I’ve talked a lot about influencer marketing over the past several years, both on this podcast and in my book, “The Age of Influence.”
The practice of influencer marketing has changed since 2019 and 2020, when I wrote that book. For that reason, we need to look at the current influencer marketing trends if our campaigns and techniques are to remain successful. Let’s take a look at why influencer marketing is effective and what trends we can expect to develop over the next year.
Key Highlights
[08:01] True Long-Term Influencer Partnerships
[09:27] Authenticity Over Perfection
[11:10] Think Video First
[11:47] Emergence of Live Shopping
[12:43] Nano Micro-Influencers As Forefront
[14:10] The Growth of Influencer Marketplace
[15:50] The Concept of Frist Party Data
[18:54] Affiliate Marketing As A Critical Part of Influencer Marketing
[20:38] Employees As New Influencers
Notable Quotes
Links Mentioned
Learn More:
I’ve talked a lot about influencer marketing over the past several years, both on this podcast and in my book, “The Age of Influence.”
The practice of influencer marketing has changed since 2019 and 2020, when I wrote that book. For that reason, we need to look at the current influencer marketing trends if our campaigns and techniques are to remain successful. Let’s take a look at why influencer marketing is effective and what trends we can expect to develop over the next year.
Key Highlights
[08:01] True Long-Term Influencer Partnerships
[09:27] Authenticity Over Perfection
[11:10] Think Video First
[11:47] Emergence of Live Shopping
[12:43] Nano Micro-Influencers As Forefront
[14:10] The Growth of Influencer Marketplace
[15:50] The Concept of Frist Party Data
[18:54] Affiliate Marketing As A Critical Part of Influencer Marketing
[20:38] Employees As New Influencers
Notable Quotes
Links Mentioned
Learn More:
Hey, Neal Schaffer here, I just want to let you know that I am finally launching my first digital course. And it's going to be all about helping you create an influencer marketing strategy from scratch. In one week. This will be a cohort based course on the Maven platform for those of you who might be familiar with it, and I'm really excited, it is going to be the last week of November, beginning November 28. Going into December 5, if you're interested in joining me so that I can handhold you not only in creating an influencer marketing strategy, but really providing you all the education you need to up your career and improve your marketing even outside of influencer marketing. I hope that you'll join me in this unique course. Go to Neal schaffer.com/maven One that's M A v n the number one and you can find all the information and register for the class there. I really hope you'll check it out. And I really hope I have the opportunity to serve you deeper. What are the influencer marketing trends that you need to know for 2023? Why are they important? What should you do? And how might this impact your marketing both inside and outside Influencer Marketing? Today I am going to play the role of fortune teller. On this next episode of The your digital marketing coach podcast. Digital social media content influencer marketing blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing, who there's a lot to cover, whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach, and this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, Neal Schaffer here, your digital marketing coach. Welcome to my podcast. If this is your first listen, I record half of these podcasts solo like this one. And half of them I interview leading subject matter experts, authors, other podcasters content creators and generally people that inspire me in hopes that they'll inspire you all around what I call digital marketing, which is a combination of digital content, influencer, social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, you know, as marketers, there are many hats we need to wear, as business owners as entrepreneurs. There's a lot of things that we need to understand and that's why although this topic sounds very broad to me, all of these things I talk about are interrelated. Case in point. Today I'll be talking about influencer marketing now. I just got back from a week in London. It was an amazing week at the b2b social Trailblazer summit put on by Analytica and immediate future I don't know if you've heard of either those two companies, but they are very much focused in the b2b marketing, b2b, social media b2b influencer marketing. And it was a well, it was a day of b2b marketing, a lot of b2b influencer marketing, I was truly inspired. And I can't wait to share with you my takeaways from that day, man, I have a pipeline of these takeaway podcast episodes that I need to record, because I've yet to get back to you on my presentation at the Digital Marketing World Forum in Santa Clara. I also haven't gotten back to you on Adobe MAX yet. So in addition to that, now I have the b2b, social Trailblazer summits in time, I will share everything that I learned at these events with you because I know that my recent podcast episodes on takeaways from Vid Summit as well as takeaways from Podcast Movement did do well in the download territory. So I know that you appreciate these on the road reports that I give and I can't wait to share that with you. Okay, well, let's get back to the topic at hand today, which is influencer marketing, you probably well maybe, but if you didn't No worries, but I if you didn't know I am launching my first digital course it is a cohort course meaning that it will be taught live and all the students and myself will all be in there together. It will be on the Maven platform if you're familiar with that, but if not, you can go to Neal schaffer.com/maven One ma v n the number one and that is where I will be teaching you how to create an influencer marketing strategy. In one week, the idea was I want to teach you and your business influencer