More marketers are throwing their hats into the influencer-marketing ring every year—a trend which shows no signs of letting up in 2019. A recent report by software and data metrics firm Augure reveals that 75% of marketers use influencer marketing campaigns to promote their products and services.
This push to market products using social-media influencers has been gaining steam precipitously for the past several years, and with any rapid ascent comes inevitable growing pains.
Some of the most pressing challenges for marketers working with influencers have centered around issues of transparency and trust. The development of specific guidelines and regulations governing the use of sponsored posts by influencers is one coming development that will lend the business of influencer marketing greater credibility. Regulations reinforce credibility by ensuring a level of transparency that makes marketers and consumers feel confident, which in turn brings more income to influencers.
Ahead we’ll look at some of the trends that will be bolstering the trust factor and ramping up the authenticity of influencer marketing partnerships in 2019 and beyond.
Influencers Will Be More Transparent About Which Posts Are Sponsored
Fans want to know immediately when perusing posts by their favorite influencers whether or not those posts are sponsored. A certain number of sponsored posts will not undermine the authenticity of an influencer, especially if their posts made in good faith, promoting products for which the influencer has a genuine appreciation—but don’t followers have a right to know at the outset that posts are sponsored so that they can make conscious choices?
Influencers and marketers on social media have recently been coming under more scrutiny by the FTC. Conspicuous disclosure of sponsored content will mean less guesswork for fans in determining which posts are strictly from the heart and which are more financially driven.
Faithful followers have no issues with their favorite influencers earning a living. The transparency of openly-disclosed sponsored content can only serve to nurture an environment of trust that ultimately boosts sales for brands and opens up opportunities for content creators.
Influencers with Fake Followers Will Become a Thing of the Past
More and more companies today are becoming unwilling to collaborate with influencers who have bot followers. Influencers with fake followers are just plain bad for business.
Each year brands are investing bigger budgets into their influencer-marketing campaigns and followers that appear to have more reach than they actually do can severely affect a campaign’s bottom line. Imagine that an influencer has only one half or two thirds the number of followers expected? This avoidable error could substantially reduce a campaign’s ROI.
These days there is software that companies can use to vet influencers to make sure that content creators have genuine followers.
SocialBook provides bot follower rate for all Instagram channels for users to check how many followers of that influencer are real.
Here are other ways brands can maximize their influencer campaign ROI.
Brands Will Create Partnerships with Influencers Instead of Paying Them for One-Off Posts
In the coming year, we will start to see more sponsored content that is the result of carefully considered long-term partnerships between merchants and content creators—partnerships that are formed with an emphasis on the thorough vetting of influencers by marketers before signing on that dotted line.
Platforms like socialbook.io have tools that can help marketers to identify influencers with the built-in audiences that will best appreciate their brands. Marketers using the platform will have access to information about influencer audience type and reach, and will be able to engage directly with influencers who are already posting content that is relevant to their brand.
Marketers Will Make Measuring ROI a Priority
For brands looking to see results like these it will become imperative in coming years to use ROI metrics that show solid returns which justify their expanding influencer-marketing budgets.
After finding the right influencers to work with, the most important part of managing a campaign just might be measuring its performance to make sure it stays on track and delivers the expected profits—an aspect of campaign management oft neglected in the early days of influencer marketing. This involves knowing which metrics to track on the various social media platforms, and knowing how to track those metrics on each platform. Platforms like Kissmetrics provide tracking tools that can help companies maximize ROI.
The Final Analysis
Influencer marketing is a trend that is going to continue to gain momentum in the future, with a larger percentage of marketing budgets going toward influencer marketing campaigns each year. It is well worth the effort for brands and influencers to work out the bugs that have emerged during influencer marketing’s early growth spurt.
The more easily brands are able to form trusting partnerships with influencers and influencers to form transparent relationships with followers, the more fulfilling and profitable these alliances will continue to be all around.
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