Thanks to its ability to drive extensive reach and engagement, influencer marketing is becoming a preferred marketing channel for brands big and small. By collaborating with industry influencers, businesses can present compelling content highlighting their products or services to their ideal prospects and customers and generate new leads for sales.
Influencer partnerships give brands opportunities to connect with the influencer’s followers and build a sense of trust and credibility with them. It can enrich your marketing strategy with fresh content ideas while offering amazing value to your audience.
Influencer marketing will continue to be one of the most preferred strategies for brand marketing. No wonder the global influencer marketing industry is projected to reach $24.1 billion in annual revenues by 2025 with a CAGR of 32%.
In this post, we shall explore the most important influencer marketing trends that will govern the social media industry in 2023.
1. Prioritization of Influencers Active on Multiple Channels
Today, customers on average engage with six or seven social media networks. Hence, businesses are looking to collaborate with influencers who are active on multiple social platforms. It promises an excellent reach to a much wider audience, thereby boosting brand awareness.
Although social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are still go-to channels for influencer marketing, the year 2023 will see significant involvement of other social networks in this tricky marketing landscape.
For example, LinkedIn was initially popularized as a career-focused and professional networking platform. However, with the introduction of the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program, this platform is slowly being utilized by B2B influencers for creating and promoting content.
With the rise in the adoption of various platforms for influencer marketing, many businesses will prefer collaborating with influencers who have a significant following on multiple channels. To maximize how attractive they are to brands, content creators and thought leaders can do well by showcasing their multi-channel assets in a beautiful portfolio, embedding content from several platforms.
2. Emphasis on Diversity and Representation
Although diversity and inclusion are not new trends in the influencer marketing space, the issue will see a strong emphasis in the coming year. As consumers are becoming aware of racial justice, gender equality, and LGBTQ rights, companies are becoming more shifting their focus on DEI initiatives in their influencer marketing campaigns.
Many brands are recognizing creators who speak about these social issues and collaborating with them for their social media and influencer campaigns.
For example, IKEA featured leading black designers to share their thoughts with its followers on the occasion of Black History Month in the United States. By collaborating with these designers, IKEA demonstrated its inclusive marketing efforts on social media.
To achieve greater DEI in your influencer engagements, you can work with agencies like Shade, an influencer management and talent casting shop, to partner with influential Black and brown creators on marketing campaigns. By doing so, brands can build an inclusive community that welcomes diverse customers.
3. Preference of Micro and Nano Influencers
The impact of micro and nano influencers is growing tremendously. Although these influencers have a considerably smaller following, they often tend to have higher engagement and conversion rates. No wonder, brands are utilizing micro and nano influencers 10x more than mega influencers in current times.
Micro and nano influencers target niche audiences and have the potential to make the right impact on them, at times, more powerful than celebrities. These influencers have closer connections with their audience who look up to them for reviews, suggestions, and advice. In fact, the engagement rate of micro and nano influencers is found to be 2% and 4% respectively.
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The impact these influencers have on the audience makes them the perfect partners for brand collaborations. Further, these influencers often tend to be inexpensive and are more likely to accept barter collaborations. Such partnerships help you scale your brand presence in the market with a limited budget.
Popular Pays by Lightricks allows brands to discover and connect with a high volume of leading niche-specific micro and nano influencers and collaborate with them for their marketing campaigns. It offers a simple way to get in touch with these influencers at scale and work together with them throughout all the stages of a campaign, including impact measurement.
Many leading companies are already partnering with micro and nano influencers for brand collaborations, and the trend is likely to grow tremendously in 2023.
4. Regulations for Influencer Marketing
As the influencer marketing industry is booming, the governing bodies have imposed certain rules and regulations that these collaborations must adhere to. According to the advertising law in many countries and The Federal Trade Commission, influencers must add disclosure labels for their paid advertisements and collaborations. In other words, influencers must clearly state if the brand is sponsoring them or providing free products or services in exchange for a review.
These regulations are strictly implemented so that brands, consumers, and influencers are protected from spreading false information, misleading advertisements, malpractices, and online fraud. And the regulators are increasingly cracking down on violators.
Besides government bodies and legislation, social media platforms have come up with their own rules and regulations for influencer collaborations. For example, Instagram has laid down its own sponsored content guidelines that influencers need to adhere to for posting content on the platform.
The year 2023 will see stricter regulations to ensure more responsible influencer marketing space.
5. Creating New Products with Influencers
As influencers are experts in their niches and know their target audience better than anyone else, they are the powerhouse of knowledge about the customers and industry in general. Companies have started co-creating products by partnering with such influencers to take their businesses to the next level.
This alliance is beneficial for both the brand and the influencer. The brand gets access to the influencer’s followers while the influencer can bring their ideas to life.
Co-creating products with influencers help brands innovate and introduce uniqueness to their offerings. It has the potential to maximize the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns by leveraging the authority and credibility the influencer has with its community and securing more sales.
For example, the famous beauty retailer, Sephora teamed up with Maroua from The Doll Beauty, a beauty influencer to create and launch a new make-up collection.
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Similarly, NA-KD, a fashion brand co-created a unique outfit collection with a fashion influencer, Taylor LaShae.
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This trend has so far impacted the fashion and beauty industry. However, considering the benefits it offers, this model is likely to be adopted by other industries as well.
Summing Up
Influencer marketing offers businesses an ideal medium to meet new customers, increase brand recognition, and boost sales through social media. We hope this post has given you intelligent insights into the top trends for crafting the best influencer marketing strategy.
By partnering with the right influencers and keeping yourself updated about the latest influencer marketing trends, you can plan successful influencer marketing campaigns for 2023.
