Download on Digital: May 2021 – Influencer marketing

Welcome to the Download on Digital, where we cover the latest in digital marketing news.

It’s a good time to be a content creator

With marketers reportedly putting 20% of their budgets behind branded content and influencer marketing—marking a 28% jump from last year—there’s never been a better time to be a content creator.

But what’s behind the rise in popularity?

According to a study by Advertiser Perceptions, marketers were hesitant to hard-sell products and appear insensitive in 2020 while the world focused on the pandemic and social justice. As a result, this ethical dilemma led companies to try more covert and human-centric means of advertising.

Apart from this, influencers and content creators have access to first-party data that is largely unaffected by the rules and regulations set to derail third-party cookies.

At the same time, the rate of influencer fraud—one of the main deterrents for brands to engage in influencer marketing—has dropped significantly thanks to the wave of Influencer Marketing Platforms and their tools to detect fraudulent stats.

TikTok and Community-Based Commerce

These factors have come together to create the perfect storm for influencers and content creators and no app is reaping the rewards quite like TikTok, which is now being utilized by over 45% of marketers.

At this year’s IAB NewFronts event, Nick Tran, TikTok’s head of marketing highlighted the sales success of Ocean Spray, American Eagle, and other brands using TikTok, citing the hashtag, #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, which has a cool 2.4 BILLION views.

With this, TikTok claims to be pushing community-based commerce by bringing discovery and purchase closer together.

A perfect example of this is Walmarts run of “Shop-Along” live streams where TikTok influencers host a sort of Walmart-branded shopping channel where viewers can buy products in real-time using the app.

While this may seem transparent as a way to appeal to today’s youth, it appears to be working as surveys have recognized Walmart as one of Gen Z’s favourite brands.

Snapchat has success with Spotlight

Speaking of teenagers’ favourite things, Snapchat reported a 66% increase in Q1 revenue along with a 22% increase in daily active users thanks in large to their new Tiktok-like feature, Spotlight.

They also recently announced their new Creator Marketplace, which aims to connect businesses to Snapchat AR creators.

Gucci and The North Face were successful in utilizing Snapchat’s AR capabilities to grant users the ability to try on clothes virtually. Here, Creator Marketplace aims to make AR innovations like these accessible to more businesses while building a sort of freelance network for users.

With 91% of B2B purchases being influenced by word of mouth, influencer marketing isn’t just applicable to B2C brands hawking cranberry juice to teenagers.

For B2B brands it exists on the same spectrum as testimonials and customer spotlights, using someone else to vouch for you and your offering.