Has Influencer Marketing Peaked?

Why influencer marketing is losing influence

Influencer marketing isn’t always well-received among your target audience. Whether you pick a controversial influencer or get caught up in social media drama, you can encounter a few risks.

Trust issues

One metric that’s certainly peaked in influencer marketing is trust. Inflating your Instagram follower count is easy and inexpensive; “follow farms” can sell Instagram users thousands of fake followers for the price of an Uber ride. For a small premium, these followers can be “engaged” followers — fake accounts that not only follow you but like your pictures; this, in turn, raises the all-important likes-to-followers ratio.

>> Learn more: How Influencer Marketing Fraud Scams Businesses

Users can also set up “follow-unfollow” bots. These bots scrape the followers of competitor brands or influencers and follow them. They then get followed back and automatically unfollow a few days later. The practice is not merely deceptive to other Instagram users, but it’s also costly to sponsors.

#SponCon and saturated feeds

Another consequence of purchasing fake followers is that the barriers to entry — a strong following — are low for those trying to make it as an influencer. Between that and the rise of influencers in the popular consciousness, it has become a saturated field. As a result, wannabe influencers are now finding increasingly dubious ways to beat the competition.

One example is the practice of “SponCon.” This method is when users tag brands in photos and captions in a way that suggests product placement without any sort of business dealing with the brand. The con is twofold: It signals a lifestyle to followers and credibility to potential sponsors.

Advanced analytics

In the early 2000s, internet influencers were starting to change public perception and gain a following. The first paid influencers were a marketing experiment with little ROI reporting.

Today, brands have AI-driven tools to verify an influencer’s true reach and audience quality. Platforms can now detect bot followers and fraudulent engagement spikes. With this improved transparency, companies are becoming more selective, refusing to spend money on influencers with inflated metrics or lackluster conversion performance.

Failure to disclose

Brands are hesitant to create too many influencer campaigns because many still fail to disclose their content properly. In fact, according to the European Commission, only one in five indicated that their content was advertising.

Most small businesses don’t have the staff to check all posts for adequate disclosure information. Nor do they have the time to police the use of social media features such as the “paid partnership” toggle on Instagram.

Insincerity

There’s no doubt that influencers have lost their trustworthy insider status. Whether that’s converting to a decline in the audience is less clear.

“If you follow your favorite influencer, it doesn’t matter if they have bought some followers,” said Anna Komok, CMO at HypeAuditor, a website that spots fake Instagram and YouTube followers. “You like their content, not their number of followers or likes. These metrics are only useful for prospective advertisers.”

That’s not to say that audiences aren’t growing skeptical. “Influencers have problems with audience trust, but it’s not because they artificially inflate their numbers,” Komok said. “It’s because many of them advertise everything they were paid to.”

As Komok explained, many influencers gain popularity through the good endorsements they give on social media; this support can be for anything from fitness advice to sustainable clothing brands to the best contouring palette you can find at a drugstore. When influencers abuse such endorsement power by accepting any and all sponsorship deals, they lose their audience’s confidence as reliable sources of advice. This may lead to a decline in click conversions on the marketer’s end.

Platform scandals and backlash

The influencer industry has seen high-profile controversies that have damaged consumer trust. The recent “de-influencing” trend, where creators advised followers on what “not” to buy, started as a response to over-consumption and dishonest product reviews. Recently, we saw instances like “Mascara Gate” on TikTok, where a creator was accused of using false lashes to exaggerate a product’s effect that led to consumer backlash and skepticism toward beauty reviews.

All of this controversy shows how the very genius of influencer marketing — their relatability with audiences — can backfire. Unlike mainstream celebrities, influencers are amateurs by definition. That realness also presents a certain risk.

Content overload

Over 95 million photos and videos are uploaded to Instagram daily, and more than one billion stories are posted on Facebook. And that’s only two of the most popular social media platforms. So much content is generated daily that it is impossible to keep up — not to mention all the AI posts flooding the Internet.

Influencers can’t always maintain the pace, and it’s challenging to stand out promoting a brand you don’t own.

How influencer marketing can still have value

“We have seen a consistent downward trend in converting from influencer marketing,” said Jeff Byer, CEO at Jeff Byer Inc., a web design and promotion company. While Byer does not consider the data conclusive at this point, he does note a marked change in consumer behavior.

While influencer marketing has passed its honeymoon phase, brands do not need to abandon it yet — as long as they’re strategic.

Seek out credibility

Slapping a few product placements on the largest following you can afford will no longer suffice; social media consumers are too savvy for that now. Instead, Byer suggested seeking out influencers according to their perceived credibility.

“Many influencers don’t manage their ratio of promoted posts to natural posts,” he said. “Reviewing an influencer’s feed ratio from the past three months is becoming a more reliable indicator of conversion opportunities.”

Consider micro-influencers

Rather than choosing those with the highest follower counts, some brands now find better success soliciting those closest to their target audience. While micro-influencers may not get your brand the same level of exposure, their value lies in their credibility and engagement with followers. Such a practice translates to higher conversion rates; this is how Byer suggested brands should evaluate their influencers, rather than by follower counts. “This will force [influencers] to be more genuine or pay more attention to the audience reaction to brand posts,” he said.

Experiment with follower levels

Obviously, the follower count should not be discounted entirely. The key is to get the highest follower count possible without suffering a decline in engagement.

According to Komok, there is no “sweet spot” — depending on the influencer, product, location, etc. However, “if you have a niche product, most likely your target influencer has up to 15,000 followers.”

For many brands, this won’t be enough exposure. “To obtain significant results, you need dozens or even hundreds of micro-influencers,” Komok added. “But you will definitely be satisfied with the results.”

The benefits of influencer marketing

Influencer marketing should focus on creating relationships with your target audience; in addition, it should increase your brand’s reach, authenticity and revenue. You’ll find, when done correctly, using influencers offers a business many advantages, including:

Custom content creation

The best influencers know what their community wants to hear and see. By letting the influencer create custom content for a large audience, your company can benefit from following current marketing trends; also, it can lead to resonating with a targeted audience that may not have been aware of your brand or product line before.

Affordable marketing

Influencer marketing campaigns can be secured for as little as $100 to upwards of $1 million. Even if you have a limited budget, you can still have an effective campaign by doing your research.

Choose an influencer who appreciates your brand message, engages with your product line and communicates consistently. Experiment with a starter-level influencer campaign, measure your ROI and examine final reports. If the first campaign was a success, consider investing more marketing dollars to increase your reach the next time around.

Quick sales increase

Launching a new product line? Interested in a site-wide sale to liquidate inventory? Whatever your sales needs, having an influencer display your products with their seal of approval can help you accomplish your business goals, fast.

Long-term relationships

Building trust with your customers helps you maintain the longevity of your business and increase repeat customers. The more you work with the influencer, the more their followers will trust your brand as quality and authentic. An influencer may work with a brand once if the products entice them or they need the partnership, but repeat clients improve both the influencer’s and the company’s authenticity.

Siri Hedreen contributed to the reporting and writing in this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.