Although some people despise social media, it has had a massive impact on our generation.
Approximately half of the world’s population is using some type of social media platform, such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitch. The majority of users follow their favorite brands on social media platforms to help make purchase decisions.
So, is influencer marketing right for your business? The following is a list of over 30 influencer marketing statistics that can help you decide if influencer marketing is right for your business, including the costs, platform engagement, and ROI you can expect from various influencer marketing activities and channels. Having access to these statistics will allow you to develop a more informed marketing strategy.
What is influencer marketing?
With influencer marketing, brands tap into social media users with large followings to promote their products or services. This strategy can be used to reach a new audience or to deepen the engagement of an existing audience. This can include bloggers, celebrities, and everyone in between.
Ecommerce brands can receive benefits such as products, sponsorships, or creative collaborations from an influencer in return for the influencer’s public post.
Influencer marketing is trusted by 61% of consumers, more than those who trust branded social media content. If you can identify and work with the people that your target customers follow, you will be able to improve brand awareness, website traffic, and see other benefits for your business.
The influencer marketing landscape
Let’s explore some influencer marketing statistics to get a better understanding of the current landscape.
The influencer marketing industry is worth $13.8 billion
Influencer marketing is big business. The entire industry is currently worth almost $14 billion and is projected to increase to over $16 billion by 2022.
50.7% of brands working with influencers run ecommerce stores
What are the types of brands that are most contributing to the growth of the influencer marketing industry? According to data, more than half of brands working with influencers have ecommerce stores. This not only demonstrates the rise of ecommerce businesses but also suggests that ecommerce businesses are particularly well-suited to the influencer marketing model. Since their store can be accessed by anyone in the world, they can share products with collaborators from anywhere. Influencers can connect their store to wherever they are, without worrying about being in a certain place.
Types of influencers
If you are looking for an influencer to collaborate with, you will have many options to choose from. There are hundreds or even thousands of potential partners that you could work with. When choosing an influencer to collaborate with on your marketing campaign, consider their ability to connect with your brand, their authenticity, and their engagement with their followers.
There are five categories of influencers, each one based on how many followers they have on social media.
- Nano influencers: between 1,000 and 5,000 followers
- Micro-influencers: between 5,000 and 20,000 followers
- Power or mid-tier influencers: between 20,000 and 100,000 followers
- Mega influencers: between 100,000 and 1 million followers
- Celebrities: more than 1 million followers
Nano influencers have the highest engagement rate
But it shouldn’t be the only number you’re looking at. Although follower count is an important metric, it should not be the only number you consider when influencer marketing. It’s not just the number of followers that is important, but also the engagement rate – the percentage of their audience who like, comment or share their content.
The more engaged your potential influencer is, the more likely they are to influence their followers’ thoughts (and purchases).
HypeAuditor’s data shows that engagement rates are highest (5%) among nano-influencers with fewer than 5,000 followers. As the number of followers a person has on social media increases, the percentage of people that unfollow them seems to go down until they reach the celebrity level. For celebrities, only 1.6% of people that follow them end up unfollowing them.
Micro-influencers account for almost half of all influencers
The same survey found that it’s easier for ecommerce brands to find smaller partners to collaborate with on influencer campaigns. smaller influencers have higher engagement rates.
Micro-influencers are social media users with a relatively small but engaged following, typically between 5,000 and 20,000 followers. According to a recent study, they make up nearly half (47.3%) of all influencers. Approximately 27% of influencers are considered mid-tier, while 18.74% are considered nano influencers.
It is more difficult to find macro, mega, and celebrity influencers than other types of influencers. Celebrity influencers make up only 0.5% of all social media influencers.
Marketers are more interested in working with micro-influencers than with celebrities
There are a lot of small influencers who have high engagement rates. Marketers and brands are more interested in working with micro-influencers than traditional celebrities for influencer marketing campaigns.
The most popular type of influencer among marketers is the micro-influencer, with 77% saying they are ideal. This is closely followed by macro influencers, who 64% of marketers say are ideal. Brands are no longer interested in collaborating with influencers who don’t get paid or those who only promote affiliate products. Fewer than one in five brands would add them to their ideal collaboration list.
Demographics most impacted by influencers
The number of people who use social media varies depending on their generation. This means that some groups of people are more likely to be influenced by what influencers say than others.
Gen Z is most influenced by social media influencers
Your influencer marketing campaigns will be successful if your target audience is receptive to them.
You’re in luck if that’s Generation Z, people between the ages of 16 and 23. People in that demographic are more likely to be influenced by marketing efforts.
It is more difficult to market to older consumers using influencers. As people age, the percentage of people who follow social media influencers decreases. A little over a quarter of millennials follow influencers on social media, compared to just one in six Gen Xers and one in eleven boomers.
Even though influencer marketing might not be the best option, it is still an option if you want to reach Boomers. Moon Lin, a 93-year-old fashion blogger, has almost 100,000 followers, which goes to show that older generations are using social media more than ever before.
If you’re looking to identify which influencers your older audience follows, one strategy is to start with customer surveys. Asking a question like “which influencers do you actively follow on social media?” in your purchase confirmation emails will help you find out.
Women aged 16 to 24 are 31% more likely to follow social media influencers than men
More women work in the influencer marketing industry than men, according to data from Statista. More women than men are social media influencers.
We notice that a similar trend occurs with the number of female social media users who agree to participate in influencer campaigns. One-third of women aged 16 to 24 follow an influencer on social media, compared to just 25% of men.
