Influencer Marketing 2024: 10 Facts That Prove Its Impact

The internet and social media have turned people into active seekers. People, more than ever, now look all around them before purchasing a product or a service. The internet, as you would know, has given birth to digital marketing and social media, a combination of which has now given birth to influencer marketing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when the other marketing strategies failed, influencer marketing continued to provide an exponential return on investment.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing has been in discussion for quite some time, but some people still do not understand what it means. Before understanding influencer marketing, let’s first understand who influencers are.

Influencers are specialists/pseudo-specialists in their domain and seek to inform/educate people about various dimensions of their domain. For example, numerous social media experts educate people about taxation, finance, fashion, grooming, etc. The only prerequisite that an influencer needs to prove his worth is a sizeable social media following.

When a business reaches out to influencers to market its products or services, it’s called influencer marketing. For example, let’s say you have opened a cafe; you are a small business, so you can not afford to promote your cafe with traditional marketing methods, but you can always invite a food vlogger to your cafe. This collaboration between your business and the said vlogger is essentially influencer marketing, where both parties benefit from each other. 

Influencer marketing is a hybrid of the traditional celebrity endorsement model. The essential difference is there is a great degree of collaboration between influencers and businesses instead of merely a monetary exchange for endorsements. Additionally, unlike celebrities, influencers are present everywhere; you just need to locate them. 

Benefits of Influencer Marketing:

• The business size does not matter

For influencer marketing, you do not need to reach out to the influencer with the largest social media following. You just need to identify an influencer which is suitable for your vertical.

Moreover, not all influencers charge a payment for collaboration, making them even more suitable for small businesses.

• Augments social media following

Digital marketing revolves around the internet and the traffic on your website, social media pages etc. This traffic leads to a better ranking of your business on search engine result pages. Collaborating with influencers provides a continuous stream of followers for your business, leading to an organic traffic flow to your business.

• Long-term collaborations

As influencers are specialists in their domain, you can always ask for their advice. You can discuss your product or marketing strategy; influencers give your business an essential external perspective. In the long term, this collaboration can ensure your business model does not become stagnant.

• Reach new markets and audiences

It’s understood that you should engage with an influencer operating in niches related to your business. Still, it is improbable that you and the influencer will have the exact same set of followers/customers. Your business gets exposure to newer markets due to influencers’ reach. Moreover, It is seen that influencers have great sway over teenagers; these teenagers can potentially become your long-term customers.

• High Potential for backlinking

An influencer can significantly enhance your SEO. If the influencer links your business to his posts, it will greatly impact your website’s domain authority. This will generate organic traffic to your website; when it comes to digital marketing, frankly, there is no substitute for organic traffic.

There are numerous benefits of influencer marketing, and I can go about them to the length of this article, but it won’t be appealing since they are intangible in nature. But do not worry; here are 10 facts about influencer marketing that are tangible and backed by research.

Influencer marketing: 10 facts you should know

1. Google searches for influencer marketing

The best way to gauge an upcoming trend is to see how many people are talking about it online, and you can do it simply by finding out how many people are searching for it on google. “influencer marketing” has become a buzzword in the past few years. Between 2016 and 2019, the searches for influencer marketing went up by 1500%. With so many influencers in different fields, influencer marketing is here to stay for some time, and it goes without saying that influencers are propping up in newer and newer fields.

2. Exponential growth during the pandemic years

Not many industries can boast success during the covid induced lockdown years of 2020 and 2021, but influencer marketing grew exponentially in this time period. From a mere valuation of $1.7 billion in 2016, it grew to $9.7 billion by 2020; industry experts have projected its value to grow to $16.4 billion by the end of the financial year 2022. 

3. ROI on influencer marketing

As per a report by the “influencer marketing hub” website, one of the leading websites on influencer marketing, a business, on average, makes a $5.78 return on every $1 spent on influencer marketing. While almost 85% of businesses can break even, around 13% can earn up to $18 on every $1 spent on influencer marketing. 

4. Influencer marketing budget

In another survey conducted by the Influencer marketing hub, 90% of respondent businesses found influencer marketing effective, and 62% intended to increase their budget on influencer marketing. The above findings prove that influencer marketing is getting a more significant share of the marketing budget year after year.

5. Exponential rise of social media

The rise of the Influencer economy is directly proportional to the growth of social media. As you would know that social media has totally exploded in the past few years and is showing no signs of slowing down, there is no reason why influencer marketing will not grow at a similar exponential pace. For example, Instagram users post 95 million photos and videos daily, and there are more than a billion users.

6. Impact on women and teenagers

Any business whose product range includes articles for women and children should definitely go for influencer marketing. As per research, every 1 out of 2 women chooses fashion and grooming products based on the recommendations of their favourite influencer. Similarly, it was found that almost 40% of millennials trust an influencer more than their own friends. 

7. Increasing social media assistance to influencers

Instead of just being a medium of social interaction, social media platforms are now actively indulging their participants in promoting their activities. For example, TikTok created the “Tiktok care fund” to promote influencers’ activities. These funds aim to make influencers self-sufficient and invite businesses for collaboration, sponsorships, etc.

8. Makes Ad-blocking software redundant

It’s no secret that almost every other person is using ad-blocking software. While we are working on a laptop or playing games on our smartphones, we do not want to be bombarded with advertisements. Now, an average person seeks out influencers, she is actively looking for her advice, and thus, there is no reason a person would block his favourite influencer. With ad-blocking software getting more sophisticated by the day, influencer marketing may become the principal means of digital marketing.

9.  The continuous downfall of print media

Nowadays, almost all print media is available online, from books to newspapers and fashion magazines to research papers on ancient history; almost everything has a digital copy. For the past few years, the ROI on marketing via print media has reduced considerably and, by some accounts, has reduced even below the level of influencer marketing. There is no reason influencer marketing won’t continue to eat up the share of print media for years to come.

10.  Case study: Cryptos and Elon Musk

If you are not living in a cave, you probably are aware of how Elon Musk was able to influence the prices of various cryptocurrencies drastically with a single tweet. Now, of course, there is only one Elon Musk, but a recent study found that a consumer was 5 times more likely to purchase a brand’s products if an influencer was tweeting about it. If merely a tweet can have such a drastic result, one can only imagine how much a dedicated influencer marketing strategy can benefit a brand.

Conclusion

The digital marketing domain is evolving continuously. Businesses have now realised that with the help of content writing, google ads, and influencer marketing, they can reduce their marketing costs considerably and enjoy the highest possible return on investment. 

From the above facts provided by us, we assume you would now be convinced that influencer marketing can provide exponential benefits. Regardless of the market or audience your business targets or if you are a big business, influencer marketing can be incorporated easily into your digital marketing strategy.

Influencer marketing increases brand awareness and builds better brand trust; if you want to include influencer marketing in your overall marketing strategy but do not know where to start, reach out to us at EMB.

Team EMB

Our team of expert writers is committed to bringing insights on topics ranging in the fields of technology, marketing, and business. With a wide-reaching range of services on our platform, we help businesses achieve digital transformation end-to-end.