marketing, but I also want you to have a specific takeaway. And I provide you a specific deliverable, which is a strategy which I will help you create. But above and beyond that you're going to learn a ton about not just influencer marketing, but this all this broad digital marketing that I talked about. So I hope you'll check that out. That's Neal schaffer.com/maven One. This podcast, though, is not an advert. It is a podcast meant to be educational. So I'd like to get on to today's topic, which are the influencer marketing trends you need to know in 2023, I have actually gone in and picked out 13 different trends that I want to talk about today. So there's a lot to be said about influencer marketing, it is still extremely relevant. In fact, the more you hear people talking about the Creator economy, the more that you should understand influencer marketing is relevant. Because the more we value creators, the more we value influencers, because at the heart of it, most creators either are or become influencers. So you know, influencer marketing is not a pretty word from a lot of people. But the crater economy for some reason is, if you're interested in my specific view on this, I actually have a podcast episode dedicated to this, you'll have to go back to it was actually way back. And I'm saying way back on episode number 251. What is the link between the creative economy and content marketing? That was an interview that I had with Joe Polizzi. And even before that, literally almost a year ago, episode number 241. I had an episode on what is the creative economy and what is its relationship to influencer marketing, but every time you hear the creative economy? Well, you should be thinking influencer marketing, because there is a huge overlap. And in fact, one more recent podcast episode, episode number 289, where I interviewed Digital First member Yash Shavon, who's the founder of a great influencer marketing tool called Soraa. That's, that gets erol.com s a r a l, which means real in Hindi. We all learned that during that podcast episode, we talked about how to build your brand, by collaborating with content creators, ie influencers. So when we think crater economy, please think influencer marketing, and that is really a great way to introduce what I'm going to be talking about here. So these are 13 different things that I see that I've been talking about that hopefully, through my podcast, you've heard me talk about them before you already on them. If you're a new listener or you haven't gotten to them, I hope that you will understand these the importance of the So number one, and I think most companies have bought into this if we talk about influencer marketing 1.0 which is just you know, pay someone a lot of money for vanity metrics, influencer marketing 2.0 is well, we can go down to nano influencers, we don't have to work with celebrities, I think influencer marketing 3.0 is more looking at true collaboration and true long term, influencer partnerships. Why would you find someone that has influence in your community, but you only want to work with them once? Now I got asked this actually on the panel that I was on at the b2b, social Trailblazer summit in London last week. And he he literally said, you know, how often should we run these campaigns? How long should these campaigns be? And I literally said, your answer to both of those questions is two words, always on? Right? It should be always on everything you do in marketing there. I mean, if you're doing an advertising campaign, you're limited by budget, I get that there's an on and off switch. But something like collaborating with influencers and content creators, there should not be an on off switch, it should be long term. And you might not have the budget to work with them this month or next month, but maybe a few months down the road. But it doesn't mean you still can't keep in touch with them still get their feedback, still engage with them, et cetera, et cetera. So I think the one off campaign is going away. Influencer Marketing, as an industry has not matured to get there quite yet. But I hope that you will understand and I know the industry has definitely shifted this way since COVID. And since publishing the age of influence, it is all about long term relationships, not one time campaigns as if these influences are programmable advertising units, which obviously they're not. Okay, number two, is authenticity over perfection. And what I mean by this is, you know, COVID has changed a lot of how we consume content, I like to say and I said it over the last few weeks, we're seeing the changing of the guards. This is one of the key areas that in the past you had these Instagrammable imagery. It was all about creating this perfect almost model like look and feel. A studio look and feel will code bid really threw that away. Or I should say we got sick of seeing and it wasn't real. And I think platforms like Tiktok have really focused on the real and authentic as if someone was in the room talking just to us, which means you don't need to be in a studio. You don't need to be in a perfect environment to yield influence, or you shouldn't expect that of an influencer. Right? So just because an influencer looks a little raw, it's the authenticity which is really driving engagement, which is driving followers, which is driving community, and you should lean into that. So it just means when you look at influencers, when you look at that content, remember that it also means that when you engage with influencers, and when you want to collaborate with them, that obviously your brand has your own guidelines, you have your own boundaries, you have your own expectations about your strategy, and your influencer marketing program in lieu of a campaign. I'll call it a program. But you should try to understand the way the influencer feels it would be best done it would be most authentic, because invariably that is going to