Social Media Influencers Are Becoming Less Important To Brands

The debate on the viability of social media influencers continues to rage on.
Social Media Influencers Are Becoming Less Important To Brands

The debate on the viability of social media influencers continues to rage on. Many believe they are an integral part of the growth of new brands and products in today’s social media-heavy economy. While others point to the fact that it’s hard to gauge actual ROI from social media influencers, and their following is sometimes inauthentic.

While there is no doubt that having a bunch of cool people promote your product is beneficial, a new report from Launchmetrics reveals that “mega” influencers – denoted by having a following between 501,000 and 1.5 million – are becoming less valuable and important to brands.

The good news is that if you have a following under 500,000 (if you have more and you’re reading this let us know lol) you are now the most targets market of influencers for advertisers. Known as micro-influencers (10,000 – 100,000 followers) are now the most coveted influencer group to advertisers.

??? ? @lina.lman

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Companies are now looking for real-time engagement rather than massive followings. The ability to have a smaller but targeted voice is what advertisers are now looking for. According to Launchmetrics, advertisers want quality content and engagement and prefer this over working with someone with a massive following.

We figure the reason is simple and probably has to do more with money and ROI. Booking a campaign with a “mega” influencer can be astronomically expensive.  According to a 2018 complex article, many of the mega influencers have yearly incomes in excess of $10 million and often charge anywhere from $150,000 to $300,000 for a single post.  If you are an advertiser shelling out $300,000 for one Instagram post you better be sure that you can show the benefits, and lately, this industry hasn’t been able to effectively do this.

Featured Image: Instagram via: @Desiperkins