits of brands and companies skyrocketed by just incorporating influencers into their marketing campaigns. About 90% of marketers confirm this raise due to influencer partnerships. So this makes us ask a question - are influencers what you need to make your business shine?

The answer is YES! Over the recent years, the influencer marketing industry has grown A LOT, in fact, by the end of 2024, this industry is expected to be valued at $24 billion. This is a huge number and a big wake-up call for brands who still seem reluctant to inculcate influencers. So what are the emerging trends that brands need to be on the lookout for? What kind of campaigns do they need to go for? How can AI help in this dynamic? This blog answers it all!

The new and modern era of social media is all about trends, either purchasing trends or fun TikTok trends. Brands need to crack the code of how they can follow the footsteps of trends and win the hearts of their potential customers. To understand what trends are and how brands are following them, let’s take an example of a makeup brand selling various makeup products. In 2024, the hype is all about going natural and organic, primarily focusing on skincare in the makeup industry. Thus to keep up with the trends, a makeup brand can launch products that promise to hydrate the skin, hence not only satisfying their current customers but also targeting an entire pool of potential customers.

But keeping up with the trends is not for the faint-hearted as it always demands the brand to take risks. A brand has to be bold, daring, and creative enough to adjust its niche according to the trends. Another thing about the modern age is that every industry is saturated, you’ll find thousands of brands competing in the same niche. So how does a brand stand out? The answer lies in following trends! The more a brand inclines its products/services with the trends, the greater the sales and profits.

So what are the things that can equip a brand to compete in the battle of trends? Below is a list of a few aspects that armor a brand in the trend war:

  • Innovation: The ability of a brand to come up with any innovative incentive that sets its brand apart from the rest. For example, Tesla introducing new innovative electric cars to keep up with sustainability and go-green trends.
  • Creativity: The capacity of a brand to propose and implement new creative ideas that allow it to shine in its niche. For example, makeup brands are introducing skin-friendly products.
  • Reacting to Cultural Moments: The extent to which a brand speedily reacts to surrounding cultural moments has a significant impact on the brand’s reputation. The more a brand is sensitive toward cultural notions, the more customers it gains.

Leading Brands Incorporating Influencers into Multichannel Campaigns

Although influencer marketing truly does magic for the brand and its sales, but if you want to expand your audience, you need to slightly modify your strategy. You need to think beyond influencer marketing and come up with ways to cash it out to the max. This is where multichannel campaigns come in the loop. Multichannel campaigns simply mean conducting a promotional campaign across various mediums, be it social media, advertisements, or websites. Apart from enlarging the audience set, these campaigns provide a ton of benefits to the brands, some of which are mentioned below:

  • Increased brand awareness - marking the industry with your brand’s name
  • Targetted messaging - right message to the right audience
  • Access to new customers
  • High conversion rates and ROI

These multi-channel influencer campaigns allow a brand to spread its name and message across all forums. For the sake of promotion, a brand can either stick to one influencer for all platforms or go for different influencers across various channels to connect with the audience. Giffgaff is an excellent example in this regard.

GiffGaff’s Campaign Strategy

GiffGaff is a popular mobile network in the UK offering various SIM packages to its users. In order to promote their new SIM packages and mobile network, GiffGaff recently shifted their marketing approach to influencer marketing and opted for various influencers to be the face of their brand. In order to reach the masses, GiffGaff adopted a multichannel approach in which they streamed their videos and advertisements on every platform. They created an influencer-based advertisement and telecasted their advertisement on websites, social media platforms, television, and other forums. This flexible campaign model promises brand awareness, and brand coherence, and enlarges the target market.

AI Bringing Opportunities and Challenges

It is no secret that AI has all the hype these days and is dominating every area of our lives. Nowadays, people cannot spend a single day without Alexa or Siri assisting them. The same goes for influencer marketing as well. AI has opened a new era of possibilities and opportunities in the realm of influencer marketing. It has not only expanded the scope of influencer marketing but has also made things much simpler for brands as well. Below is a list of a few opportunities that AI provides to influencers:

  • Content Creation: Multiple AI tools, like Canva and Adobe, are available to help users create engaging creative eye-catching content. It also helps in content planning
  • Tailoring Messages: AI tools also assist in adjusting and tailoring messages according to the target audience. These tools can compose targetted messages
  • Building Relationships: Building a healthy and active relationship is extremely essential for influencers and several tools are available that can help streamline and strengthen these brand-influencer relationships
  • Campaign Crafting: Campaign crafting is a time-consuming process that can take several weeks as well. But thanks to AI tools, this process can be conducted in just a matter of few seconds
  • Automation: AI tools can also assist in mundane tasks such as scheduling, content integration, and workflow streamlining that can benefit the influencers

Though AI has made influencer marketing much simpler than before, unfortunately, AI has a dark side as well. Where it proposes a dimension of opportunities and possibilities, there are certain loopholes offered by AI in influencer marketing as well. Below is a list of challenges that AI offers:

