13+ Unknown Influencer Marketing Statistics for Your Next Strategy
One of the best marketing methods right now is influencer marketing. Businesses are using it so often that it is predicted to become a $10 billion industry by 2020.
You can use it for everything from selling products to building a brand image to running Kickstarter PR campaign strategies.
It has risen in popularity as there are so many advantages to it. One of the most important ones is that it provides quick results. Organic marketing methods take time to bring in results. Whereas with influencer marketing you can get positive results almost immediately as the influencers have already done the hard work of building an audience.
But not all influencer marketing campaigns will get you equal results. Some will stand out from the rest and reap in better results. If you want to get the best results too, you need to take the latest influencer marketing statistics into account and device a strategy that works.
Therefore, to help you get the most out of your next strategy, I have put together this list of the best influencer marketing statistics. These tips will also benefit influencers who want to learn how to make more money on Instagram or through other social networks. They can also help you earn more money from your blog or even help you get more sales on Shopify or another ecommerce platform.
Use them together to create a very powerful influencer marketing strategy…
#1 Influencer marketing generates an ROI of $6.50 for every dollar spent:
A study from Tomoson found that businesses are making an average of $6.50 for every $1 they spend on influencer marketing.
The top 13% earn $20 for every $1 spend and 70% make $2 or more.
If you are looking to invest some money into paid marketing methods this might be the best option right now. It beats display ads as you only generate $2.65 for every $1 spend from them.
That is less than half the ROI of inlfuencer marketing.
#2 40% of consumers use ad blockers:
Ads aren’t as effective as sponsored posts for a variety of the reasons. One of the main ones is that 68% of laptop users and 22% of mobile users use ad blockers.
People use ad blockers for a variety of reasons. Three of the most popular reasons are 1) too many ads are annoying or irrelevant, 2) too many ads on the internet and 3)also because they find ads intrusive.
#3 People still look for product recommendations online:
Even though people don’t want to see ads online, they still look for product recommendations online as found by several studies. Like this one from influence central which found that 86% of women turn to social media when researching products to buy.
This is why it is important for brands to invest more into influencer marketing instead of ads. Influencer posts will appear just like regular posts in the feed and they can’t be blocked off by ad blockers.
People also like to see the recommendations from influencers they trust. Think with Google found that 70% of teenage YouTube subscribers say they relate to YouTube creators more than traditional celebrities.
And 4 in 10 subscribers feel that their favourite creator understands them better than their friends.
People will definitely trust (the recommendations of) an influencer who isn’t directly affiliated with a company over what a company says about its own products and services. As it expected that a brand will only talk itself up. But an influencer will have a more honest response.
It has the same effect that testimonials and case studies have.
#4 Influencer content performs better than brand created content:
In Linqia’s State of Influencer Marketing report 51% of brands stated that influencer content out performs brand created content.
#5 Instagram is best network for Influencer marketing:
The best network for influencer marketing is Instagram.
As the above graph shows, Instagram generates the highest revenue from influencer marketing. YouTube is 2nd and Facebook is 3rd.
Therefore, if you want maximum return from your ad spend, Instagram is the best option. YouTube seems almost as good as Instagram, so you could give it a try too.
If you want to quickly find influencers for Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, give ShoutCart a try. We have thousands of influencers waiting to team up with you.
#6 Smaller accounts generate higher ROI:
NeoReach found that smaller accounts with 50,000 to 250,000 followers generate 30% better ROI for every dollar spent when compared to accounts with 250,000 to 1 million followers. They also generate a 20% better ROI than accounts with more than a million followers.
This is because several studies have shown that social media accounts with fewer followers get higher engagement. An example is the below study which assessed the engagement rates of Instagram accounts with different numbers of followers.
As you can see accounts with less than 2,000 followers generate 10.7% engagement. As the number of followers increases, engagement decreases. Accounts with more than 1 million followers, only generate an engagement of 1.5%.
A similar trend can be seen on Facebook where as the number of fans increases, the reach drops.
Image credit: edgerankchecker
But before you consider working with several micro influencers instead of opting for macro influencers you need to consider the time. When you work with several influencers you will need to spend more time creating content like photos, videos and captions. You will also need to spend more time tracking the performance of the post. If this takes up a lot of time, the ROI will not be the same.
So, make sure you calculate the amount of manpower and extra time you need to put in before you make this decision. To save time you can easily create professional videos for social media with Renderforest Facebook video ad maker. And schedule them in advance using a Facebook automation tool.
#7 Influencer cost varies per network and account:
How much influencers charge per post will vary from one network to the other and the amount of engagement the influencer can generate. For example, on Instagram it costs $10 for every 1,000 followers or $250 to $750 per 1,000 engagements.
