Take a trip back to 2010 and nobody had heard of influencer marketing. By 2020, it’s become one of the most effective and important marketing tools for businesses in all kinds of sectors. Above all else, that demonstrates just how dynamic and fast-moving it is.
Needless to say, it’s important to stay up to date with such a dynamic marketing technique. The way influencer marketing works in 2020 is vastly different to 2014, 2016 or even 2018, for instance. So, what next?
In this post, we’ll share our predictions for three influencer marketing trends in 2020.
1. The fall of fake followers
Fake followers have been a complication with influencer marketing for a number of years. When you’re looking to promote your brand to a large audience, fake followers can fool you into thinking someone is a big-time influencer.
However, as the influencer marketing industry evolves, we’re identifying more and more ways to spot accounts using fake followers. Metrics like engagement and growth rate can quickly draw a line between real influencers and those who have bought their followers.
Moving into 2020, this influencer marketing trend looks set to continue at pace. By combining quantitative analysis of followers and engagement with qualitative assessments of each influencer, companies will be able to easily distinguish between real and fake accounts – keeping up with the increasingly sophisticated behaviour of automated bots.
2. A growing range of platforms
Over the past few years, it’s fair to say Instagram has been at the heart of influencer marketing. The number of sponsored posts on Instagram doubled in 2019 alone, for example. However, one of the key influencer marketing trends of 2020 will be the growth of other platforms.
Brands will start to make the most of the large followings Twitter and Facebook have to offer – but also the image and video focus of YouTube and Pinterest that goes hand-in-hand with influencer marketing, as demonstrated by Instagram.
Most notably, there will be a lot more focus on video-sharing app TikTok. The app’s 1.5 billion downloads make it one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. That’s paired with a meme-centric format, with users sharing short and sweet videos that appeal to the growing force of Generation Z. Born between the late 90s and early 2010s, this generation is slowly but surely entering the workforce, making them a key target demographic for so many companies.
3. Influencers and purpose-driven marketing
It’s hard to ignore the rise of purpose-driven (or purpose-led) marketing. In short, this is marketing your brand in relation to a purpose or cause. That could be climate change, gender equality or support for the LGBT community.
Influencers are increasingly becoming involved in this. After all, how better to promote your eco-friendly stance than with a notoriously eco-friendly influencer promoting your brand?
While we foresee this being one of the key influencer marketing trends of 2020, our advice is to tread carefully. Far too many brands are getting purpose-driven marketing wrong, by focusing on causes that they’re simply not aligned with.
Whether it’s M&S’ LGBT sandwich while opening stores in countries with questionable gay rights or Pepsi’s bizarre Kendall Jenner advert featuring a Black Lives Matter protest, it can often come across that you’re jumping on a bandwagon of popular causes simply to boost sales. That’s a disastrous look for any business.
Your influencer marketing in 2020
Influencer marketing is always changing. At Find Your Influencer, we can help you stay at the forefront of that change. Our network of influencers are hand-picked to avoid any fake followers, they use the latest platforms to target the right demographics for your business, and they work with your company to make sure your message is always right.
Sound good? Get started today by listing your campaign on our project board.