If you have not read our guide to influencer marketing, I will advise you to do so before we go on with this series with a few influencer marketing trends. For those of you that have read it, I am sure there would be some thoughts in your mind as to what you should look forward to.
As is with any form of marketing, things change. It is also not only the job of the marketer to keep up with the trends in the market. If you go that way, chances are that your marketer might be an old-school person and you would not even know. Know what that means? They are earning off you and not really bringing anything worthwhile to the table.
So that you don’t get caught up in that boat, here are the top influencer marketing trends to look forward to this 2022.
1. Transparency
With any business model, transparency is key. That is why you will want to make sure your influencer is doing the same thing. The year 2022 was a big one for influencers and that made the marketing industry shine its light on this emerging aspect.
If you don’t want to put your brand at risk, make sure you instruct your influencers to disclose their working relationship with you.
When someone puts up a post, makes a video or sends out a tweet about your product, they should disclose to the audience that they are getting compensated for it. You should not also assume that since you asked the influencer to add a hashtag that says ‘Sponsored’ at the end of their post, they will do it.
Make it a point of duty to confirm these things for yourself. Otherwise, you could be setting up your brand for failure when people pin the blame on your for misleading them
2. Diversify
Due to the visual nature of the platform, many brands and influencers prefer to use only Instagram. I am not saying that is bad. All I’m saying is, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. True, other platforms might not offer the visual experience that Instagram does.
However, a good influencer will know how to work whichever platform it is that they are on.
After identifying where your target market is, reach out to influencers on various platforms and let them work to help you target them.
3. Relationships
There are tons of influencers out there that can work for you, but that does not mean they should all work for you. You will need to find someone whose service you like and cultivate a long-term relationship with them.
That way, you can get someone that knows the in and out of your brand and has been following all of your marketing campaigns. In the end, you would have gotten a freelance employee with valuable insights on your team.
Otherwise, you would just be jumping from one influencer to another. The new ones would have no idea where you were coming from and just start with what is, to the best of their knowledge, the best place to start for them. For them, not for you or your business
4. Metrics
One of the most important influencer marketing trends you should look out for this year are the metrics behind the whole thing. How much has your business improved since you started using influencers? What is the percentage increase in sales from each platform that you have influencers on? After calculating those, does the output match the effort? Or, in business terms, what is your ROI?
I don’t want you to get into something that harms your business and earnings potential more than improves it. With such metrics, you will be able to know which platforms to pursue more than the others.
You will be making better decisions on which excesses to cut, which markets to tap into and which potentials you haven’t explored yet. In the end, it could even inform you whether or not influencer marketing might not be the way for your business yet.
Those are the top 4 influencer marketing trends you will want to make a note of this year. Keep reaching out to the right people and building your online presence too while you leave influencers to do their work. That way, you could also be a micro-influencer for yourself, and at no extra costs.
