Brands are upping their investment in influencer marketing again this year, with spending expected to grow by 33.6% year-over-year (y-o-y). This is per the latest influencer marketing forecast from eMarketer.
US influencer marketing spending – defined by eMarketer as “payments made to influencers or their representatives to promote products and services primarily on social media and other platforms featuring user-generated content” – is estimated to total $3.69 billion this year.
This increase in spend comes after more modest growth in 2020, when brands’ investment in influencer marketing grew by 14.4% y-o-y to reach $2.76 billion. And, while spending in this area is expected to continue growing in the next two years, eMarketer predicts it will be at a much slower pace, growing by 12.2% y-o-y in 2022 and 11.5% y-o-y in 2023.
Although eMarketer states that it does not provide a breakout of specific social media platforms, the publication estimates that Instagram is the leader in the influencer market, encompassing about half of the market. This is backed up by other research from Linquia which found that Instagram and Instagram Stories are the most popular platforms for influencer marketers.
However, when looking at engagement rate, data from Upfluence and Influencer Hub found that TikTok had the highest engagement rates across all influencer follower sizes.
When it comes to what content consumers consider most valuable from influencers, the clear winner is product reviews, with a survey from SlickText finding that about 38% of consumers value reviews over other types of influencer content.
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