With social media becoming such a prominent part of our daily lives, it’s no surprise we’ve seen a significant rise in influencer marketing in recent years, and it’s set to continue to increase in 2020. To help you get ahead of the curve, we’ve put together 20 influencer marketing trends you should know for 2020.
1 ) An Increase In The Use Of Audience Insights
First things first, it’s hugely important to understand what audience insights are and how they work. Audience Insights allow brands and marketers to view information, demographics, audience engagement, and learn how to target audiences for the optimal result.
With the emergence of this new type of marketing, technology has been developed by The Handbook celebrity and influencer platform to improve the effect and reach of influencers. The Handbook is incredibly sophisticated in matching brands to influencers, and also in using advanced technology and algorithms to match brands and celebrities and to give detailed audience insights including audience interests, size, engagement rate and social activity. People come to our site for influencers’ insights now almost as much as celebrities. As well as providing the influencers’ contact details, users are now equally interested in the demographic data which allows companies to determine the influencers that are right for their brand. You might think a set influencer is perfectly suited to your business, but actually what is key is how relevant their audience is to you, so, providing the user with clear data on the interests of the audience, their location, their spending habits and social status is of equal importance.
2) Instagram Will Continue To Shine As The Favoured Influencer Platform
There’s no denying Instagram will continue to strive as the most successful social media platform for influencer marketing and that it will remain the leading platform to showcase brand partnerships with influencers and micro-influencers.
3) Branching Into New Social Media Platforms
Of course, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be ever prevalent in the coming years, but in 2019 we started to see the rise of a couple of new social networking platforms. Similar to YouTube on first glance, Twitch is a platform that allows influencers to live stream videos. The overall aim appears to be helping to bring a sense of community among its audiences and users. Like any social platform, it’s a great place to venture into influencer marketing for brands and express your values in a more community focused sense.
4) The Rise Of TikTok
While Instagram will remain the most prevalent social media platform throughout 2020, 2019 did see the rise of a new social networking platform called TikTok, and it certainly feels as though it’s here to stay and become its own platform which will allow brands will work with influencers. When scrolling on mobile phones, users are ultimately searching for bite-size content that’s easy to watch, consume and accessible to share with friends, and that’s exactly where TikTok comes in. The video-sharing platform’s popularity is set to increase and it’s an incredibly easy way for brands to showcase their brands values and message in a simple matter of seconds.
5) Understanding Brand Awareness Is Integral For Targeting Influencers
This one seems obvious but brands and marketers are still continuing to get it wrong. With The Handbook’s Celebrity and Influencer platform, brands and marketers can easily search celebrities with regards to their interests and social media presence, whether it’s their passion for food and drink, or their health and wellbeing influences. Through this, brands can understand which influencers are best fit to their brand values and identity.
6) Understanding Brand Loyalty
Following on from understanding brand awareness, it’s important to learn the ins and outs of brand loyalty and authenticity. Researching the right influencer or micro-celebrity for your brand is hugely important in communicating your brand values through the content being produced.
7) Influencer Platforms Will Be The Main Tool For Running Brand Campaigns
Influencer platforms help to encourage the engagement in influencer marketing. The Handbook’s Celebrity and Influencer platform provides an easy tool for brands and marketers to find the right influencers that will help elevate their brand values, as well as helping brands to understand individual influencers and their audience engagements and relationships.
8) Increase In Video Content And Mobile Accessible Channels For Marketing
Audiences engage with influencers largely through their mobile phones and social media, and it’s becoming more and more popular for influencers to create video content and podcasts. These channels form a new way of storytelling and help to engage on a deeper level with audiences, and it’s said that these channels will become a new way to encourage influencer marketing, whether that’s through sponsorships, partnerships or gifting.
9) CGI Influencers Will Become More Popular
Believe it or not, there’s a new type of influencer on the rise and they’re in the form of CGI influencers. While it might sound a little strange, CGI influencers are on the rise and it’s opening up new possibilities in terms of marketing and brand partnerships.