An effective strategy for brands: Campaigns that are undeniably great
Daniel Wellington
This example, while not innovative, is worth mentioning to show how much of an impact influencers can have.
Daniel Wellington is a watch brand that focuses on influencers instead of traditional marketing. The brand compensates celebrities for promoting their products and rewards less popular social media users with free products. In return for posting photos of themselves wearing the watch with a unique money-off code for followers, they receive the watch for free.
The promotion of a lifestyle through beautiful, minimalistic jewelry images is a simple but effective formula. The #danielwellington hashtag has been used in over 1.3 million Instagram posts, and the brand’s main account has amassed over 3.2 million followers. . The brand’s impressive growth, considering it started as a small start-up, shows the potential of the company’s strategy.
Apartments.com & Super Bowl 50
Commercials have become just as important as the game itself for the Super Bowl. A primetime slot is usually more than enough exposure for the brands involved. Although Apartments.com wanted to make a big impact with its 2016 ad campaign, #movingonup, it relied on the influencers and celebrities involved to make it successful.
In the 10 days before the Super Bowl, rapper Lil’ Wayne posted brand-related content to his social media followers. He appeared in an ad with Jeff Goldblum. Meanwhile, three musical influencers on YouTube created their own covers of ‘Movin’ on Up’, introducing Apartments.com and its concept to a whole new digital audience.
Social content on Apartment.com generated over 8 million engagements, which created a buzz among both mainstream and niche online influencers. This led to an even greater impact when the company’s commercial was broadcast during the Super Bowl.
ASOS Insiders
Instead of having influencers post sponsored content on their own accounts, ecommerce giant ASOS has created sponsored accounts for individual influencers. They are known as ASOS insiders and they post pictures of themselves on Instagram wearing ASOS clothes. They use links to encourage their followers to buy the same clothes.
The “Insiders” are usually fashion, beauty, or lifestyle bloggers who have a large and existing audience on their main accounts. The people involved are able to create content that is more than just product related. They can offer style tips, behind-the-scenes insight into the brand, and general lifestyle-related content.
ASOS is able to increase its brand awareness and create long-term engagement with customers by encouraging influencers to organically promote the brand to their audience. This eliminates the need for ASOS to spend money on large advertising campaigns.
Revolve & #Revolvearoundtheworld
Clothing retailer Revolve’s brand strategy for a few years has been focused on influencer marketing. The LA-based ecommerce retailer uses top influencers instead of traditional fashion models for editorial-style ads. The influencers go on trips to exotic locations and document the entire experience on social media.
Beauty bloggers Fleur de Force and In the Frow have posted images of themselves wearing Revolve clothing as part of #Revolvearoundtheworld. Roughly 53% of women have bought something after seeing it promoted by an influencer, which makes influencer content very valuable. This kind of content helps to make the brand more popular and strengthens its image as a brand for “cool girls”.
In addition to holding getaways for influencers, Revolve also regularly holds parties and events for people in the industry. It recently capitalized on the hype and interest surrounding Coachella by holding #revolvefestival during the music festival.
Mercedes Benz & Loki (+Kelly Lund)
Many luxury brands want to maintain a sense of exclusivity, but influencer marketing can be effective for making brands seem both accessible and desirable – particularly to younger audiences.
Mercedes Benz is a great example of an effective influencer marketing campaign. The video was shot using an Oculus Rift headset and a GoPro camera Earlier this year, Instagram-famous wolf dog Loki and his owner Kelly Lund shot a 360-degree video using an Oculus Rift headset and GoPro camera. The video features Kelly Lund driving a Mercedes through Crested Butte, Colorado, providing viewers with a glimpse of the landscape from Loki’s perspective.
This example shows that sponsored Instagram posts are not the only way to do influencer marketing. Although Loki may have contributed to some of the video’s appeal, it was actually the combination of innovative technology and authentic storytelling that resulted in its success.
Glossier’s UGC & referral program
Glossier’s belief is that every customer has the power to become an influencer. Unlike other brands that pay celebrities to promote their products, Glossier relies on its loyal following to do the promotion for them. Some members of its following have a strong social media presence, which helps to promote the brand.
Glossier creates a lot of excitement around its product releases by sending free samples to influencers and loyal customers before the products are available to the general public. This creates a demand for organic reviews, blogs, and Instagram posts – all of which contribute to a buzz and excitement surrounding the brand.
Glossier has also created a referral program to encourage social influence, which offers money-off incentives to people who refer the brand over Facebook or Twitter. Glossier’s customers help to promote the brand and expand its customer base.
BoxedWater’s ReTree Project
Some people believe that influencer marketing is dishonest because it is often used as a way to sell products. Others believe that it is simply a tactic that is used to make money. While this is not always the case, BoxedWater uses sustainable packaging to sell water and spur a philanthropic campaign called the ReTree Project.
Boxed Water has partnered with the National Forest Foundation and promised to plant two new trees for every Instagram photo posted with the hashtag #Retree. Famous people like Julianne Hough and Alyssa Milano shared the campaign across social media to help promote it.
Besides improving visibility, the support of well-known people made the campaign appear more believable, with people getting involved because of real and personal interest in the cause instead of because they were paid to do so. The campaign’s organic reach was encouraged by social sharing.
Conclusion
According to these stats, teaming up with social media users who have a lot of followers can help your business make more money.
Working with the right influencer can help you to better understand what kind of return you can expect from your marketing decisions. They can also help you to figure out which channels to prioritize and what type of content to produce.
The most important thing to remember is that influencer marketing is available to all brands, not just brands with a lot of money. You will be able to create a more successful influencer program if you are aware of these statistics.
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