get you the best results. Number three, well this is a no brainer. It's all about video content, isn't it? And video content we think of tiktoks we think of Instagram reels you should also think of YouTube shorts. You should also think of Pinterest idea pins. And you should also think of LinkedIn live YouTube videos. It's really all about video right now. It doesn't mean you can't work with influencers on other mediums but you will get your biggest bang for your buck when you think video first. I mean, we've been talking you know video next year is going to be the big year for video. I think we don't need to say that anymore because it's already here. Number four live shopping will emerge as a major influencer marketing campaign type. So live shopping is already on Amazon. Are you working with Amazon influencers if you have a product that is available on Amazon if you're a b2c brand, we're seeing Pinterest starting to get into live shopping with Pinterest TV, it's only a matter of time till tick tock, it's already been rumored that they are going to get into it as well. So this is definitely for b2c brands. But definitely try to tap into this, try to see who are the influencers that are already jumping aboard this trend, and see how you can collaborate with them. As part of everything else you're doing. This is going to relate in many ways to affiliate marketing, which I'm going to talk about a little bit later, which gives them the ROI of doing this in addition to any other compensation, you may provide them. But that is going to be a major driver for b2c brands. And you should look into it earlier rather than later. In my honest opinion, all right. Number five, nano micro influencers will come to the forefront, as my friend Andy Lambert, of Adobe Express says we are in an era of recommended media. It means that it's not about how many followers you have necessarily, it's about how good your content is. And the algorithm is pushing the content. Regardless of whether you're following that person or not. They're recommending that content to you. Tick tock is most famous for this, Instagram would like to do this, but they can only do it within reels. And YouTube is the same they Well, they are doing this, I suppose. But YouTube shorts is really all about that. So obviously, if you have a lot of followers, that's great. But I wouldn't shy away from people that don't have a lot of followers if their content is great. And they're getting the views, which you can see directly there on Tik Tok and other platforms. So that's where people that have smaller number of influencers. We already had this trend towards nano influencers that started when I was writing the age of influence back in 2019. We've seen just more and more that over time, and we will continue to see that many reasons why you want to work with Nano influencers. I have a dedicated blog post to that we'll try to put in the show notes. But you can go to Neal schaffer.com/nano-or-influencers If you want to read up on that. But definitely we're seeing more and more influence market activity continue to shift towards the smaller and in this era recommended media it makes more sense than ever to do so. So number six this is a really interesting one. The growth of influencer marketplace is supported by social networks. It'll be really interesting to see if Elon Musk decides to do this at Twitter. Not that it's relevant anymore. But it is a way that social networks are seeing to get a piece of the influencer marketing pie. Tik Tok was the first social network that I know that started to do this. In other words, there is a tick tock marketplace run by tick tock where you can directly engage with influencers and hire them. YouTube actually bought out a company called FameBit. They bought them out maybe seven years ago. FameBit was a YouTube marketplace that is now owned by YouTube. But I do believe that it is an enterprise model. They still use that technology to give enterprise clients introductions to to specific YouTube craters. Instagram is starting to create this sort of a marketplace as well. It is still very, very early in the making, but they are in the process of making it now. I talk to companies that run their own influencer marketplaces, they will always say that these are always going to be limited in terms of selection. They're going to be limited to the social network, app question. And they may be a little bit inflexible. And that's why if you really want to work with an influencer, that you have no relationship with, you really want to use a third party, influencer marketplace tool, but I do believe if you're a small business, just wanted to get started with this, that using a social network supported influencer marketplace, like the ones that tick tock has, and the Instagram is creating is just an easy way to get your feet wet and start to experiment and collect first party data. Speaking of first party data number seven trend of influencer marketing for 2023, the increased importance of acquiring first party data for greater influence or marketing ROI. Today I was on a recording for an event that is going to be put out by my friends at influencer marketing hub. In early December, you should be on the lookout it's going to be a one day summit featuring a lot of presentations. I did a really a one on one panel with Camille Kennedy, who is also a fractional CMO. She does a lot in influencer marketing. It was a great conversation. But that's where I talked about this concept of first party data meaning you don't know how much you need to pay an influencer. You don't know how much influencers are going to charge. You don't know what the conversion rates of working with influencers, how many impressions they get, when they talk about your product, you don't know any of this until you actually start working together with them. And you have some data and that's why a lot of these influencer marketing