Written by Aimeé Howells, Managing Partner at TAKUMI

Influencer marketing has grown from niche activity to a marketing plan mainstay in the past decade. Aligned with the broader move towards digital channels, and enhanced by the strengthening relationships creators have with their audiences, marketers now spend $9.7bn annually on reaching consumers via this channel.

The boom we’ve seen has been driven by three combining factors. Firstly, the strengthening relationships content creators have with their audiences across multiple platforms. Secondly, marketers’ growing willingness to engage with influencers to reach customers. And thirdly, platforms’ new e-commerce integration, shortening the customer journey and increasing ROI.

In our annual whitepaper on the influencer marketing industry, we analysed the priorities and expectations of over 3,300 consumers, influencers and marketers in the UK and US across four key themes covering trends during the pandemic, marketing performance, ethics and the future of the industry.

What we found was growing agreement about the value that influencers bring to brands, and also mixed views from our respondents highlighting the challenges marketers still need to overcome.

What is clear, is that influencers have become an increasingly important marketing channel. Seven out of ten marketers (70%) are now more likely to use creators in brand campaigns compared to before the pandemic according to our research. Meanwhile, 69% say that budgets for influencer activity represent a larger proportion of their overall marketing spend now.

And it appears this investment is paying off. Marketers’ increased investment in multi-channel influencer marketing activity coincides with increased consumer engagement across every major social platform since the pandemic.

In terms of ROI and sales, influencer marketing is now the number one marketing channel for driving conversions with 46% of consumers agreeing, with influencer marketing second only to ‘a recommendation from someone you trust’ (53%). In fact, it was the only marketing channel that didn’t become less effective over the pandemic. Only 37% of UK and US consumers said they’d been influenced to buy a product or service in 2021 by TV/radio advertising, compared to 42% in 2019. Meanwhile, the number of consumers influenced by print/outdoor advertising dropped from 32% in 2019 to 29% over the same period.

But while the industry has rapidly grown, and the role of the influencer has become increasingly professionalised, there are still areas where brands and creators can do better. Chiefly, ethics, diversity and inclusivity are areas where marketers need to improve.

In particular, the spread of misinformation – where nearly three-quarters of marketers in the US and UK (74%) believe that creators and brands share responsibility for this rather than social media platforms.

There is however potential complacency with regards to diversity – underpinned by conflicting viewpoints between brands and consumers when it comes to whether branded influencer content is diverse enough. Only 28% of UK and US consumers believe brands’ influencer marketing content adequately represents diversity in society. Whereas nearly two-thirds of marketers (62%) believe that content does represent diversity.

The results illustrate that consumers expect brands to be doing more, despite the fact that over two thirds (67%) of marketers are using creators from more diverse backgrounds in campaigns compared with before COVID. While work is underway to start addressing the issue, the stark contrast in opinions when it comes to diversity is likely to be the foremost challenge for brands who want to use influencer marketing to reach their audience.

Despite this, it is still one of the most valuable tools marketers have at their disposal. It’s a growing channel, more effective than many other digital tools and allows brands from a variety of sectors to reach audiences no matter how niche. The challenge now is how to ensure that marketers evolve with changing consumer viewpoints to ensure that any investment in influencer activity achieves the same results brands have seen during the pandemic.