BRING ON 2020: TOP 10 INFLUENCER MARKETING TRENDS
If January was anything to go by, 2020 is going to fly past at the speed of light. This year has the opportunity to be immensely powerful for the influencer marketing industry, and we wanted to cover our top ten reasons why. Some won’t surprise you (note that we don’t see this change coming as a result of increased budgets or demand for talent) but we predict this year holds dramatic shifts in the ways that brands and influencers interact and relate with each other.
We’re focusing on what’s happening with the social media platforms themselves, and how they shape the content that influencers are producing. We know about the integration of Instagram Shopping, and we can’t ignore TikTok. We also can’t ignore the apathy of consumers towards the often-repetitive method of production promotion when it comes to paid collaborations. In our opinion, 2020 is the year to observe, test and learn – and here are the key aspects that require the most attention:
1. CONSUMER POWER TAKING CENTRE STAGE.
For the last few years brands and influencers have fought amongst themselves to be the ones who make the decisions over campaigns and promotions. What’s clear now is that neither faction rules the roost. Instead it’s now down to consumers (followers and customers) to decide what works. Through their interaction, feedback and ultimately purchases, collaborations (and any aspect of ‘work’ between brands and influencers) will be created in line with demand. Why? Because neither of the other parties can afford for a campaign not to work, their respective successes rely on it.
With only 4% of the general public currently trusting the opinions of a social media influencers (source: UM UK), it’s fair to say there is some work to be done. We see this happening by going back to basics: writing content without payment that endorses brands influencers really love, and turning down campaigns from brands that don’t work for them. Content that is consider UGC (user generated content) is 10x more trusted by consumers, probably explaining why consumer-based forums on Facebook and networking sites are increasing in popularity.
Influencers need to be prepared to produce largely unsponsored content, and for those who can’t sustain that there needs to be acceptance that their channels may not be their full-time employment. For the brands, we feel they need really think about the campaigns they want influencers to work on – and consider that true brand advocacy is as important as product promotion.
2. NEW PLATFORMS, TIKTOK AND BEYOND.
Whether it’s your cup of tea or not, we can’t ignore TikTok. We will be doing a more thorough review of the platform in the coming weeks but for now understand this: it’s growing 8x faster than any other platform in history. We’re on the fence about where it belongs from a commercial stand point, but certainly in terms of gathering a community, we think it’s incredibly important for influencers (if they have the creative ability, or a compelling content narrative).
We are also seeing talent emerge from platforms like LinkedIn, which is surprising until you consider that 80% of UK users say they trust content on the business networking platform over anything they see on Instagram or Facebook. Finally, we suspect this might the year Pinterest cracks the influencer marketplace – we’ve seen their grand plans for 2020 and they’re hugely exciting.
3. TALENT AGENTS: MAKING OR BREAKING SUCCESS.
It’s been evolving over the past few years, but we firmly believe that the role of the talent agent will come into its own in 2020 – although perhaps not as it wants to. 1 in 3 influencers leave their agents within 6 months of signing, and a great deal of the big names in the industry are taking their management in-house.
We could write a whole treatise about why, but here’s a brief overview. Firstly, the idea of ‘having an agent’ is losing its lacquer and doesn’t carry the prestige it once did. Very few of the leading talent organisations developed their influencer department through hiring agents with expertise. Instead they hired juniors or people from other areas of management like mainstream celebrity, sport or PR roles. As a brand’s demands become more performance marketing-based (meaning they want assurance on ROI, and agents who know how to manage campaigns to deliver results) we see a lot of talent agencies falling behind.
4. NEW CREATORS, INNOVATION IS THE EXCITEMENT.
It’s human nature to be dazzled by the shiny and new, and we feel the same will happen in the influencer marketing industry. Current influencers will have to work harder to maintain their audiences, especially if they are sticking to the same style and routine when it comes to content creation. It’s no secret that the demand for ad hoc, spontaneous content is preferred by social media audiences over a curated feed – and TikTok thrives on that very demand.
We’ve already seen a lot of those who were first to enter the scene as ‘bloggers’ go off the map, and it seems like round two is on the horizon. With 800 new people in the UK launching channels with an intent to enter the industry (600 of them being under 25) innovation isn’t just probable, it’s unstoppable.
To influencers, we suggest you be prepared to listen to your followings and make the changes they call for if you want to stay in the game. Demonstrate a personality, be prepared to have conversations 1-2-1 with followers and keep your finger on the pulse to discover new trends and how you can authentically fit them into your content.
5. ROII (RETURN ON INFLUENCER INVESTMENT).
ROI: Those 3 evil letters that just won’t go away. It’s no secret that the UK’s retail industry is unstable. In fact, there are some brilliant case studies that mirror the increase in spend on influencer marketing with the decline of sales in a business (some going as far as liquidation). We’re seeing brands that used to be the position to take chances on return when it came to influencer marketing unable to continue the same way.
Precisely where influencer marketing sits in the sales funnel (the series of media a potential customer sees before choosing to make a purchase) remains unclear, but what is apparent is that it works best when brands spend on other media (outdoor, social adverts, print advertising) alongside the timing of an influencer campaigns.
