Brief
- According to research from Matter Communications, influencer marketing is still promising, with 81% of consumers indicating that social media posts from celebrities, acquaintances, or family members sparked their interest in a product or service in the previous year.
- Food and beverage influencer marketing showed the most outstanding results regarding attention and action-inspiring potential. Following it was personal care, health and wellness, and beauty, with the last replacing technology in 2020.
- 36% of consumers selected YouTube as the platform that hosts the most genuine influencer marketing material when asked which platform it is. Influencer marketing has received steady interest due to sustained brand support and expanded creator resources provided by social media platforms.
Insights
Influencer marketing continues to be a potent weapon for advertising as consumer interest in accurate content grows. According to research by Matter, consumers are 69% more likely to believe information from friends, family, and influencers than from brands. In light of this, Insider Intelligence projects that in 2023, marketer spending on influencers will surpass $6 billion.
According to the reports, as the market matures, consumers are turning more frequently to influencers as a source of information. People who responded to the survey indicated their preferences for various types of content, with how-to content like recipes and tutorials coming in the first place (42%), followed by stories with easily digestible information (35%) and posts with photos or images that include information in the caption (33%).
Beyond Matter’s findings comprised the answers of over 1,000 U.S. consumers. Customers continue seeking influencers who arouse a sense of familiarity. Relatable personalities are deemed the most attractive by 61% of those polled, followed by expert personalities (43%), simply-for-fun characters (32%), and ambitious personalities (28%). As a result, only 11% of people now choose famous influencers, compared to 17-22% in Matter’s 2020 study.
Consumer mistrust about influencer marketing might be rising, despite its continued effect. According to the research, 63% of respondents—up from 53% in 2020—said they had witnessed a rise in influencer-sponsored material on social media the previous year. As business partnerships grow, concerns about whether influencers are sincere in their recommendations are increasing more frequently.
Recently, well-known TikTok beauty blogger Mikayla Nogueira came under fire for bragging about the effects of L’Oréal mascara. However, many claimed that Nogueira constantly rejected the claims and used fake eyelashes to enhance the results. Due to situations like these, the practice of “de-influencing,” or persuading social media users not to purchase a product, has gained popularity. Mandy Mladenoff, president of Matter, asserts that brands must emphasize the positive to combat the bad.
In email comments to Marketing Dive, he stated, “Brands need to have a bulletproof proactive and reactive plan in place given the increase of de-influencing, especially on TikTok among Gen Z and Millennial audiences. “By promoting positive messages and experiences surrounding their products and services, brands may balance out bad impressions from angry or unhappy influencers,” according to a recent study.
Social media companies have been pushing themselves to the limit to improve their creative offers, whether creators are influencing or de-influencing. According to the survey, YouTube, which has the best consumer sentiment, has introduced a new method for monetizing its TikTok clone, Shorts, which enables revenue from adverts shown between Shorts videos to be split with qualified producers. While TikTok is trying to restructure its creator fund and introduce paywalled videos, allowing producers to pay for access to a video, Meta’s Instagram continues to push its Reels video format.