10) Public Relations Set To Drive Influencer Marketing Strategies
The role of public relations will increase and help drive those managing influencers to meet the reality and expectations of potential brands and clients looking to promote and work with influencers via social media. They’re also hugely important in helping to establish and reaffirm the brand’s reputation, helping to promote an ideal portrayal of their client on social media sites.
11) The increase of Influencers over Celebrities In smaller Influencer Marketing Campaigns
The line between a celebrity and an influencer is continually being blurred, but when it comes to influencer marketing campaigns it’s important to know who to target. While a celebrity like Kylie Jenner may have over 150 million followers, brands pay thousands of pounds in the hope of getting just a standard Instagram post. So if you’re starting out in influencer marketing, targeting these bigger celebrities is slightly ambitious and not always worthwhile. In 2020, we’ll start to see brands targeting micro-influencers with a smaller following, but one that’s authentic and dedicated, as it’s more beneficial in terms of marketing and budget.
12) The Rise Of The Micro-Influencer
Of course, there’s no denying major celebrities are still held up on a pedestal and hugely beneficial for major brands and collaborations, but those starting on the influencer marketing path shouldn’t shy away from micro-celebrities and micro-influencers either. In a lot of cases, micro-influencers have a higher response and engagement rate than macro influencers and major celebrities, as well as the cost of working with the individual being considerably lower as both the brand and influencer are trying to gain more traction to their personal brands. 2020 will see a rise in brands and marketers volumising on this trend.
13) Employees Are Being Encouraged To Become Influencers
Another trend we didn’t see coming way the introduction of businesses encouraging their employees to become influencers, and it’s become an easy way for brands to promote their brand values and products. The employees will already understand the brands values, ideals and practices so it’s an authentic way to promote these to audiences on social media.
14) Brands And Influencers Will Begin To Work Together On Longer Partnerships
2019 saw a rise in this with many YouTubers and influencers working with brands largely on a partnership basis, rather than a campaign by campaign system. Building these stronger connections and partnerships, audience engagement exiles rather than diminishes as influencers can begin to layer in their authenticity and brand identity more easily. It’s also a lot less hassle in the long run for brands and marketers as they can channel their energy into creating authentic brand values through the longer term marketing.
15) Advancements In AI And Augmented Reality
Over the last few years, we’ve seen a huge increase in AI and AR advancements and in 2020, this will only increase. These advancements allow brands to understand their customers more thoroughly through the buying process and can target them more effectively.
16) The Use Of Advocates
Only a few brands are already enforcing a customer advocate system, but it’s likely that this customer system will increase in the following months. While it’s great to work with influencers and celebrities who can help promote products and brands on viral scales, a few brands have delved out and have started using their customers as a way of promoting products. Customers largely know about the products and brands on a more in-depth scale and, while they may not have huge followings or even social engagements, having customer advocates helps to create an online presence surrounding the brands identity and will ultimately help promote their products.
17) A Merging Of Content Marketing And Social Media Marketing
Many companies and brands are starting to delve away from the content marketing side of things and have begun largely focusing on social media marketing. Using both of these can help drive the campaign and impact of the engagement and outcome further. Content marketing will, of course, still exist but throughout 2020, we’ll see that it’s being intertwined through promotion on social media accounts to help increase the overall reach.
18) Personalisation Is Key
The majority of influencers audiences are looking to connect with them on a more personal level, and when discussing certain issues, it’s key to getting the message across. In terms of influencer marketing, brands and marketers can use this to their advantage when looking to target and promote their brand/product.
19) GEO Targeting Is Set To Rise
Local targeting works great for brands and businesses looking to promote their services on a smaller, more local scale. By geo-tagging in posts and stories, it naturally brings local audiences to the post without you having to do any extra work and helps your brand target the right audiences..
20) Stronger Regulations In Influencer Marketing
Following the social media endorsements issued by the government in early 2019, it was made clear that influencers, bloggers, vloggers and celebrities must state whether a product, brand or service is endorsed or linked in a particular way. Which is why influencers nowadays have to quote if the product or brand is gifted or gifting, or if it’s on a sponsored partnership. These regulations are set to increase and must be implemented thoroughly in the future, so it’s important to research the ins and outs of influencer marketing here.
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