Brands Are Spending More And More Money On Influencer Marketing

78% of marketing managers increased their investments in influencer marketing this year…

How do these brands see this new era of influencer marketing? What is their approach with influencers? Do their methods and points of view correspond to the reality of the market and influencers’ expectations?

Marketing Influence: An Exponential Market

The brands, questioned on their perception of marketing influence, are unanimous on the essential nature of influencer marketing in their strategy. 86% of respondents consider influencer marketing an effective lever, and 92% integrate it into their communication strategy.

The strength of marketing influence also lies in the universe and creativity of the content creator, in the qualification of the latter, and in the targeting of the audience.

On what they particularly appreciate in influencer marketing, 58% of the professionals questioned also mention the link between the influencer and his community.

84% of professionals consulted even believe that influencers bring value to the brands they collaborate with.

Star Platforms

With the notoriety of Instagram, it is no surprise that 95% of brands favor this social network to carry out their influence campaigns.

Far ahead of TikTok, which exceeded one billion users last September. Because of the hyper-growth observed in the use of this network, it is not surprising that TikTok is in the first position of rising networks, so advertisers and agencies want to use it more in their campaigns in 2022.

Let’s compare the networks acclaimed by brands and those through which influencers receive collaboration proposals (2021 study). We observe a discrepancy concerning Youtube, integrated with 42% of brand influence strategies but only part of the 18% of campaigns offered to influencers and LinkedIn ( favored by 28% of brands and only 7% of influencers ).

Selection Criteria For Influencers

The growing evolution of Influence Marketing is pushing for diversification both in its use and in the expectations of brands. In the past, the size of the community was the first criterion for selecting influencers. Today the engagement rate is increasing, in the first position, being for 73% of respondents.

A Winning Collaboration

Overall, brands and agencies seem pretty satisfied with their collaborations with influencers, with an average rating of 7.1 out of 10.

In response to last year’s study, 88% of content creators were satisfied with their collaborations with brands.

….But a long way to go on mutual understanding.

Despite an increasingly apparent maturity of the market, as evidenced by the number of companies that have carried out an influence campaign over the past two years (92%), the subject of transparency raises questions: 44% of companies do not yet require influencers to mention the business partnership.

While the 2021 Reech survey revealed that 3 out of 4 influencers had refused at least one partnership, 42% of them cited transparency rules with which they were not in phase.

Even if a lot of work has been done by the brands not to restrict influencers’ creativity (a criticism that the influencers had formulated in 2021), many of them still have to make significant efforts to frame these collaborations.

In particular, on the transfer of rights, concerning the use of the content created, the latter is another point of improvement, since 59% of the brands do not yet integrate this element in the framework of their collaboration.

The Budget Influences Fast-Growing Companies

If 44% of advertisers do not use the influence as leverage marketing communication for lack of budget, a third of respondents brands spend over € 100k per year in marketing influence.

For ¼ of the responding brands, the “influence” budget was created in addition to the historical marketing budget. For 42%, however, this influence budget comes entirely from the historical marketing budget, but it does exist.

Also Read: What Networks Are Brands Focusing On Today?