Influencer Marketing Trends for 2021

By QuikPlace | April 16, 2021

A decade ago, influencer marketing was just limited to celebrities and few highly creative and fully dedicated bloggers. Now, it seems like Influencer Marketing has forged an extensive hold over social media. However, just as other marketing strategies, influencer marketing has come up with the latest trends. Every year brings new platforms, new content, and new ways through which brands can expand their audience, generate more leads, earn more revenue, and increase customer engagement. If you are thinking of incorporating influencer marketing in your branding strategy, we have compiled a list of trends that are making waves in the industry.

Influencer marketing works because key influencers drive your brand. This type of social media marketing uses endorsements and product mentions from the influencers who have good social following. Influencer marketing is a continuously expanding industry, and it's crucial to keep an eye on the latest influencer marketing trends. The tips and strategies that worked for you last year might not hand over the same results this year. So, let's have a look at the latest Influencer Marketing trends in 2021, and some changes that we can anticipate in the future.

1. Micro Vs Macro Influencers

The biggest trend in influencer marketing 2021 is creators are becoming brand owners. There are different types of influencers, micro to macro. Micro with few numbers of followers and macro with followers in millions. Macro influencers or celebrity influencers with millions of followers may seem more powerful social media influencers. But it doesn't take that type of following to make an impact. Creators with smaller audiences can be effective influencers too.

Influencers with an engaged audience are getting more business opportunities, even with fewer followers. Micro-influencers create a sweet spot for marketers, that they are still sizable, and they enjoy a more engaged audience. Knowing this difference of impact between micro and macro-influencers you can decide which one could be the best for your company. Large companies can choose macro-influencers, because of the huge reach factor. This helps brands to broadcast their message to a mass group of peoples. On the other hand, middle and small-scale companies can opt for micro-influencers to target a specific niche or specific group of people.

2. Result-oriented deals will increase

Generally, there are 5 types of reactions the company pays for - Impressions, Engagement, Clicks, Sales, and Leads. In new influencer marketing trends, brands will seek out to make long-term and performance-based collaborations. This defines that the brands will expect the influencers to deliver specific numbers of sales or clicks. Influencers here can opt for ongoing royalty contracts instead of single payments. Here it must be made sure that before signing any performance-based contract the influencers must review the contract to make sure what you are agreeing on before guaranteeing a specific return.

3. Influencers will become more specialized

As an influencer marketing trend, influencers will continue to develop their specializations. It will become easier for influencers to seek brands in specific verticals. Influencer marketing is also emerging as a career choice for youth. Influencers will also gain credibility in a specific niche or industry due to constant development in their specialization. And, as a result of this lots of people will appreciate what an influencer does, and the majority of people what to be influencers.

In earlier days social media was just a platform to connect, but it has now become a source of earning in many ways. And, almost every major industry has seen a great hike in influencers, and the brands are leaning towards them more than ever. We also visualize a shift in language, we are already seeing some influencers opt for being called a “creator” or “content creators” instead of being called an influencer or internet celebrity. This is the key change due to specialization, which must be considered.

4. Influencer collaboration will increase

Influencer marketing trends indicate that due to important factors like high customer engagements, specific niche brands will target moreover influencer marketing. This will not only attract the company's social media but also theirs. This can help companies in increasing their brand awareness by reaching a new audience. We have already seen influencers' work being highly liked by the people. Influencer networks find ways to increase influencer marketing campaigns and earn more on their efforts.

5. Planning and Data will rule

As stated in the point above that the result-oriented or performance-based contracts will increase. In the impact of this, brands will give more importance to data and analytics. Influencer marketing trends in 2021 will focus more on an understanding of social media metrics. Planning and data will play an important role in influencer marketing. You are going to see brands and influencers will be more comfortable collaborating and organizing campaigns together with more interest in tracking social media metrics. Solo influencers will also understand the importance of visualizing data and insights.

6. Video content will get more popularity

With the increasing popularity of TikTok and Instagram Reels, we see people are giving love to video content more than ever. Video formats allowed influencers to connect more with the audience. In influencer marketing trends videos will work more along with the live stream as it is clearer and more polished plus the edited counterpart that maintains viewers' engagement across the board.

7. Authenticity will be most watched

We have visualized a strong pull for authentic content. This denotes that the influencers have to be more careful about what they create so as the brand’s product resonates with the audience. If the influencer brands or promotes the product that they don't just care about, it won't benefit the brand and the influencer will also lose its credibility in the eyes of the audience. Taking this point into the count influencers and brands should collaborate only with other influencers and brands whose audience overlaps with theirs. Authentic and value content helps brands in making deeper connections with the audience. The bonus benefit for an influencer is that your audience will trust you more.

8. Paid advertising will be key to broaden your reach

Without relying on social media algorithms to broaden the reach, paid amplification of the content will be beneficial for both brand and influencer. Using advertising tools of social media platforms brands will push out high-quality influencer content to the audience who are seeing it, without depending on social media algorithms to make it happen.

9. Employee-Driven content will get more reach

In influencer marketing trends in 2021, the demand for authentic content will be on the rise. To serve authenticity employee-driven content will get more reach. In this influencer marketing strategy, the companies provide financial rewards to the employees who use their products in their everyday lives if sharing that content leads to sales. It is only possible for the brands to begin treating their employees as influencers through employee training and advocacy programs.

10. Brands will look for ongoing partnerships instead of offline projects

The last point of influencer marketing trends in 2021 is that the brands will collaborate with the influencer for a long-term ongoing project rather than single-time sponsored projects. The reason behind this shift is that it takes time to make a scale. Even an influencer with an engaged audience cannot give any real contribution to the brand with one-time sponsored posts. If you want to get more out of influencer marketing, influencers are recommended to make packages that you can sell to the brands that include sponsored posts over some time.

If you are willing to incorporate influencer marketing but don't know how to? At QuikPlace, we can help you to build a strong foundation for your next influencer marketing campaign. Find out from this blog which influencer marketing trends will help your brand this year. It's really good to say that influencer marketing is constantly getting big and there is so much to learn about it, as we learned about influencer marketing trends in 2021. Start adapting to these changes and make authentic connections with customers and influencers.