What the future holds for Influencers?
How many times a day you scroll on your news feed, just to see what’s new? How many times have you seen people you may know or random people that have an active social life, talking about products or services and people actually interacting with them and the things they post?
Editor: Dimitris Dimitriadis
To be honest, you may already know, that you are not the only one out there. We have all seen them and to answer the question that may appear on your mind: Yes! They are successful in most cases. People have lost the trust of brands, as it seems that they only care about their sales and little less about their customer’s needs. The main problem about brands is, that they lack of appealing and genuine voice. But sooner or later they began being aware of this situation and tried to find new ways of advertising their products. It was that point, when influencer marketing became more relevant than ever.
But let’s start with what is Influencer Marketing?
According to Wikipedia, Influencer is a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.
How it all started…
In the early ’60s, celebrities from movies, singers and TV personas were the ones to influence on traditional means, such as television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, as they had already a large number of people following and trusting them. Nowadays, influencer marketing has another meaning, as it mostly refers to social media. So, celebrities that started being active on social media, became the first influencers. Brands began approaching them so that they will propose their products to their audiences by posting a photo or a video. This was much more beneficial for companies, because of the fact that posts were much cheaper on social media, in contrast to an advertisement on a TV show or on breaks. Influencers took advantage of that and realized they can ask for larger amounts of money, as they had a huge impact on their audience.
Last two years influencer marketing changed to a whole new level. People popped out of social media, just by creating interesting content and gaining a lot of audience day by day, becoming sometimes more popular than traditional media celebrities. They are more efficient because they seem to be more down-to-earth than traditional media grown celebrities do and people can identify better with them in contrast to well-known celebrities, such as the Victoria secret models or pop stars. I think everyone has seen once in their life haul or unboxing videos on YouTube, a girl-next-door with 50k followers wearing and presenting clothing brands on Instagram, or bloggers writing about a trip they made recently and their travel tips. The reason why I mentioned three of these platforms is, that somehow, they are the most dominant ones. The king of Influencer Marketing is (of course!) Instagram followed by YouTube and his mother platform Facebook. Last, in the Top5 list, are blogs and Twitter which may not have the impact of all the other three, but must be mentioned, as they objectively affect our lives. For example, Twitter is the social medium, where most politicians post their opinion and the fastest way of spreading a message.
Today…
A lot of people online realized that you can easily ask from free products from brands or collaborate with them if you have many followers and take advantage of the benefits influencers have. So, a lot of people started buying fake followers to grow their audiences and make the dreamy vacations at Bali for free or decorate their home with beautiful and expensive furniture. There are so many people right now we are talking, wandering out there, calling themselves influencers and making money out of that. This situation now moved the whole issue to the other side. The competition grew so big, that companies now can choose out of a wide variety of people, the ones that can serve their goal better and bring some positive results. But does this mean they choose the right ones for the company? The answer is no. It’s mostly influencers exploiting them and little less them promoting their brand and mostly increase their sales. This happens because Influencer Marketing is a new method of advertising and most companies haven’t found the right buttons or the right people to guide them yet.
What the future holds?
A lot of people think ‘’What will happen tomorrow with all these people, that consider themselves as influencers?’’ or ‘’Are they going to be as effective as they were?’’. Truth is, we are not sure if this thing with influencers is going to stop, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to change. Here are the three things, I believe will change in the next period on Influencer Marketing.
#1 Quality vs Quantity
As I mentioned before, a lot of people buy followers, or their audience is not engaging with them that well. More and more brands pass this stage daily when they finally realize that it’s not the number of followers that matter, but the quality. They have collaborated with so many people, who have thousands of followers, but at the end of the month, nothing changed on their ROI. In the future, companies will be much more careful about who they are going to choose. Influencers with lots of followers, but no interaction or quality on their content will vanish. It’s going to work only for those who have an audience that truly interacts and have a positive impact on their audience. This is fair, as true influence is not just awareness. It must drive to action. All the influencing thing is about trusting a person about a product and buying what they propose. Also, companies will realize that they have to approach people, whose identity and the audience is closer to their own.
#2 Micro- and nanoinfluencers
A lot of brands this year started to trust their company’s fame and awareness on micro-influencers, who had fewer expectations from the companies they collaborate with. The latest period though, a few brands started approaching nanoinfluencers (people who have less than 10.000 followers) who have shown a more inspiring and good-quality content and had successful results. They are more engaging because they seem to have a more neutral opinion on things, despite their small audiences, which shows trust in them. Moreover, it is so much easier for companies to collaborate with them, as they agree with low fees or by only offering their products. This means, they can approach more than one nanoinfluencer, which results in more than one audience at a time. Companies that will choose the right nanoinfluencers for their brand, will surely see their engagement and sales soar.
#3 Influencer’s platforms and agencies’ services
Some start-ups have created platforms, in which companies can find a variety of influencers, depending on their objective and find insights and metrics from previous campaigns. This will rise even more in the next period and more and more companies will search for such tools to use, as they faced difficulties trying to find influencers that will bring results. If these platforms attach nanoinfluencers to their platforms, they will be higher on the companies’ lists. Also, a lot of agencies will adopt influencer’s services (some already did), where they are searching for a matching influencer for companies, depending on the company’s budget and needs and the authority of the influencer.
Whether we like influencer marketing or not, it surely has its own potential and results as a method of advertising. It is us who are going to choose if we are going to use it as a weapon for our company’s growth or if we are going to put it under the carpet and find another way of showing our company’s trustworthy voice on social media.
*Dimitris Dimitriadis is a social media marketing instructor, designer, productivity maniac, zen monk, Apple funboy. Follow his Medium blog or learn more about his agency “The Future Cats” here.