tools companies and influencer marketing agencies, they can tap into this data that they've acquired working on behalf of their clients. And if any of you read the age of influence and you looked at that final chapter on the role of or you know, how AI is going to change, influencer marketing, this company that I work with decreed that open influence, they already were talking about this back in 2019 that they could predict how campaigns will perform based on all this data that they already have in influencer marketing. This is what any company that really wants to generate a significant ROI from influencer marketing or if you plan on investing five 10% of your marketing there, you want to acquire a lot of first party data. Only way to do that is to do more and more work with influencers and properly measure it right and then reflect on that measurement and optimize over time. All right, number eight. So in terms of the king or queen or I don't know what the gender neutral, the top, influencer marketing social network or the social network, where people spend the most or brand spend the most on influencer marketing has been Instagram. I think we're gonna see Tik Tok rival, if not supersede Instagram for those budgets simply because Tik Tok is really booming right now. The algorithm really rewards great content. Because of that things can go more viral there, there's just less supply for incredible demand. So far, it is the number one most downloaded app of 2022. It shows no signs of slowing down, whereas meta is showing signs of slowing down. I know that that's primarily Facebook, but Instagram, it's sort of hard to say, I do know that brands and people complain that they don't get the engagement they used to unless you're on reels obviously. But you know, I think brands are going to start to say, well, if I'm doing a real campaign, why can't they do a tick tock campaign. And as more content creators are also on tick tock and some have tick tock as their primary vehicle. These are going to be other things that are just going to drive more and more influencer marketing budget to tick tock to the point where it just might supersede Instagram in 2023. All right, number nine, affiliate marketing finally becomes recognized as a critical part of influencer marketing. It's funny because we hear more and more people talking about affiliate marketing as partnership marketing. In fact, for those of you that have a memory, it was not too long ago, where I had an interview with Matt wool, who is an author of a book about influencer marketing. This was episode number 265. But this was all about partnership marketing. In fact, the title was, it's time to diversify your digital marketing and invest in relationships. This was a podcast about influencer marketing. It was talking about influencers that are affiliates, but it's really the same concept. And I hope going forward that more and more brands see it this way because you should offer should the influencer be interested you should offer affiliate marketing as part of everything you talk about because it's only going to provide the influencer more incentive and when we get to that live shopping that I talked about before. I think this is really going to be critical and Um, that you're able to offer them that as well. Obviously, with Amazon, they become a Amazon associate or Amazon affiliate through that platform. But with tick tock tick tock shopping, we don't know how it's going to be implemented, you might have to offer them links, special discount codes to track them or whatever. But I do believe that, you know, we don't talk much about affiliate marketing, we're talking these various terms like partnership marketing, but it really is a part and I would say a critical part of influencer marketing. So if you have an affiliate marketing program, see how you can extend that to your influencer marketing program, and vice versa. All right, number 10. Employees will begin to be recognized as the new influencers. Now this is something near and dear to my heart. It's something that we talked about a lot at the b2b, social Trailblazer Summit. This is especially true in the b2b world, especially of your employees who are subject matter experts. These are the people that should be out there digitally on the forefront. But many of them are introverts. They don't want to be on social media. They want to have nothing to do with your employee influencer program. So this is sort of a challenge, something that I want to provide more education about. But even employees for b2c brands that know your product really well talk about your product and social media. I do believe that employees as a type of internal influencer, as opposed to external influencers, have incredible potential for brands, once they can tap into them by looking at them as influencers, not as part of some advocacy program for which the employees really are not interested in or really have no incentive, or just don't think anything is in it for them. So I think we're going to be at the dawn of a new era hair and era that really excites me, I've been, man, I've been providing a lot of education doing a lot of talks about this. But I think that as companies become more and more mature with their influencer marketing, as more and more employees use social media as more and more digital first generations become an overwhelming majority of the American workforce, ie millennials and Gen Z, you're gonna see more and more of this. And speaking of Gen Z, number 11, diversity, equity and inclusion will become more important in marketing in general, it already is becoming more important. But we're gonna see more talk about influencer marketing, are we giving everybody a chance? are we representing every color, every gender every, you know, every race, every ethnicity, every culture, when we are talking about our brand, or whether when we're engaging with content creators, going