Within a given week, I’m on the phone with a variety of brand managers and marketers and I’m fascinated by the responses I get when I ask them if they’re currently using influencers and if they are happy with the results. Pretty much everyone we connect with is doing some sort of influencer marketing, but many of them seem unclear on the success of their efforts and/or feel like the approach doesn’t align with their brand values. Aligned with my own personal findings, The Association of National Advertisers surveyed marketers in the US and found that 75% of them are currently doing some sort of influencer marketing, though only 36% feel the efforts are effective. So, why is everyone spending so much time and money on influencers, if they don’t even trust the system to provide results?
Influencer marketing is clearly THE fad in the digital and social marketing space, and if you attend any sort of industry conference or event, influencer marketing panels and discussions take up a huge chunk of the program. Everyone wants to offer their two cents on detecting influencer fraud, how to connect with authentic influencers that match your brand’s look and feel, boosting engagement rates and ROI by utilizing micro-influencers over macro-influencers, and how to closely abide by FTC guidelines so you don’t get in trouble.
However, in the past couple of years, there has been quite a dramatic shift in the perception of influencer marketing, not only in the eyes of brand marketers, but consumers, too. The 2017 Millennial Shopper Survey by DealSpotr found that 52% of Millennials don’t trust influencers at all anymore. Not only do consumers not trust the sponsored content, but 42% of consumers report they are tired of seeing it, too, according to BazaarVoice. The excess of sponsored content in consumers’ feeds has caused influencer engagement rates to hit an all time low. Mobile Marketer reports that “The engagement rate for sponsored posts fell to 2.4% in Q1 2019 from 4% three years earlier, while the rate for non-sponsored posts slid to 1.9% from 4.5% for the comparable periods.”
Comically enough, some influencers don’t even trust themselves. 23% of influencers admitted they did not feel authentic about the brand-sponsored content they were paid to post and 15% said they did not even like the brand they were posting about, reports ad agency Carmichael Lynch. Influencers have turned their profiles into TV, with ads sprinkled throughout their organic content. They have transitioned from genuinely recommending a product they love to their followers, to selling a product with a huge focus on ROI in order to get paid and line up more partnerships.
All in all, Influencer marketing has hit a ceiling. Consumers aren’t engaging with their content and brands are weary of the results. Word-of-mouth has always been the most effective form of marketing, but we have strayed from its authentic roots. Influencers are becoming less effective and relevant, but if we bring word-of-mouth marketing back to its core of real people, saying things they really mean, to people they really know, we can shift our word-of-mouth strategy for real results. Instead of influencers, why not provide every consumer with the opportunity to collaborate with a brand they love for authentic word-of-mouth at scale?
Evaluating Word-of-Mouth options? Download our free comprehensive Summer ’19 Landscape Report White Paper, or email us to learn more.