What is Influencer Marketing? The Ultimate Guide for 2023

Influencer marketing has grown to be one of the most impactful marketing tools available to brands today. Anticipated to be worth over $24 billion by 2025, influencer marketing is one of the best ways to reach new customers and create a buzz online. With tough competition breaking through social media noise, working with an influencer marketing agency can ensure you are using influencers relevant to your niche and audience, creating a lasting business impact. 

But what is influencer marketing? And what do you need to know for the coming year?

Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses product and/or brand endorsements from people with prominent social media followings. Influencers have the power to affect how people think and behave, so working with them results in impactful campaigns that drive brand awareness, engagement, and sales.

One of the most important aspects of a successful influencer marketing campaign is working with the right influencers. You need to consider more than just follower count, and delve into how they engage with their audience, their tone of voice, values, and how these align with your brand. 

Discovering and vetting influencers can take time. This is where working with an influencer marketing agency can help. Agencies have access to influencer marketplaces and data that can ensure the influencers selected align with the KPIs of your campaign. Not only this, but they can spend additional time vetting influencers to ensure they aren’t a potential PR risk for your brand. 

When working with influencers, you also need to consider how they engage with their audience, and how engaged their audience is. A growing trend within influencer marketing is the popularity of nano and micro influencers. These are social media personalities with between 1K and 50K followers. Although their reach is lower than those with higher followings, their audiences are typically more engaged and receptive to recommendations. In addition to this, smaller influencers are highly influential within subcultures and niches. This means they can provide access to typically hard-to-reach audiences. 

So, what are some stats to back up your reasoning for implementing an influencer marketing strategy?

On average, businesses investing in influencer marketing earn $5.20 for every $1 spent—and the top performing campaigns are seeing an ROI of $20+. That’s a pretty good ROI if you ask us. The success behind this is because over 60% of social media users trust influencer recommendations, compared to just 38% trusting branded social media content. 

If your primary goal using influencer marketing is to increase sales, 8 out of 10 consumers have purchased something directly after seeing an influencer recommendation. With this statistic, it is impossible to deny the impact influencers have on spending decisions. 

The preferred platforms for influencer marketing are Instagram and TikTok. Of course, as with any campaign, you need to go where your audience is. But with these platforms offering such a wide user base, and a vast variety of influencer niches, they’re a good place to start. However, one important thing to note is that TikTok creators with less than 15K followers have an average engagement rate of 18%. This is astonishing, especially when compared to Instagam’s 3.86% average. 

Influencer marketing can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. For maximum reach, you will want to fork out the cash to work with hero influencers, or maybe even celebrities. For the most engagement, you should consider working with more influencers with less followers. This will result in a high reach to different audiences, and more engagement and genuine purchase consideration.