Influence has been the main driver of promotion and selling of products and services through persuading, awareness, and attracting customers to achieve marketing goals. Conventional advertising cannot offer the required publicity for brands anymore. Due to technological advancement, companies look for reliable ways of reaching out to customers. Since its inception in the last decade, influencer marketing gained a lot of popularity by replacing traditional marketing strategies. Influencer marketing is now an established online industry that uses social media platforms for advertising. Influencers or celebrities use social platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Snapchat to coerce the buying decisions of their supporters.
The Trust Factor
In a marketing environment, trust is the most crucial element. Reports link the influencer marketing industry with various scandals and corruption cases. Also, there have been increasing stories of influencers paying and using fake followers to get advertising contracts from company brands. Building trust with the advertiser should be the primary goal for every company trying to build an influencer mechanism. There are no byways when you want to establish genuine and robust trust with your customers. However, brands want to reach out to their targeted audience in a manner that will not discourage customers. It is the work of an influencer to deliver authentic and distinctive voices that contain credible messages to buyers. Therefore, a genuine advertising candidate must have already built trust with his/her audience; they have a strong reputation in the marketing industry. To build strong trust with influencer marketing, prioritize quality, avoid fake followers, and create something valuable to your customers.
Real People = Great in Demand
An influencer is not just like any person in social media, (s)he must have a significant number of genuine followers on social platforms. The traditional form of marketing brands could not persuade the right amount of customers to purchase because they prioritized impressive campaigns rather than engagement message voices. The number of followers may have a small impact on the customer’s purchasing decisions if engagement is low due to unauthentic content posts. The influencer industry may undergo a significant transition to organic influencers if the issue of credibility and value continues. Other small brands cannot afford the cost of influencer marketing; therefore, they can’t access the services of popular and reputable influencers. Organic influencer marketing can be the lasting solution that can help all company brands, both big and small; it is cost-effective and authentic. Influencers or brand advocates can genuinely interact with the brand without payment. The organic influencers buy your products, create content about the product, and post on social media to influence others.
Emphasis on Micro-Influencers
Several brands now realize that achieving business goals with influencer marketing does not depend only on the number of supporters one has. Some selfish influencers fraudulently increase supporters by paying some people to follow their social media handles. Micro-influencers are regular people known to interact and manage personal connections with their few (below ten thousand) followers. Although they have fewer followers compared to macro-influencers, they manage to get higher engagement from their audience in their posts. Because of their high participation, many brands prefer to price them in quality-based influence niche markets. The micro-influencers get more real engagements, many clicks, and less ROI because customers perceive them as “people like me.”
Influencers will Switch to Video Content
The use of live videos continues to become popular with high engagement in social platforms. Videos and shows can be a good take for influencers since social media platforms have billions of subscribers that can provide a following good base for marketing brands. According to researchers, social media users prefer viewing videos than texts and still images. Should content developers prioritize using video content? The answer to this question is “Yes” since using live videos enhances the relationship between the three parties in influencer marketing that include the brand, the influencer, and the audience. Since influencer marketing is about an association with the right people, social media influencers acquire more engagements when they use videos and shows to deliver their marketing messages (Jennifer Neel, 2019).
The development of Influencer Networks
Influencer marketing has been on the rise in the last few years, and it is subject to undergo significant changes in the coming years. Since creating awareness and engagement is the common goal for marketers, new strategies may come in to enhance its effectiveness. In the coming years, influencer marketing will prioritize cliques to improve transparency among advertisers. Instead of using an individual influencer, brands may amass influencers they associate with; it’s all about engaging with your entrusted individuals. Forming influencer networks can be considerable risk in this industry since the reputation of influencers depends on the kind of brands they promote. Influencer groups or networks can improve brand reputation depending on your influencers’ control over the audience. Also, the associated advertisers form power centres in each business niche. The influence groups can then overlap and enhance interconnection by sharing information between various niches.
The Rise of CGI Influencers is coming
Computer Generated Imagery influencers are taking the influencer marketing industry with a bang; they have changed the way brands perceive influence groups. The CGI influencers are created in the virtual environment to evoke some curiosity among social media users. This advertising technology has become popular among several brands; brands have completely over-advertised their products. Real people’s influence comes with a lot of uncertainty, CGI advertisement offers brands and customers the solution to iffy issues. While the designers created them using virtual content that can mirror the real world, they are not real, but their impact on purchasing decisions is real. Although CGI is in its early inception stages, there is a significant impact when branding with them.
Marketing is driven by multiple factors that attempt to influence the buying of the respective brands. Influencer marketing has been on the rise for a few years. There is a significant demand for online marketing from companies that want to promote and sell their brands. Social media platforms provide essential elements where influencers can deliver marketing messages through text, animations, still images, audios, and videos. With the continued advances in technology, influencer marketing can take a higher step in the future. However, influencers and brands must consider building trust and delivering authentic and quality content for the achievement of marketing goals.
Bio: Zara Huang is a 55-year-old creative writer and editor from Seattle, WA who enjoys learning new languages. Currently she works with a firm https://pandascholar.com, a service that provides all kinds of English writing assistance for Chinese students. Zara H. shares useful articles on educational, travel and health topics all over the web. She is also a writing contributor to many internet magazines. Zara is fond of cooking and charity.