forward. And this is something that was talked and I think was really implemented very well, at Adobe MAX as a conference in Adobe, as a company. I believe that this diversity, equity inclusion is almost this integral part of their brand DNA. And there's not many companies that can say that about but definitely Adobe. But this is something I think, if you haven't thought about, I mean, ideally, you should be thinking about this in your marketing in general. But I do believe you should be thinking about it in your influencer marketing as well. And these are things that are more and more important, the younger the generation, I believe, the more important they are. But I think that these are mainstream activities. Now, you're not going to be seen as being weird if you champion these causes, because I do believe that mainstream or a majority of social media users are in favor of this as well. And I think if you just look at the numbers of people that are not in the majority in any specific community, especially here in the United States, that is obviously a sizable number of people, of employees of influencers, and really people in the entire population. So I hope that you'll take that to heart number 12 user generated content will be an integral part of influencer marketing. I've been talking about this for a long time. But it's not about influencers for content amplification. It's also about the incredible content that they create, that if you have the contract signed with them, where they let you use that content, it can really help scale your efforts. And it can help you at every stage of the not just influencer marketing, but digital marketing funnel as well. Finally, number 13. I sort of hinted at this, maybe this is a summary. But in 2023, we're gonna see influencer marketing become a lot more collaborative. And what I mean by this is, as influencer marketing becomes more professionalized, brands will start collaborating with influencers, to create better campaigns, better long term programs. This will lead to influencers being able to share their expertise and experience with brands. And in many ways, I believe that this collaborative environment, it's a win win, it's going to help everyone maximize the value of these business relationships. And I would say at the end, even consumers will end up winning because they will see compelling content they will get to know About compelling brand value. And ultimately, they will buy these products through influencers that will help serve them deliver value to their lives. And it will help deliver value to the influencers as well as the brands. It is a true win win win. I've always said that business can help foster world peace. And I believe in this way, when done right, influencer marketing can do so as well. This is just some of my thoughts as we get close to Thanksgiving here in the United States, we get close to the end of the year. I am certainly thankful for many things. One of those things, obviously is you my listener, thank you for joining me on this journey. I just feel so invigorated. So invigorated by my recent travels, and recent speaking and attending conferences that I have felt zero jetlag today, even though I was on an 11 and a half hour flight from London yesterday, that just got I got home literally last night at like eight or 9pm. But I feel great. And there is just so much more to do. I feel after attending these conferences and talking to people and talking in general, that I become almost a marketing futurist that I see things that others just don't see it unless they are at this extremely mature stage of this digital transformation, which encompasses many things in digital marketing. So maybe I'm a Marketing futurist, I don't know, maybe it's a tagline. Maybe it's something I should put on my profile, I don't know. But I want to talk more about where things are going. Because I think those that will jump on earlier, will get the best results. And I know that it's an iterative process, you might listen to this once it might not sink in. But hopefully, you're going to hear these themes throughout, well, 2023 and beyond. And hopefully over time, they will sink in as with every episode that you listened to, and it'll help you get your own ROI, one episode at a time, which really is my brand promise for this podcast. So thank you. I hope that if you're interested in my influencer marketing strategy cohort, once again, Neal schaffer.com/maven. One the number one, and I do hope to do more of these cohorts, these really, you know, one to three week programs, where I just helped you get from point A to point B, with a lot of hand holding a lot of education and in a collaborative environment where you get to work together with fellow professionals that are facing similar issues that we can all learn from each other and support each other and hold each other accountable. That is the power of cohort based education that I'm really proud to finally start doing, and I hope to see all of you on the other side. Alright, everybody. That's it for another episode, I want to remind you to keep your eye on the goal. And remember to always be an option. Remember that analogy of that throwing in soccer or football, if you're not in the United States, you want to be moving around, you always want to show up so that the person throwing the ball in, can throw it to you and you can keep the ball going towards that goal. Think it's a beautiful analogy for a lot of things in life, for your customers, for your employees, for your fans, for your family, be that option be there provide what people are looking for in the broadest sense. And on that note, that ends another episode of the digital marketing coach podcast. This is your digital marketing coach Neal Schaffer signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes, and Neal schaffer.com to tap into the 400 Plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.