Meltwater, a media monitoring and social media analytics provider, has reported a significant growth in influencer marketing, noting an increase in sponsored posts by 26.7 per cent. According to the recent report, influencers shared over 3,798,505 sponsored posts, along with a 33 per cent increase in sponsored stories, with an average of 16 stories per week. All latest findings point to the rise of micro-influencers, as well as the overall growth of the social media industry.
Data shows that changing consumer habits have forced brands to prioritize digital strategies and adjust budgets, with influencers playing a significant role in business planning. Micro-influencers in particular have been identified as a key channel for brands to authentically communicate with customers, with over 91 per cent of sponsored post engagement driven by the segment of users. Micro-influencers have become the most popular choice of collaboration for brands, due to their high following (5-30k) and reach (5-500k). Their smaller, yet focused audience makes for high engagement, often driving the best ROI for brands.
According to Meltwater, this has further resulted in increased engagement on social media platforms, as Instagram has become the top platform for influencer campaigns. Reports indicate the launch of over 1,800+ campaigns in recent times, with 94 per cent of campaigns including Instagram content, while only 10 per cent of them included content for YouTube or other platforms. As per trends and best practices, 42 per cent of campaigns are leveraging the pattern of 1-4 feed posts, and 20 per cent of campaigns utilize 1-4 stories. Findings also suggest that influencer campaigns are largely concentrated on Instagram, while platforms like TikTok are more experimental.
Likewise, reports point towards brands favoring TikTok over YouTube in regard to sponsored collaborations, with TikTok comprising 13 per cent of all influencer campaigns, while the latter is only incorporated by 10 per cent. TikTok is still an emerging platform, and while it isn’t as staple as Instagram, more brands are incorporating the social media outlet into their marketing plans. This is further evidenced by the emergence of ‘FinTok,’ a new genre of video content in which experts share financial advice in a short, yet engaging TikTok video, which has already garnered over 1.8 billion views on the platform. Consequently, data has shown TikTok to surpass YouTube in popularity for influencer campaigns, even as brands continue to identify their strategy and areas for success on the platform.
Milda Nair, Regional Customer Experience Director India, Middle East & Africa of Meltwater said: Being one of the first SaaS companies to offer social influencer management software, over the last few years we have been observing continuous maturing of the influencer marketing segment. Having initially started with “experimental”, often manually monitored (screen shotted) campaigns, influencer marketing now holds a very important position at the digital marketing table. The biggest challenge initially was ability to accurately monitor and measure influencer campaign ROI. However, with the new technological capabilities influencer marketing is now a highly scientific and metrics driven discipline.
Major brands like Nike, Dyson Hair, and more, are turning to social media platforms to connect better with their audience by utilizing influencer marketing. As a result, Meltwater constantly aims to leverage its tools to make real-time social analytics possible, enabling brands to derive True Reach Scores, audience demographics, network interests, and relevant hashtags among others, to support and facilitate business growth.
Meltwater’s influencer marketing platform has a database of over 500 million influencer profiles in 60,000 different categories across a range of social media platforms. Our AI-powered analytical tool simplifies the selection process by grading influencers according to their content performance, engagement, and reach. This makes it easier for brands to find the best influencers to partner with for their campaigns and goals. The platform supports up to 97 languages including Arabic, English, French, and Spanish.
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