With the arrival of Stories and TV (IGTV) on Instagram, brands are investing heavily into influencer content and relationships. Over the last few years, Instagram’s number of users has grown significantly.
In 2018, the number of YouTube channels earning six figure amounts per year grew by more than 40%. Influencers seem to have made their way into marketing strategies.
Research by Influencer DB, who examined Instagram posts that were labelled as paid partnerships found that almost 40 percent of Instagram accounts with more than 15K followers are influencers, the other accounts are brands and companies. Nowadays, most sponsored posts are labeled with hashtags such as #spon, #advertorial #commercial etcetera. The majority of sponsored posts on Instagram are posted by micro-influencers, with fewer than 100K followers.
Top 15 industries for influencer marketing on Instagram
Unsurprisingly a quarter of all sponsored posts are fashion related. What about other industries? This is the distribution of sponsored Instagram posts between topics, from 1 to 15.
- Fashion | 25%
- Food | 12%
- Entertainment | 11%
- Baby | 10%
- Humor | 10%
- Beauty | 7%
- Art | 5%
- Travel | 5%
- Holiday | 3%
- Animals | 3%
- Fitness | 2%
- Sport | 2%
- Automotive | 2%
- Decor | 2%
- Technology | 1%
So, what to expect from influencer marketing in 2019?
Alignment and brand fit will be the focus points, brands will no longer focus on reach, they will rather focus on aspects such as quality, engagement, voice of the influencer, the relevance of the audience.
Brands will also move to relational influencer marketing and longer-term partnerships, to guarantee authenticity and in the end increase ROI.
What are your plans for influencer marketing in 2019?
