Happy New Year from Gantale inc! May your 2018 be an amazing year full of love.
I hope you guys had an amazing holidays.
So, what would happen in an influencer marketing this year, 2018?
Today I’d like to write an article based on Mr. Alexander Boykov, CEO of American marketing company called Buzzweb’s interview.
5 years ago, marketers were believing that influencer marketing is just a temporary tool. But when you look at the reality, people tend to use digital advertisement than a paper ad, TV ad or magazines nowadays.
Actually, influencer marketing has been one of the most useful, effective and reachable tools since we use more digital devices more than ever.
Also, as AI and OTT become more advance, an accuracy of marketing model will increase and company’s ROI will be better than ever.
So how will an influencer marketing evolve this year?
Micro influencers
Micro influencers (followers around 10K) became a little trend last year, Mr. Alexander guesses that more and more companies will start to hire micro influencers in this year, 2018.
Companies used to hire macro influencers but they started to see more reality such as the percentage of engagement. Even if you hire a big name influencer, there’s no guarantee that you can get a high engagement and targeted customer.
So, the most important criteria to judge for a company to hire an influencer is someone who can actually influence people and reach the right customer. And the conclusion is the micro influencer.
Long term relationship between brands and influencers
Mr. Alexander guesses that a lot of companies will consider not only just a one-post relationship but also a long-term relationship with influencers.
One-post relationship is not the most cost-friendly tool. In order to make brands’ thought sink in, it takes time and repeatability.
Influencers can reach the huge views with just one-post in such a short time of period, but it doesn’t mean it has continuity effect/profit.
So, by building a long-term relationship with influencers, brands can keep spread information. Also, by building a long-term relationship with influencers, consumers can feel the content is more reliable.
Quality over quantity
If FCC starts to enforce regarding ad display and disclaimer indication, SNS users will surprise how high the number of sponsored contents that they are seeing.
In 2018, it is very important to make consumers believe that the content is 100% reliable even if the content says ad contents.
The point is harmonious content. If the ad content is harmonious with its non-ad content, consumers will not even wonder or question if that ad content is even reliable or not.
As a result, the content will automatically be high quality and influencer can earn high evaluation.
This kind of influencer will always be the creative ones in 2018 and more.
Budget increase
In 2017, companies spent 10 million dollars on influencer marketing.
A few months ago, Instagram began to allow the language letter starts from right such as Arabic. Arabic is the 4th most spoken language in the world.
Which means Instagram has new social media users and influencer marketing towards new users.
In this past five years, influencer marketing has made remarkable growth and it will continue evolving.
The possibilities are infinite for brands. Especially by using high technology such as AI, it can make easy to choose the right influencers and it can result higher ROI.
Budgets towards influencer marketing have already decided and I cannot wait to see how it goes in 2018.
Thank you for reading.
A
