It’s no secret that the world of social media continues to multiply every single day, with more and more people flocking to platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Tik Tok to consume the content that we perceive as the most valuable and the most entertaining. But how has all these additional eyeballs impacted the influencer marketing industry as a whole? Well, according to a recent study by social analytics company, Klear, the number of Instagram posts with the hashtag #ad, rose more than 48% in 2019, while total posts with this hashtag now exceed 3 million.

Instagram Influencer trends in 2019

It’s also no surprise that millennials are the ones dominating the influencer landscape, with more than 54% of influencer content on Instagram coming from people aged between 25 and 34. One of the more interesting statistics to come from the study, highlighted who brands are preferring to partner with when it comes to Influencer marketing. You might think that every brands goal is to partner with the biggest and best celebrities out there. However, micro-influencers, who typically have a following of between 5000 and 30,000 are who brands are flocking towards, with 90% of people within this follower range accounting for branded partnerships in the past year.

Klear’s research is backed up by a recent survey by Rakuten Marketing that highlights that micro influencers now make up 40% of brands annual spending, with celebrity influencers coming in well behind that at 28%.

Another interesting finding is the widespread adoption of Instagram stories. As Instagram continues to increase the capabilities of stories, it makes sense that Influencers are beginning to capitalize on it, with the number of Instagram stories per influencer rising 20% in the past year, in 2019, an Instagram influencer posted on average 3.6 stores a day. In terms of the industries that are capitalizing on stories most, beauty leads the way, making up for 25% of sponsored posts, with fashion coming in a close second at 24%, and food accounting for 19% of sponsored Instagram stories.

Insights

As advertisers continue to seek new and more native ways to uniquely capture the attention of the millennial demographic, it makes sense that they are investing time and money into partnering with individuals who have an audience on established platforms like Instagram and YouTube, but also up and coming platforms like Tik Tok. A recent Business Insider Influencer Marketing report reinforces this, stating that influencer marketing is forecasted to grows to $15 billion in spending by 2022, almost doubling what it is today, standing at a respectable $8 million.

However, with larger audiences, comes the challenge of battling through the noise and making the content more relevant, and the advertising spend more worthwhile. Earlier this year, analytics firm InfluencerDB reported that engagement rates for influencer content on Instagram were at an all-time low, this decline is likely to be correlated to users now seeing more sponsored content on a daily basis and becoming more astute as to what is organic and what is not.

When it comes to choosing a platform to spend your influencer marketing dollars on, Instagram clearly leads the way, with 80% of brands using the platform most frequently for influencer campaigns. Facebook comes in second with 46%, YouTube at 36%, and Twitter at 24%. Research by eMarketer now forecasts that Instagram’s user base will grow significantly next year, increasing 5.4% to 112.5 million in the US alone, which means even more options for brands, but more competitiveness for influencers themselves.

Challenges

There’s no doubt that the influencer marketing landscape will face its fair share of challenges over the next couple of years, the most obvious one being the eradication of likes, which poses problems for both brands and influencers. The change now means that influencers have to be more open in sharing more granular insights, to prove that they can offer real value, while brands now have to do more in-depth due diligence to make sure that they’re getting bang for their buck.

While Instagram still remains the dominant player when it comes to Influencer marketing, other platforms such as Tik Tok, Twitch, and YouTube are fast approaching. This in itself creates its own challenges for both influencers and brands. For Influencers, they now have to decide where to allocate their time, while for brands, they need to decide where to allocate their spend.

Choosing the wrong platform can be detrimental for both for the influencer and the brand, if the influencer decides to commit to the wrong platform, they lose their most valuable asset, their authenticity, while if a brand allocates its spend to the wrong platform, it can greatly affect their bottom line. All in all, 2020 will be an interesting year in the world of sponsored content.

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About the Author
Michael Burke is a Brand Manager at SelfMade, one of New York City’s fastest-growing startups, where he helps eCommerce business scale online. When he is not helping eCommerce companies scale their businesses, he is writing for Entrepreneur Magazine, Business.com, and running TechPress, an online PR database he created to help thousands of startups get their business featured in the news more often” Get in touch here Twitter and LinkedIn.