Influencer marketing isn’t going anywhere. In 2020, it will continue to remain a priority for marketers, both in the B2C and B2B environments.
But that doesn’t mean that the process of partnering with influencers will remain exactly the same—we will see some significant changes in influencer marketing next year.
We outline the biggest trends in 2020 influencer marketing and how businesses can develop their marketing strategy accordingly.
Influencer Transparency
The days of influencers including product placements in their photos and videos without informing their followers of their brand affiliations are over.
In November 2019, the Federal Trade Commission produced explicit guidelines for users who endorse products on social media—in other words, influencers—about disclosing partnerships.
Most noteworthy about these guidelines is that influencers can no longer keep the advertising nature of their posts hidden within hashtags.
To err on the right side of the law, influencers will need to disclose their partnerships with brands at the beginning of their posts, and will have to repeat it several times during a livestream.
Shift to Micro-influencers
Mega-influencers with followers in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are set to become less of a draw for brands.
In their stead, micro-influencers and even nano-influencers are going to become the norm for better business development.
The reason for this shift is because, despite the reach of mega-influencers, their followers tend not to be genuine—it’s very much a case of quantity over quality with this group of influencers.
On the other hand, micro-influencers—who have between 10K and 99K followers—have more genuine engagement with their followers.
Doubly so for nano-influencers, who have followers numbering between a thousand and five thousand—but their engagement and conversion rates are much higher.
Mega-influencers will certainly play a part in brand marketing in 2020, but brands will also find success in investing in a number of smaller influencers, instead of one big name.
New Social Platforms
Though Instagram promotion is the go-to for influencer marketing, there are other platforms that brands should be looking at come 2020.
Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn appeal to a certain demographic but new ways of optimizing established platforms are going to be a trend in 2020.
For instance, a new crop of LinkedIn marketing influencers will be making an impact on B2B strategies next year, and need to be taken into consideration.
For brands trying to tap into Generation Z, TikTok, Snapchat, podcasts, and Twitch are the networks to work on.
TikTok, in particular, has made a massive splash in its one year of existence, and has birthed its own set of influencers, each with millions of dedicated fans.
Brands should be looking for ways to partner with beauty and entertainment influencers like Tyler Brown, and Leticia Gomes, or comedy influencers like Rebecca Zamolo and Zach King.
But, as with Snapchat, partnering with influencers on TikTok requires forethought and precision—brands need to find users in their niche to reach their target demographic.
Additionally, the younger generations of social users are extremely wary of advertising disguised as content, so being overly sales-forward in your advertising attempts must be avoided.
Beyond the Photo Format
Platforms like Instagram and Facebook have been powering forward with beautiful visual content, but still imagery should not be the only format brands focus on in 2020.
Attractive photographs will always have their place, but content formats like white papers and infographics should not be forgotten.
Influencer marketing has moved towards videos over the past year, especially with the increasing popularity of YouTube.
But beyond YouTube, most other social networks are optimizing their systems for mobile and in-app marketing.
This is directly tied into the evolution of mobile camera technology—even in selfie mode, people are able to take HD videos, thus making it more possible to create and upload videos on the go.
Video—particularly live video—is going to be the content format to invest in with influencers, because they promise for views and much more engagement.
Alongside video, new technology like augmented reality and virtual reality will also be used in influencer marketing in 2020.
Influencer Tools
Manual searches through Instagram hashtags to find the most popular influencers will no longer be the most efficient search method in 2020.
Instead, brands will be using artificial intelligence-powered technology and software to do these searches for them.
AI is already improving marketing strategies, and it is going to have an impact on influencer marketing, as well.
Brands will find themselves relying on AI tech to scour the internet to target social media influencers in their niche.
AI will also be used for analyzing the success and failure of partnerships, as well as suggesting appropriate content.
Long-term Collaborations
For the majority of the first few years of influencer marketing, partnerships between brands and influencers have generally been a standard give-and-take.
Brands give influencers free products, publicity, or a payment in exchange for having their products and services advertised to thousands of the influencers’ followers.
But these one-off transactions will soon be a thing of the past. 2020 is all about long-term, immersive collaborations between brands and influencers.
This trend has become more of a necessity because of how difficult it is for brands to find quality influencers in their niche.
Influencer marketing needs to be relevant—products being advertised in live videos and content writing materials, should have value to their followers.
And that is why long-term collaborations will become the norm in 2020. There is no point spending the time and energy finding the right influencer, only to collaborate on a brief project.
In 2020, brands and influencers will invest their time and resources in longer partnerships that extend over several projects.
Entertainment Over Sales
A major trend that has been taking over influencer marketing in the last year is how averse users are to obvious advertising.
People are using social media for entertainment, and they do not want advertising to intrude.
This makes influencer marketing fairly tricky for brands trying to sell products and services, but there is a workaround—focusing on the entertainment factor.
By choosing influencers who are primarily entertainment-focused and weaving in entertainment into the brand’s marketing strategy, sponsored posts will have more of an impact.
Influencer marketing shouldn’t be sales-forward, but they should show the value of having a brand in one’s life.
This requires a change in mindset for brands, but once integrated, a focus on entertainment can promise a massive improvement in marketing efforts and sales.
Key Takeaways
The influencer marketing trends of 2020 are going to be different from what we’ve seen in the past:
- More transparency is expected on behalf of influencers.
- Brands will find themselves relying on numerous smaller influencers, instead of one mega-influencer.
- Brands will also have to look beyond traditional influencer platforms like Instagram, and focus on Snapchat and TikTok which Gen Z prefers.
- Relying on photographic content is also a thing of the past—live videos, AR, and VR are the way forward.
- Working with AI software will make finding and analyzing influencers easier in 2020.
- One-of projects are going to be a thing of the past—long-term collaborations are in.
- And finally, sales-forward messaging will lose you followers, so brands should focus on entertaining the audience, and not just selling to them.
By following these seven influencer marketing trends, brands will be better able to market their products to the right target audience and see better results in 2020.
About the Author: Ronita Mohan is a content marketer at Venngage, a free infographic maker and design platform. She enjoys writing about digital marketing, sharing productivity tips, examining pop culture, and championing the need for representation.
Twitter: @Venngage