How Has Influencer Marketing Changed In 2020?
The rise of influencer marketing has grown substantially over the past few years, and it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Considered to be one of the most valuable forms of marketing present on social media, many companies are turning to influencers who operate in the relevant niche to promote their products and brand name to their followers. This provides companies with increased exposure amongst their target market and enables the generation of sales and revenue.
However, influencer marketing has changed and developed in order to keep up with the changing times. Here are some ways in which influencer marketing has changed in 2020:
Surpassing The Superficial
In the past, the influencer marketing industry relied heavily upon social media metrics such as follower counts, likes and engagement to gauge success. However, today these vanity metrics are believed to offer nothing of value and is not an accurate indication for which influencer would be best for the brand.
In fact, Facebook’s recent decision to remove the amount of likes on their platforms, such as Instagram, encourages people to shift their focus away from these vanity metrics. Instead, it prompts them to direct their attention more towards valuable metrics, such as audience demographics, reach, impressions and video views delivered to gauge the suitability of an influencer to promote a particular brand.
More Content
Traditionally, platforms like Facebook and Instagram primarily delivered picture and text-based content. However, drastic improvements in interned speed have resulted in more and more influencers creating and delivering audio and video content to their follows. In 2020, people are to expect influencers to increasingly utilise video content.
This is expected to greatly benefit brands as video content is considered to deliver higher audience engagement more and also generate higher ad clicks.
Building Long-Term Influencer Relationships
In the past, brands commonly used influencers on a campaign by campaign basis, meaning that they would utilise an array of different influencers for each campaign or promotion at the time. However, brands are now discovering the benefits associated with forming lasting, long-term relationships with their influencers. By consistently using one or a small group of influencers, it enables brands to save time, money and effort by not having to continuously search for new influencers for each campaign run.
2020 is a year of great change and that rings true for the influencer marketing industry. Despite the developments and alterations experienced by the industry as of present, these changes are essential to ensuring that the industry remains current and adequately promotes a brand and its products to the specified target audience.
