If you feel like your social feeds are flooded with more and more #sponsored influencer content by the minute, you’re not alone, and that’s a huge problem. Two recent surveys found that 54% of millennials don’t trust influencers at all anymore, and even amongst those who do trust them, 47% of consumers reported that they’re feeling influencer fatigue due to an excess of repetitive sponsored content. How did consumers become so tired of #sponsored influencer posts and what can we do about it?
What’s Causing Influencer Fatigue?
Mostly, the market has become totally over-saturated and there is a concerning erosion of trust. In the past few years, influencer marketing has totally blown up, with millions of self-proclaimed influencers flooding the market, where thousands of posts are bought and sold every day. With familiarity and constant exposure, it’s become painfully obvious that consumers see influencer posts as less of recommendations from trusted friends but more as what they are, which is paid media. According to a Chinese job survey, 54 percent of Chinese born after 1995 chose “influencer” as their most desired occupation, illustrating the crazy growth of the industry. In addition to the massive influx of “influencers”, the current use of them has strayed from what once was a trustworthy and effective form of word-of-mouth marketing on social media and has turned into paid media, with influencers expecting some sort of compensation to promote products. Required disclosures highlight this erosion of trust, with consumers fully aware of the transaction occurring between brands and influencers.
In the face of industry growth of $1.6 billion dollars from 2017 to 2018, blowback has begun. Keith Weed, CMO at Unilever, shares his concerns with influencer marketing in saying, “there is no more trust in bloggers, they buy likes and subscribers. Almost half of them did it at least once. We cannot invest in such a shadow tool. We need to take urgent action now to rebuild trust before it’s gone forever.” Hotels, like the White Cabana Beach Club in the Philippines, are also taking a stand against influencers, with co-owner and manager Gianluca Casaccia referring to micro-influencers as “wannabe freeloaders” and publicly stating the hotel is not interested in collaborating with them, an opinion that went viral on social media with many others in the hospitality industry agreeing. With influencer legitimacy declining and public blowback mounting against stereotypical shallow and cash-driven influencers, people have even created parody “influencer” accounts like Molly Matilda’s @singlewhiteinfluencer Instagram page, where she jokingly posts with products out of context. A personal favorite is her post standing with a frying pan in the middle of a city street, with the caption saying she brings her favorite frying pan with her everywhere…obviously!
What Kind of Influencer Marketing Still Works?
Influencer marketing is now clearly paid media, but it can be good paid media. While influencer fatigue will eat into reach effectiveness, people are still excited to follow their favorite celebrities, fitness bloggers for inspiration, or lifestyle bloggers for outfit and home decor ideas, but don’t expect the halcyon days when consumers equated influencer posts to authentic word-of-mouth from a trusted friend. Screening influencers and going niche can go a long way. The right paid placement can still reach a highly targeted audience with high-quality content that rivals that of a professional crew, from a knowledgeable source.
Organic Customer Advocacy Programs:
Another potential option for well-established and differentiated consumer brands is activating your existing customers for authentic and organic word-of-mouth. It’s a personal bias working for Crowdly that customer advocacy should be part of every word-of-mouth strategy, but the data overwhelmingly supports it. According to research from McKinsey, a recommendation from a trusted friend is up to 50 times more likely to trigger a purchase. However, running a customer advocacy program is a bit more involved than flipping a switch or opening your wallet to influencers in order to get great scale. While not every brand can activate their customers to spread word-of-mouth at an acceptable scale, brands that are beloved and differentiated have an incredible opportunity to tap into their loyal customer base and engage these real people to increase brand awareness and drive sales.
Evaluating Word-of-Mouth options? Download our free comprehensive Summer ’19 Landscape Report White Paper, or email us to learn more.