With a rise in the Internet penetration and digital spending, influencer marketing has emerged as a newage career and is all set to grow in the near future. It’s a new concept where brands connect with popular bloggers and influencers who promote products by creating original articles, reviews, videos and social posts to over their followers.
“Three million Facebook posts; 347,000 Tweets; 300,000 videos or pictures on Snapchat and 20 million messages are shared on Whatsapp per minute. With the bombarding of social content, consumers are looking to segregate noise to expert opinions which they can trust. 87 per cent of brands will increase their spend in Influencer Marketing and make it an integral part of their marketing mix. Hence, 2016 will be a year of maturity for Influencer Marketing. This is an excellent opening for digital natives to pursue this as a career,” Irfan Khan, CEO, Blogmint, tells you.
According to a McKinsey study, marketing inspired by word-of-mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising, and these customers have a 37 per cent higher retention rate. The brands are willing to pay influencers to promote their product.
“Twitteratis ruled influencer programmes in 2015. However, Instagrammers and YouTubers will be most sought after in 2016 as real-time visual content drives maximum engagement. New social platforms like Periscope, #fame and Snapchat will see increased adaption as they encourage real-time sharing of user-generated content.
“Experiencing the product and sharing personal stories around this would drive influencer marketing in 2016. Businesses will give additional creative freedom to influencers so that they can create personalised content for their followers instead of bland product/service reviews,” Khan tells you.