When it comes to a company like the ORM Agency, they are still a small business that is continuing to grow at a slower pace therefore knowing about the game-changing influencer marketing trends of today is important. There are four main trends when it comes to influencer marketing and these include how there is a rise of micro-influencers, the emergence of several business-to-business influencers, the emphasis on customers relationships and how there is a normalization of disclosure.
The rise of micro-influencers
Micro-influencers are those who have a niche following of less than 15k on Instagram and this is much better than someone who has a wide variety of followers with no clear niche. This has proven to be much more effective at inspiring action than with more popular social media counterparts.
The emergence of B2B influencers
You need to only look to the growing number of expert contributors to websites like the Huffington Post, Forbes, and Business2Community in order to realize the important of B2B influencers. B2B influencers have a bigger challenge when it comes to promoting their personal expertise therefore an editorial, or PR-focused approach will often work best.
The emphasis on relationships
The recent encouraging trends that were seeing in influencer marketing are an emphasis on long-term relationships. Brands these days are searching for a yearlong to multi-year ambassadorships where influencers include the brand within their content in some organic way. This means that brands must spend much more time researching and identifying influencer who actually use their products in their everyday lives as a brand ambassador. This makes their connection with the target audience, much more organic and genuine.
The normalization of disclosure
Recently the FTC took action toward multiple brands and sent them a reminder of disclosure guidelines to more than 90 celebrities and influencers. There is now a mandatory shift towards transparency that doesn’t just save brands and influencers from legal trouble but it also strengthens the trust and enthusiasm among their followers who will often make decisions based on the celebrities and influencers they follow and this is what has been the real issue.