  • Lack of Emotional Transparency: One thing about AI is definite - it lacks the human touch. So the content created by AI tools may be extremely befitting but it lacks the much-needed emotional touch that is mandatory to connect with the audience
  • AI Influencers: The biggest challenge AI proposes is the rise of AI influencers. These AI influencers mimic human content and can replicate human tasks at a much faster pace
  • Lack of authenticity: Due to the rise of AI influencers and AI-crafted content, a general lack of authenticity is observed. Because of this, the audience finds it a bit difficult to connect with the influencer on a personal level
  • Ethical Constraints: Where comes AI, comes ethical dilemmas. Certain ethical issues are always paired up with AI such as fake content, privacy issues, and cybersecurity troubles

Increase in Entertainment-Led Marketing

The thing about today’s consumers is that they demand entertainment. After all, entertainment is the sole purpose of social media, especially TikTok and Instagram. Social media users, and addicts, naturally lean toward content that brings a creative and entertaining element for the users in their respective niche. It can either be a fun dance, a hip-hop song, or even a new creative trend. Extracting the entertainment aspects, influencers need to craft their content in such a way that it appeals to entertainment-seeking users. The influencer marketing domain is already extra saturated with thousands of influencers in every niche, so in order to stand out and make your content shine, entertainment is the key.

Creating entertaining content is not entirely all fun and games but it also builds a deep connection of the influencer with the users. It helps the influencer to connect emotionally with the users and understand their mind patterns. Influencers can analyze which kind of entertaining content generates greater engagement. They can also obtain feedback from the users through the comment section so they can accordingly incorporate this feedback in future content. Hence, this helps the influencers to connect emotionally with the target audience and create content that they find engaging and entertaining. When the users see the influencers creating their demanded content, they naturally develop an affiliation with the influencers, thus greater sales, and greater profits.

More Effective B2B Creators

Among all the marketing strategies in existence, the one that has been found to be the most beneficial is the B2B marketing strategy. This strategy involves the partnership of two businesses to generate maximum output. Nowadays, brands are opting for B2B techniques to connect with influencers. Brands and influencers then partner up to create engaging content for the target audience which then generates sales and profits. In influencer marketing, B2B strategy has all the hype as it provides a win-win situation for both the brands and the influencers.

B2B strategy is being implemented by brands and companies on all social media platforms but the one platform that has birthed the B2B strategy in influencer marketing and has rendered beneficial results is LinkedIn. LinkedIn works like Tinder for brands and businesses. You share your achievements, your brand purpose, your experience, and other related aspects on LinkedIn. It’s an opportunity hub that allows two businesses to partner up, provided that core values align with one another. The algorithm of LinkedIn works in the same way. It pushes favorable videos toward the influencers and brands so they can team up for a promotional campaign. The plus point is that influencers modify the B2B strategy by adding an entertaining element of their personality. So instead of talking numbers, the campaign talks in emotions, thus greater ROI!

Less Scrolling, More Searching and Sharing

Ever since Meta AI came into view, the scrolling habits of social media users have undergone a paradigm shift. Where once a user spent several minutes scrolling through the feed to find the desirable content, now the users can easily search them up and also share with their fellows. The scrolling behavior has transformed itself into sharing and searching patterns. You must have noticed a small icon of ‘Meta AI’ on your Instagram and Facebook feeds. This small icon has made the search process extremely simple by dividing the results into several categories, either by audio, reel, account, or content.

Brands need to recognize these patterns and behaviors and accordingly craft promotional campaigns. They need to transparently communicate with the influencer regarding their wants and requirements. Once the influencer and the brand are on the same page, they can devise strategies for creating content that is shareable and easily searchable. For example, they can launch their own trendy audio or reels, just something that is rememberable and easily searchable by the users. They can also split their content into different categories to make the search process even more aligned. This strategy instills the name of the brand in the minds of the users and makes the brand, and the influencer, hard to forget!

Community for Conversions

Influencer marketing is a community. It’s a community not only of influencers but also welcomes brands in the mix. Brands and influencers need to be eagerly active in this community so they can also benefit from one another. Working in an influencer community drives conversions, builds loyalty, and enhances engaement. A few benefits of an interactive community are mentioned below:

  • Brand awareness
  • Audience segmentation
  • Collaborations with other influencers (B2B)
  • Content growth and amplification
  • Diversifying audience
  • Boosted engaement
  • Enhance credibility

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Conclusion

The growth of influencer marketing is exponentially increasing and it's not going to dim down anytime soon. The shortcut for both brands and influencers to increase their awareness is to partner up and create content. Help eachother. Therefore, as this year comes to an end, either as a brand or as an influencer, step into 2025 with a new approach towards influencer marketing. Follow the trends, go viral, be innovative, and most importantly, be yourself. The influencer marketing industry is not gonna die anytime soon so make sure to cash it out as much as possible!

We hope you found this article helpful. To read more about influencer marketing, head over to socialbook.io.