Influencer marketing has a trend to grow bigger than it is today, with every year bringing us new content, social media platforms, and strategies that brands can use to engage with their target audience. One of those strategies brands use is influencer marketing. This article will give you important insights on how to make it an effective marketing tool.
In theory, influencer marketing makes perfect sense, as consumers trust a human voice more than messaging coming directly from brands. In addition, established influencers are an excellent voice to reach out to people because they don’t only recommend sponsored products and services but also share helpful content that ranges from the tips to cover YouTube channel down to tips on how to make delicious meals.
The numbers prove B2B influencer marketing effectiveness, too! A study from Lee Odden’s TopRank Marketing Blog showed that a whopping 86% of B2B brands report success using influencer marketing. They achieve results because of the boosted brand awareness and reputation, which leads to increased sales.
It’s high time you follow suit, too! Let’s take a look at the B2B influencer marketing trends to follow.
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Micro-Influencer Marketing
Many businesses believe that to reach their marketing strategy goals. They must take on huge influencers with millions of followers. However, such influencers can come with a big fee, which may not work for many businesses.
The influencer marketing trend continues to evolve; this time, it focuses more on micro-influencers. Rather than looking into those with millions of followers, marketers choose to reach out to micro-influencers with a few thousand followers but high engagement. They are particularly looking into micro-influencers that work on the specific niche the business is about. This means more authenticity in the sponsored product or service, resulting in better engagement and potential sales.
This is the time when smaller is better!
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The Most Effective Content Types
According to a report on B2B influencer marketing, blog posts topped the list of effective types of content in 2021. This 2022, webinars are a huge favorite. 81% of respondents answered “Webinars” as the type of content they favor in today’s B2B influencer marketing climate.
Next on the list was Social Media, Blog Posts, Recorded Videos, Interviews, and Podcasts. The lowest on the list was Infographics. This goes to show how important interactive multimedia is in influencer marketing content!
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Live Shopping
Live shopping became extremely popular in 2021, and it’s only going to continue this year. Influencers and key thought leaders will promote products to their followers on social media platforms through live video and interactive content.
You can see companies and social media platforms adjusting to provide live shopping features for influencers. For instance, Amazon, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram now have Livestream shopping tools and partnerships. TikTok’s prominent influencers participate in shoppable Livestream events as well.
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Ongoing Partnerships
Marketers can expect brands and influencers to collaborate on long-term and ongoing projects instead of one-off sponsored posts.
There are many reasons we are shifting to more continuous projects, but it boils down to this: It will take time to make sales! Even influencers with extremely engaged followers will have trouble making significant contributions to a brand when they are commissioned for just one sponsored post.
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New Social Media Platforms and Content
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that there will always be room for many more social media platforms. TikTok is the perfect example, which has swept the world and quickly increased in popularity. Instagram Reels followed suit, and while there are no new platforms yet, experts expect that there will be new social networks in the near future for many influencers and businesses to take advantage of for sponsored posts.
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Audio and Video Content Continue to Rule
Influencers and their following are making a shift. Rather than sticking to text and images, there is a continued movement towards audio and video content. It has also become easier to create such content, for example various AI text to speech tools on the internet help convert written text into realistic human voices. Thanks to bandwidth improvement worldwide, 5G and fiber internet are more common in many countries. Because of that, people are consuming more audio and video content.
While text and images aren’t dead, there will be more emphasis on audio and video content this year and in the future. TikTok and YouTube continue to rise, with podcasts increasing in popularity. You can even find classic social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook that focus on sharing videos on timelines.
Wrapping It Up
Hopefully, these B2B influencer marketing trends helped you out! Make sure you implement any of these into your strategy and see if it will garner more success.