On YouTube this is $20 for 1,000 subscriber or $50 to $100 for every 1,000 video views. On Snapchat too the pricing is very similar Instagram as you pay $10 for every 1,000 followers.
On networks like Facebook and Twitter influencer marketing costs lesser as these networks don’t generate as much engagement and impressions as the above two.
If you want an even more accurate calculation of how much an influencer is going to cost you, you should checkout this calculator.
Just add in the Instagram influencer’s username in the field provided and click on the search icon next to it. It will analyse the engagement rate of the account and tell you how much a sponsored post on this account is worth.
Engagement will give you a more accurate picture on the reach your post will generate.
For a very clear breakdown on how much influencers charge on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, checkout this report from Klear.
#8 Quality of content is the most important factor:
While looking for influencers, the most important factor businesses take into consideration is Quality of content. 81% of businesses feel this is very important. This will help influencers who publish more creative content standout.
Other factors businesses consider are the target audience and engagement rate.
#9 Fake followers are the #1 concern:
The above study from MediaKix also found that the biggest concern businesses have while looking for influencers is spotting fake followers. 50% of them share this concern.
This is not a surprise as several influencers buy fake followers to bulk up their follower counts and charge more. It is estimated that 14% of American and Canadian marketers Instagram influencer marketing budgets were wasted on fake followers in 2018. And 63% of brands have faced influencer marketing fraud in their past campaigns.
So, before you begin working with an influencer, analyse their accounts to check if their follower counts seem legit. This can be easily done by measuring their engagement rates.
First find out what the average engagement rate on a social network is. Then calculate the engagement rate of the account on that social network to check if the engagement rate is normal. If the engagement rate is very low it is usually an indication of fake followers. Having extremely high engagement rates should also cause concern as the influencer could be buying engagement too.
You can also use a tool like IG Audit to find out how many fake followers an account has.
Do not worry too much if an account has a small number of fake followers as sometimes bots follow legit accounts to make themselves look real. Almost every account with a good number of followers will have a small percentage of fake followers.
#10 Increasing brand awareness is the most important goal:
The above survey also found that the most important goal people aim for with influencer marketing campaigns are increasing brand awareness, reaching new audiences and generating sales.
The goals you choose for your influencer campaign should have a direct impact on your bottom line. If you want to build your brand, you need to work on increasing brand awareness. (Now-a-days, readers value outside opinions & recommendations by public figures. Marketing strategists suggest that knowing proper ways to work with influencers is vital. Such a notion could affect your email campaign services too.)
While if you want to earn more revenue, you need to create campaigns that focus on generating more sales.
This is why before you choose influencers find out the impressions and/or sales their previous partnerships generated.
#11 People don’t mind looking at sponsored posts:
A survey from Collective Bias found that 34% of respondents don’t mind it when a post is sponsored and 37% agreed that high quality sponsored posts can make up for their branded nature.
This is why sponsored posts that promote products need to be presented with the best content. Figure out a way to entertain or educate the influencers followers while promoting your products.
An example is this video from Donal Skehan.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BwpXDpaBJPw/
As you can see from the description, Donal is promoting Quaker’s oat beverage. But he doesn’t just share a photo of the product and asks people to buy it. Instead he created a video recipe where he uses the product to make a pancake.
People are getting something useful from this video, hence, they won’t mind looking at it.
#12 Only 11% of sponsored posts are FTC compliant:
The earlier mentioned study from Influencer Marketing Hub also found that only 11% of posts are FTC and CMA (British equivalent of FTC) compliant.
Brands and influencers might avoid following rules set by the FTC as they could fear the results the campaign could generate if they are fully transparent. But as mentioned in the previous point this doesn’t seem to bother people as long as the content is of good quality. So, it might be better to follow the rules set by FTC and CMA instead of risking repercussions.
The main rule you need to follow is to label the post as sponsored. On most networks you can do this by using the hashtag #ad or #advertisement. But Instagram lets you tag the post as a paid partnership like in this post from keikolynn.
You can see that right under Keiko’s username in the top right corner, she has labelled it as ‘Paid Partnership with kloraneusa.
#13 84% of brands are implementing influencer marketing:
All these statics and more have convinced marketers and businesses that influencer marketing works. Hence, 84% of brands have set aside time and money for running proper influencer marketing campaigns.
Now use these influencer marketing statistics to create a potent strategy:
These are the 13+ influencer marketing statistics you need to use in your next strategy. Make a note of them or download the free guide on creating an Instagram influencer marketing strategy I have put together by clicking this link.
In the guide I show you how to use these statistics to create an Instagram influencer marketing strategy that works.
Which of the above influencer marketing statistics do you think are most useful? Did I forget to add any important stats? Please leave your comments below.
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