Is Influencer Marketing on Instagram Effective?

Influencer marketing is not an entirely new concept, and elements of it have been around for centuries. In many ways, influencer marketing takes aspects of celebrity marketing and endorsements, as well as word-of-mouth techniques to deliver peer-to-peer messaging.

However, influencer marketing involves several distinct aspects. The influencer is usually not considered famous outside of social media. However, they offer their audience knowledge and authority about a product or a niche, and they often work laterally, speaking to their audience as a friend with expertise rather than a faceless brand or outsider.

Many brands and businesses are unsure about how to work with influencers as a marketing strategy and are concerned about investing in this method. However, a growing demographic identifies with and trusts influencers far more than celebrities and other forms of endorsements. These days, influencer marketing has proven to be an effective marketing technique for businesses.

Let’s take a look at how influencer marketing works and why it is so effective in connecting with customers.

Influencers Build Relationships of Trust

A growing number of consumers are younger, and younger people are looking for authentic connections in their lives. This desire for authenticity includes how, where, and with whom they shop. Much of traditional advertising involves repeatedly placing the product front and center where consumers look. And especially for younger people, many brands feel like massive, inhuman entities.

Influencers, unlike businesses or celebrities, are regular people. They’ve often worked to cultivate an involved and engaged following, and they’ve established themselves as experts in their niche. But even though many have very large followings, they work hard to respond and engage with their audience peer-to-peer.

As a result, when an influencer presents a product to their following, they often integrate it seamlessly, present it as part of their aesthetic, or give feedback to their followers in a way that feels honest and genuine.

Funnels and Niches

Some products fit into very specific categories. Especially for newer brands, finding your audience in a niche category is like searching for a few needles in a humongous stack of hay. Your people are out there, but finding them is the key.

Accessing influencers in your niche or genre is an excellent way to immediately get in touch with your potential customers without doing all the gathering yourself. And while you certainly don’t want to push individual consumers away, the benefit of aligning with influencers is that you can market to them. By marketing to influencers, you’re reaching thousands of individuals versus marketing to one individual at a time.

Another method that influencers have mastered is funneling followers into their regular audience with hashtags. While brands can undoubtedly use the same techniques with their hashtags, finding trusted influencers to work with can be both time-saving and cost-effective.

Influencers Deliver a Better ROI

Any business knows that marketing can get very expensive very quickly. It’s vital to get a positive return on investment (ROI) when spending those marketing dollars, and influencer marketing delivers those returns. In fact, for every dollar spent, you’ll get around $5.78 back on average. While some businesses miss the mark with influencers, the majority see a return, even as high as $18 for every $1.

And influencer marketing is no longer an afterthought. It’s mainstream. In 2016, businesses spent around $1.7 billion on influencer marketing. Brands that once disdained working with influencers are eating their words now since influencer marketing has grown to nearly $14 billion as of 2021. In the same time frame, searches for “influencer marketing” jumped 465 percent.

Better Engagement With Followers

Instagram influencers deliver better engagement than influencers on other platforms. Although Meta owns Facebook and Instagram, Instagram influencers outshine Facebook influencers in brand engagement at a rate of four to one in at least one study.

And when comparing influencers with similar followings on Twitter and Instagram, the Instagram influencer will see an engagement rate of 5.7 percent on average, versus the Twitter influencer’s engagement rate of 1.45 percent.

Another consideration when it comes to the effectiveness of influencer marketing is the type of followers you’ll get. People who follow influencers often have a significant amount of disposable income, allowing them to act when their favorite influencers showcase a new product or style.

And don’t discount micro-influencers. These influencers may only have a few thousand followers rather than tens of thousands. However, they can have some of the highest rates of engagement, making your marketing budget go much further in driving engagement and awareness.

Ads Are Flat, and Influencers Are Dimensional

While there are things that brands can do on social media to make an ad interactive, influencers still outperform ads. Clicking on brand ads might direct a person to a landing page or the main website. But following an influencer allows the audience to ask questions and see the product used or worn by a real person in a relatable setting.

Psychological factors are also at play in making influencers effective at reaching their audience. The best influencers have figured out how to talk to people like friends and make their followers feel cared for. They gain followers who stick around because they share the same values or struggles. Brands and ads can’t fully identify with people on a personal level the way an influencer can, and these days, businesses are waking up to this phenomenon.

The Best Platform for Influencers

Market watchers theorize that Instagram is uniquely situated to encourage engagement with followers because it integrates a visual and written story with built-in ways to match potential followers to content.

The most successful influencers have mastered techniques to create and maintain active audiences. Businesses are realizing how smart and efficient it can be to find relevant influencers and partner with them. As people increasingly seek ways to connect personally and authentically, influencers are likely to continue as an essential part of brand growth.

Influencer marketing is smart business. Are you working with any influencers yet?