Budgets on all of these will be tighter, and the expectation on that spend will be higher. Influencers who aren’t sales drivers will need to bolster their fees with some compelling arguments as to why brands should invest in their content – and the closer they can get to driving sales, the easier it will be for a brand to sign off the budget.
6. IMAGE USAGE, AND ITS COST.
Influencers and brands do seem to be able to get a basic handling on costings for content delivery, however, the area that they seem to fall apart over is image usage. We can understand why – it’s a chicken and egg situation. Brands don’t want to decide how and where they’ll use content until they’ve seen it, and influencers don’t want to put a price against their content until they know where it’s going.
Someone is going to have to give though, and in our minds it’s going to be the influencers. While we always advocate for being explicit about exclusivity when briefing a campaign, the fact is that talent shouldn’t be doing a huge number of brand deals in the same vertical. It’s becoming more and more essential to carefully select partnerships that talent have a genuine affinity with, and they should be happy to shout from the rooftops about their relationships with key brands.
Yes, brands should absolutely pay up if they intend to spray and pray your images across the web and beyond – but pricing models such as taking a % of the media spend put behind pushing your content on social media isn’t a concrete method, or one that brands will continue to be able to work from in the future.
Lastly, brands need to stop lazily relying on influencer content to bolster their own feeds. If you look at the so-called ‘unicorn’ brands of the Instagram world (Glossier, Reformation, etc) they excelled because their own content was as exceptional as those talking about them. Investing in developing a unique online presence for a brand isn’t easy, but it’s work that will continue to pay dividends for years to come, not to mention a strategy that bolsters brand recognition and affinity, as well as influencer campaigns.
7. AMBASSADORSHIPS, BUT NOT AS WE KNEW THEM.
With consumer scepticism at an all-time high, there’s all the more reason to demonstrate long term affinity to brands. For a while, influencers (and their agents) stressed that these would come out of ambassadorship deals; however, that doesn’t help the issue with followers trusting that the foundation of a relationship isn’t a purely financial one.
With 2020 so far proving to be a year for observation and immense change in the industry, our advice to brands is not to sign up talent for annual deals. Instead we suggest that you give influencers a clear understanding of the projects and opportunities you have planned and keep watch to see who organically bothers to promote your brand. Because that is what consumers look for, and then believe (and support) the same influencers when they do paid partnerships.
8. NEW DYNAMICS OF MONETISATION.
If we’re learning anything from TikTok, it’s that younger audiences are prepared to pay when they see the content they want. As crazy as this may seem, it could cause a shift in how (and why) influencers choose to take brand deals. If they’re earning well through their own content narratives, it removes the need to take partnerships. Attention from consumers will be become a more valuable commodity than money from retailers.
If influencers are further financially bolstered by affiliate revenues, paid deals could actually decrease the money they could make through product promotion (as brands often stop influencers using affiliate links as part of brand deals, as they effectively end up rewarding the influencer twice for the sale).
Put simply, this would mean brands would really have to up their game as influencers no longer need them to succeed. We’d move back into the more traditional PR function, as influencers would operate much like press (salaried by their content). Essentially, this is very much a ‘watch this space’ area of the industry.
9. THE US ELECTION; A NEW WAVE OF PRIVACY AND PROTECTION.
Ask any employee at Facebook Inc what the focus has been over the last year, they’ll tell you it’s the US Election. After the disastrous usage of social networks by Cambridge Analytica, unveiling the dark side of the industry, all of the platforms are focusing their development teams on transparency of data capturing, and security for users.
Whilst this may not seem directly linked to influencer marketing, it should be remembered that Facebook, Instagram and their peers only have a finite workforce. If their attentions are on the election, it won’t be on developing their platforms to better suit influencers. We can’t imagine we’ll see many surprise changes to the major platforms this year.
10. PODCASTS: DO OR DON’T?
We’re on the fence on whether or not a podcast is a must-have addition to every influencer’s content offering – but we can’t ignore that when they’re done well, they can deliver a brand message more convincingly than any other media type. We waited with anticipation to see how the first brand deals went down on influencer’s episodes, unsure as to whether part of the success of a podcast was a bit of fresh air from the heavily commercialised social media networks. However, there is no doubt that they can perform.
Our main point is the same as our advice for any influencer marketing campaign: you cannot rely on one platform to deliver a message and expect a strong return. The brands that have dominated the industry with success on influencer channels, invested heavily in advertising across the board (outdoor, print, TV) as well as concentrating efforts on developing their own compelling content.
We will be delving deeper into each of these topics over the coming weeks, as we feel they’re incredibly important to help shape a solid influencer strategy in 2020. If you aren’t already, please do sign up to our newsletter HERE.
Finally, we’re excited to announce that we’re restructuring our Summits this year. Instead of hosting one in March, we’re going to hold off for more innovation that moves the dial and run a bigger, better event in September. Between now and then we’ll be running small workshop sessions for specific sections of the industry, and a series of dinners hosted with the platforms themselves. Tickets will be limited to around 10 per event, so make sure you’re signed up to our newsletter HERE to get involved.