Why influencer marketing is changing in 2023
Influencer marketing is one of the most popular ways for a brand to engage with their target audience because of the positive return on investment that it provides. Consumers are often ‘influenced’ to purchase a specific product based on recommendations from their favourite influencers, which if capitalised by a brand can then increase website traffic, sales, and brand reputation. With all of the associated benefits, the use of influencer marketing has rapidly increased, but also evolved equally as quickly.
Where influencer marketing was once a low-cost method with a high return on investment, it has now become a sizable investment where the cons sometimes outweigh the pros. Where influencers were once reachable directly and accepted a reasonable fee for collaborating, moving into 2023 influencer marketing also contends with management agencies and much higher social media following, both of which increase the cost for working with influencers. A brand could once pay an influencer anything in the hundreds to low thousands for a social media post, however now a brand is faced with multiple thousands in fees for one social media post, if not hundreds of thousands for the more well known names.
Moving into 2023, it’s important that a brand can track the efficiency of an influencer marketing strategy to ensure their marketing and PR budget is spent effectively. These are some factors to consider when approaching an influencer for a brand collaboration:
Followers: the more followers an influencer has, the more opportunity for your brand to reach more people. However, buying followers is quite common these days and they’re often fake accounts. Not only does this decrease the value of your investment, but it could also damage your brand by case of association. It’s important to thoroughly check an influencer’s profile to make sure they have a genuine follower count.
Brand messaging: the best kind of influencer marketing is where a brand and influencer are aligned on messaging and views, as this should also mean their followers are aligned too and will be interested in the brand. Many brands will go into influencer marketing with the aim of attaching an influencer name to their own in the hopes that it will boost sales. Whilst this may work in the short term, engaging with an influencer that fits your brand’s image will provide a long term investment by enabling the brand to reach new customers who can turn into a loyal fan base that frequently return to the brand to repurchase or engage with new product launches.
Reputation: If you’re going to spend the money on a collaboration, don’t just go with a big name for the sake of it. Influencer marketing can boost your brand’s sales, but it can also have an impact on your brand’s image, the type of audience you’re targeting, and how much consumers trust your brand. For example, if you collaborate with an influencer who is known for posting a lot of paid ads with brands they don’t use, this could have a knock on effect of how much consumers trust the brand in association with the influencer, therefore damaging the brand’s image. Therefore, it’s important to choose influencers wisely and go to those who genuinely fit with your brand and care about your brand’s message. You could opt to work with micro-influencers which are more happy to collaborate on a gifted basis or with a much smaller fee.
Management agencies: many influencers are managed by an agency who will prioritise collaborating with brands who can meet higher fees so that they too gain a profit. If you want to avoid agencies altogether, approaching micro influencers could be another option provided that they can work well with the brand, have an engaging follower base, and are happy to provide quality social media content.
