The evolution of influencer marketing industry in post-Covid digital era! – Times of India

The digital era is here thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic induced lockdown. During the lockdown, we witnessed the rise of several new trends like work from home, online dating, delivery apps but more importantly, we all witnessed the rise of social media and creators. The Covid-19 pandemic induced lockdown got all of our creative juices flowing and it gave many people the time, platform and opportunity to grow their social media handles and become creators. During this time, the digital advertising market also grew, more importantly, the influencer marketing took the center stage in digital marketing.

The significant growth of social media has made it essential for brands to have a powerful presence online, especially amid the cut-throat competition in the market and in the digital world. This has also made it important for brands to not only connect with their target group via innovative content marketing strategies but also strengthen their hold and reputation by acquiring more consumer base and influencer marketing is the preferred manner in the current day and age. The reason the increasing content consumption by people across the globe.

The time of brand oriented approach to marketing is over. Its now time for a more customer-centric approach, more so because customers have also grown smarter and prefer a brand that has a problem-solving approach towards marketing their product and/or service. While consumers still trust celebs when they promote a brand, they also know that celebs are paid to say what theyre saying. But when an influencer or a creator promotes a brand, they dont just promote it, they share their consumer experience with their followers along with valuable, authentic and credible information which makes the brand the followers pick too. This is also why micro and regional influencers are trusted more by their follower base as opposed to big influencers. In fact, the rise of influencer marketing has also given rise to influencer owned brands. Several influencers have started their own companies to capitalize on their own popularity and obtain a steady source of income and growth.

Another thing to note is that with the rise of the influencer marketing industry, social media platforms have also found a way to bank on it and increase their income via ad revenue plans. The evidence in question YouTube Shorts and Facebook Reels. Both these platforms have introduced ad revenue sharing plans to attract more influencers and creators on their platform.

And we all know along with the influencers come their fans and followers as well as brands.

As per Influencer Marketing Report, the platforms that focused on influencer marketing raised over $800 million funding in 2021 and the influencer marketing industry is expected to grow to about $16.4 billion in 2022. Nearly 80% brands used Instagram for influencer marketing in 2021 and this number is expected to grow in the near future with most brands dedicating a special budget for influencer marketing. The main cause of the growth in the influencer marketing industry is the connection the influencers and creators build with their audience. With the gradual growth, influencers have built a connection with their followers and when they promote a product or service, their fans and followers follow! More importantly, this helps build consumers faith in the brand. Influencer marketing aids brands in expanding their target group and reaching a bigger audience while growing their social media presence, following as well as traffic on their site while converting leads and driving sales.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

Read the original:

The evolution of influencer marketing industry in post-Covid digital era! - Times of India