Influencer marketing is an area of digital marketing that has seen significant growth in recent years and has now become a staple in most company’s social media marketing strategy. Searches for influencer marketing have risen 90x over the past five years. Furthermore, over the past decade, the popularity of influencers marketing has grown so dramatically that now 93% of marketers utilise it in their marketing strategy in some form. AspireIQ, an influencer marketing platform, has recently released its latest report ‘The State of Influencer Marketing 2019: An Analysis of the Social Media Ecosystem’ which takes a look at the key trends from the world of influencer marketing.
The report looks at everything from why brands use influencers to how much you can expect to pay when working with key figures. We’ve picked out the top five takeaways from the 2019 report.
1. Instagram reigns supreme
It will come as no surprise that Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform for brands who are looking to make the most of influencer marketing. Instagram has seen a significant level of growth in recent years, a trend that doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. Currently, the third-largest social media platform attracts over 1 billion monthly active users with over 830,000 influential accounts according to AspireIQ’s data.
Below is an overview of how AspireIQ defines an influential account on each social platform and the average engagement for influential accounts.
2. TikTok is one to watch
TikTok has been the talk of the town since it’s launch in 2017 and it’s popularity only looks like increasing. The platform has already surpassed Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat by gaining over 500 million monthly active users. TikTok is definitely the platform to use for brands that are aimed at the younger generation, with 70% of influential ‘TikTokers’ (that’s what they’re called apparently…) between the ages of 14 and 24.
It’s likely that TikTok will continue to grow in 2020 with more brands looking to make the most of the highly popular app, so watch this space!
3. Instagram… it’s a woman’s world
When taking a further look into influencers who utilise Instagram as their main platform there are some considerable standout trends. The top three industries for influencers using Instagram are women’s fashion, fitness, and beauty which combined make up 60% of all influencers on Instagram. This acts as a reflection of the nature of Instagram, all these industries are highly visual and therefore better suited to the image-based platform.
Taking a further look into the gender split of Instagram influencers it’s clear to see why women’s fashion and beauty are such popular industries. According to AspireIQ, 67% of all Instagram influencers are female. This does contrast with data from Hootsuite that says the gap is much smaller with 52% of influencers being female, however, there is still a demand for more male influencers.
4. Does more followers mean more engagement?
The vast majority (59%) of influencers on Instagram are classified as micro-influencers, those with a following of between 10,001 – 50K. Brands will typically get the best value for money from these influencers as those with under 100K followers typically see the most engagement. According to AspireIQ’s report, on average, micro-influencers with 10K – 50K followers have 42% higher engagement rates than those macro-influencers with 500K – 1M followers.
For a brand, this is extremely important information as many will often think the bigger the better when it comes to following but this further highlights the importance of identifying relevant influencers. If you think about this from a user’s perspective it makes total sense. I know personally, I follow a lot of celebrities with millions of followers only for who they are. Whereas the smaller influencers I take a greater interest in what they are posting and am more likely to engage with their content.
5. It’s all about the money!
As influencer marketing has grown in popularity, influencers have started to understand how to monetise their status and utilise their following to make a living. The State of Influencer Marketing Report identified a spike in cost-per-engagement (CPE) in early 2019 that highlights the increasing demand for influencers and the growth of influencer marketing.
Working out exactly what brands pay for sponsored Instagram posts is a difficult task due to a number of variable factors such as audience, experience, and industry. However, based on market trends its believed that the current average price is $0.26 per engagement on Instagram. Below is a comparison of the average CPE across each social platform.
AspireIQ’s State of Influencer Marketing Report 2019 provides an in-depth insight into a number of key aspects from within the industry. Check out the full report here.
