In 2020 : Is “Instagram Influencer” Still Worth It?
There’s been a major disruption in consumer marketing in recent years. The landscape of the influencer marketing industry has rapidly evolved since its emergence as a competitor for brand advertising spend in the last few years. However, the last twelve months have seen an immeasurable industry shift, even before COVID-19 flipped the world on its head.
Consumers are natural skeptics and younger consumers are hungry for authenticity. The best in game are able to suggest products through sponsored posts but make it sound like its a genuine-feeling personality on the feed. The more authentic, the more highly compensated, the more followers they can get, the more they will be offered in the future. The more products they post, the richer they will be.
Its way easier to grow distrustful of companies and their marketing ploys when you’re aware that a product or service is being advertised. However, we’re more inclined to trust a product recommendation when it comes from a friend, family member or celebrity we admire. Surely we are familiar with names like Kendall & Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, and Billie Eilish. Apart from their main profession as model, actress, or singer, they have million of followers who tend to follow their lifestyle or just want to know their daily lives.
The spread of fantastic influencer rates makes influencer career path is increasingly an accepted, even normal option for people. While the “real influencers” are mostly people who initially became well-known for their talents, those self-proclaimed influencers are usually with feeds full of selfies or endorsements whichover the content is often try hard, looking for a unique angle rather than quality or value. The “real influencers’’ should shows more character, real life stories, people that travels, people with vulnerability, people who cook, who fail & thrive, real people with real stories.
Data from MuseFind shows 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement. A study by gen.video found that 33% said influencers are trusted sources when making shopping decisions, while only 17% trusted friends and family for shopping recommendations.
I am always amused by people who label themselves as influencers. Not infrequently, young children today aspire to be youtubers or influencers. It’s okay, actually, but what kind of influencer? An influencer who influences others to be more consumptive and buy things you really don’t need? The tag “Influencer” is grating, sounds like “leader of sheep” to me.
The emergence of self-proclaimed influencers creates influencer fraud. A hashtag titled #InfluencersAreGross was created by Joe Nicchi, an ice cream seller from Los Angeles who was annoyed by the existence of Influencers.The problem stems from some people who claim to be influencers coming to Nicchi’s ice cream truck and offering to give free ice cream in exchange for exposure to his 100,000 followers on Instagram. Even though Nicchi always refuses, there are always at least 1 or 2 influencers who come to him and offer the same thing. Over time he was fed up, and announced on his social media: influencers who buy his ice cream will be charged double.
The behavior carried out by micro influencers like this is due to their obsession with macro influencers, which have millions of followers, by continuously creating content and carrying out product promotions.
However, consumers, especially younger ones, are losing trust in paid influencers and looking instead to organic grassroots communities where their like-minded peers are sharing content and commentary about brands and products they actually love. After years of influencers buying fake followers, hiring click farms, and promoting products that they can’t trust much of what influencers say. People can easily see whether an influencer honestly cares about a product or brand, and they are asking, “Why should I listen to this person who’s just promoting things for the money?”. That’s where consumers start looking to engage with authentic people whose authentic product recommendations they can trust.
Based on a survey conduct by Influencermarketinghub, more than ⅔ respondents have experienced influencer fraud. Influencer fraud is of increasing concern to respondents. Recently though, big brands have realised whats going on and, fed up with being duped, they have to started to rethink their approach to influencer marketing.
Even so, market analysts predict that the influencer marketing industry will be worth north of $15 billion by 2022, a rise from $8 billion in 2019. And Tiktok was downloaded by more than 33 million people on the Apple App Store in Q1 2019, indeed it ranked as the topmost downloaded non-gaming app. In the coming years, I predict that Influencer marketing in 2020 will likely continue to trend toward social media influencers who capitalize on the growth of platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.
Do trust still exist in influencer marketing? And is it still worth it?
My short answer is yes. Even though there have been many influencer frauds, the promotions carried out by these influencers have at least created new product awareness for consumers.
Recent market research finds that the majority of social media consumers (61%) say that influencer marketing and influencer content more likely to get them to try a new product than traditional paid advertising through TV, radio, magazines, or newspapers. And this trend has yet to show signs of a transition or a shift.
