As we head into the new year, we at Gameinfluencer take our time to reflect on the development of influencer marketing over the last twelve months and prepare ourselves for what is to come. More than ever, influencer marketing is rapidly evolving with new trends appearing ever so quickly, staying up to date is a must for everybody in the field.
Let’s begin by listing the statistics showing the value of influencer marketing (source: Digital Marketing Institute):
- 70% of Millennials and Gen Z say they trust influencers more than traditional celebrities
More than 50% of women purchase a product due to an influencer post on Instagram or Facebook - 49% of online shoppers depend on recommendations made by influencers
- 59% of digital marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets in the next years
- Influencer marketing campaigns generate an impressive ROI of $6.50 for every $1 spent.
These stats once again suggest that influencer marketing will be one of the hottest digital marketing strategies. We’ve curated a list of the top 4 trends we predict will gain greater momentum.
1. A shift towards holistic strategies rather than ad hoc partnerships
As holistic fully integrated influencer marketing concepts continue to grow in importance, the days of ad hoc surface level partnerships will be behind us. We’re entering a new era where 360° partnerships will become the norm and brands will more deeply integrate an influencers’ brand into their own and vice versa.
In today’s market, consumers are more scrupulous and critical of advertising than ever before. With heightened sensitivity to advertising messages, consumers will detect even the slightest hint of inauthenticity, which can ultimately deter them from buying into your message and product. Therefore, brands must work to create a tight-knit relationship with and connection to the influencer’s brand.
A natural progression from the deepening of these partnerships is influencer products, which we see as the second major trend.
2. Deepened partnerships through influencer designed products
Unlike influencer merchandise where an influencer’s logo merely is placed on an existing good or service, these products will be co-created and fully encapsulate an influencer’s brand and ethos. This trend is quite popular amongst fashion and lifestyle influencers and more recently started to occur amongst gaming influencers; i.e. Jacksepticeye’s and Markiplier’s clothing brand Cloak and PewDiePie’s gaming chair that he brought to life with Clutch Chairz; which reached viral meme status.
3. Instagram platform dominance will continue, though we need to keep an eye on newcomers
We saw the rise of new social platforms (i.e. Youtube and TikTok) that some thought would change the face on influencer marketing entirely and monumentally shake up the game for dominant influencer marketing platforms like Instagram.
Despite the rise of new platforms, Instagram has, and we predict continue to be the most effective in terms of delivering positive marketing results. According to the “Influencer Marketing Roundup”, provided by the well-known digital marketing research company eMarketer, it was the most popular platform of choice of social influencers worldwide.
With Instagram being the most effective in delivering results, it has widely become the ‘go to’ platform for brands wishing to engage in influencer marketing. That being said, gaming brands will continue to activate with influencers on YouTube though will likely integrate Instagram to a greater degree rather than having it as a secondary or even tertiary component of their campaigns.
We recommend that brands keep a close eye on growing platforms. Reminiscent of Vine, TikTok content takes the form of short 15-second videos. Brand partnerships with TikTok users are in its’ infancy but will inevitably evolve this year.
While TikTok or Instagram may not be the right fit for every brand or campaign, it would certainly be prudent to proactively think about how both platforms could be used to support your marketing efforts.
4. Measuring ROI and impact will evolve
Social media marketing metrics are increasingly including influencer marketing ROI tools, so they will be used by more businesses to assess the performance of influencers.
“The results of this analysis will be critical to achieving marketing goals because they’ll show where the overall strategy needs an improvement, which strategy gives the highest value, and which campaign best suits your target audience,” reveals Sara Sadler, the social marketing expert for UnityContainer.org.
Here’s what brands should consider ensuring an accurate calculation of ROI of individual influencers:
- Selecting the best influencer to get the best possible ROI
- Knowing which performance metrics to track on each social media platform
- Knowing how to track these metrics
- Preparing reports that show ROI value and make appropriate changes to influencer marketing strategy.
That being said, to calculate the relevant ROI Metrics, tracking of influencer marketing efforts is vital – and problematic. Especially for extremely data-driven marketing industries, like the gaming one, it has been difficult to attribute all relevant value to the influencer campaign.
Google recently released data on the untracked effect of influencer marketing campaigns on Android phones, stating that the installs of a particular app are on average four times higher than what can be tracked directly.
Marketing professionals have already started to develop new tools to track the effect of influencer marketing, that go beyond traditional tracking links and those tools will get more sophisticated in the coming year, to be able to prove additional ROI effects.
Bring it on!
This year is going to be a big year for influencer marketing, brands and influencers alike. It’s evident that the practice of influencer marketing has grown tremendously since it’s infancy and now that we’re entering the teens years, we are on the edge of our seats waiting to see what comes of the trends we predict and whatever else may be in store.