Keeping up with influencer marketing stats is not only fascinating, but it helps you key in on trends in the industry as well as validate your marketing spend. Once you know what the latest stats are, the next step is turning the information into actionable steps that will benefit your brand. With that in mind, we’ve taken a few dozen influencer marketing stats and laid out some ways you can leverage the data to boost your bottom line.
Create How-to, Tutorial and Hack Videos to Reach More People
One analysis by Vidmob shows that 46 percent of millennials and Gen Z say they watch how-tos, tutorials and hacks on YouTube. That’s enough encouragement to increase your production of this type of content. But what helps back the decision further is YouTube is the second-most-visited website in the world as ranked by Alexa. With its more than 2 billion users worldwide, YouTube allows plenty of eyes to have access to your content every day.
How-tos, tutorials and hacks provide consumers with helpful information they can put to use to solve practical problems or improve their lives. Ideas run the gamut, from car repair and home remodeling to cooking hacks, makeup tutorials and business startup how-tos. Think about the needs of your target audience, how your brand can meet those needs, and create helpful content.
Keep in mind that most people, especially millennials and Gen Z can spot a promotion and do not want to be sold to. A mention of your brand name as sponsor of the video is enough. This lets viewers know your brand just made their list of companies they can trust to help meet their needs.
Partnering with YouTube influencers to create and promote your video content saves you time and effort and boosts brand recognition and sales. When an influencer promotes your brand, consumers listen. On YouTube specifically, 60 percent of subscribers say they’d follow the advice on what to buy from their favorite YouTuber over their favorite TV or movie personality.
Use Instagram Stories to Grow and Engage Your Audience
While Instagram is among the top social platforms of influencer marketers, Instagram stories are used by 500 million users every day (Instagram internal data, January 2019). Stories are engaging to users because they’re short, bite-sized pieces of information that disappear within 24 hours, so there’s motivation to seek them out. Fun and interesting features like music, question stickers, boomerang videos and filters make them alluring as well. Follow these best practices to get the most out of Instagram stories for your brand:
Create captivating visuals to capture viewers’ attention — which you only have a few seconds to do. Enhance your photos with contrasting, bright colors for your overlays and fonts. Include pictures of people as often as you can to make an emotional connection and use interesting or unusual settings to create interest.
Make sure your text is brief and large enough to be readable on mobile. Use stories to announce an upcoming event or product launch. You can also use a string of stories to create how-tos and tutorials, tell behind-the-scenes stories and post user-generated content.
Use interactive elements to encourage engagement with polls and question stickers. Ask yes/no questions, quiz your audience or get their opinion. These clear and simple call-to-action buttons encourage Instagram users to interact with your brand.
Keep your stories realistic and fun, not polished and “Instagram worthy.” Stories are meant to be spontaneous and reflect real life, which is part of the reason Instagram users enjoy them so much.
Even though Instagram is highly popular, make sure your target audience uses the platform before running an Instagram influencer marketing campaign. Instagram has a fairly young audience, with 71 percent under the age of 35. Zooming in closer, 30 percent of Instagram users are 18–24, and 35 percent are 25–34. Forty-three percent are female, while education and income levels are pretty evenly represented on the platform.
Snapchat
Instagram stories have a lot in common with Snapchat. Snapchat — a platform based solely on content that disappears after 24 hours — was Facebook’s motivation to create a competitor product. While Instagram may dominate the content space, Snapchat still plays a sizable role in influencer marketing success. Over 238 million people use Snapchat every day, with the majority of its users in the 13–29-year-old range.
Snapchat users are very responsive to influencer marketing, with 39 percent saying they discover brands in part because of Snapchat celebrity endorsements. It’s wise to launch a cross-platform influencer campaign — including TikTok and Instagram, for example — when using Snapchat influencers, however, to reach a larger audience. Be sure to incorporate Snapchat’s augmented reality (AR) filters and Lens Studio in your snaps as well and use AR Snapchat influencers. AR is how Snapchat sets itself apart from the rest of the social media platforms, and it is constantly advancing its technology.
Partner With Micro-Influencers for a Strong ROI
Micro-influencers have up to 50,000 followers, and they build their reputation by consistently sharing helpful, relatable content and engaging in authentic conversations with their fans.
According to a nationwide study conducted by Dr Jonah Berger from the Wharton School and the Keller Fay Group, Micro-influencers have 22.2 times more conversations each week about recommending what to buy than the average consumer.
When it comes to selecting a micro-influencer to work with, take a look at their engagement rates. The higher the engagement rate, typically the higher the level of trust their audience members have in their brand recommendations. You can also follow what 75 percent of marketers and communications professionals say is the most important criteria for choosing an influencer. Verified web traffic. Inquire about an influencer’s conversion rates for sending traffic to a brand’s website, as well as their own site’s traffic.
And when you’re vetting influencers, it’s helpful to know what they’re looking for in a brand partnership as well in order to foster a good working relationship. A healthy majority of influencers polled say they’ll work with brands that respect them. Influencers look for opportunities that are most relevant to their audience as the most important aspect of a potential brand partnership.
