Influencer Marketing trends 2019

Influencer Marketing is booming! A fantastic way to promote your brand. Certainly for appealing to younger target groups influencer marketing very suitable. This is because the influencer can influence emotions, opinions and (buying) behavior. How will influencers approach this in the coming year? And how do they get closer together?

Create content together

With paid collaborations with influencers it is common for content to be created together. An influencer creates the content, while you as an entrepreneur indicate what you have in mind. Such cooperation often focuses on the social media channels of the influencer. The influencer then does the attribution, placing hashtags and placing links.

In some cases, the influencer, together with the entrepreneur, devises content that can be used in their own communication. This happens, for example, during an action on one's own social media channels or on the website.

For such cooperation to succeed, the preconditions must be clear to both parties. You realize that the influencer is not an insider and therefore needs some management. Drawing up a style guide can help with this. Indicate clearly what you want, so that the influencer really gets the space to create unique content. This is of course not free: you usually pay a fee for access to the influencer's public and for the right to use photos and texts.

Product placement

Nothing is better than attracting the attention of an influencer in a natural way. Of course you can immediately start waving money, but genuine interest is always better. You attract attention by having an influencer try your product. Those interested are giving positive attention.

You can also make a huge mistake by sending a gift. For example if the product is not of sufficient quality, does not suit the taste or simply does not fit with what the influencer does. Do a good preliminary investigation: what will the influencer appreciate?

It can go two ways: you receive positive attention and with it exposure, or the influencer ignores you. Then it is good to investigate where the gap between your product and the target group is. You do that by asking for feedback.

#SPONSORED CONTENT

We already see it in Germany: the mention that something sponsored content is. It will become standard in 2019 that influencers indicate that something is advertising. In this way they offer more transparency. By the way, we have to mention that in Germany it mainly happens because of fear that authorities will take legal action.

Ideation

In the coming year, companies will increasingly make use of 'ideation'. These are sessions where you allow influencers to think along about the alignment of your brand with the intended target group. After all, nobody knows this target group better than the one that is popular with the target group.

Such a session can be very refreshing and enlightening. It provides new insights, which in turn can propel new campaign ideas. Remember that influencers are primarily marketers. They have a lot of knowledge and creativity and that is invaluable.

Kelvin Boerma (center) worked with Fanta to involve young people more in their advertising. Photo by Calvin via Wikimedia.

Take-over on social media

More and more often we see that the social media of brands are temporarily taken over by influencers. For example, they post the content for a day or a week. With the rise of Instagram stories, Facebook stories and live streaming, this offers enormous opportunities. Your brand can appear anywhere, with an influencer as a walking billboard.

Then a few things must already be prepared: the content must be surprising and spontaneous. It must stimulate interaction. Go for the wow effect, because this content is only available for 24 hours. That way you also create a kind of exclusivity. The followers must respond quickly, because after 24 hours the message is gone.

A good use case is that of Fanta and YouTube star Kelvin Boerma. Boerma has about 644 thousand followers on Instagram and can call itself a well-known Dutchman. For Fanta, he connects well with their target group: young people. It was only recently that Kelvin made a movie about bad commercials. Fanta responded to this by having a team of young people come up with a good advertisement. Together they demanded attention. By using Kelvin's platform, followers and creativity, a complete advertisement came about. This is how brand awareness arose.

Influencer podcasts

Of course we cannot skip the podcast. More and more influencers are starting to work with it. This medium not only guarantees reach, but is also a great way to share deeper thoughts, ask opinions and interact with the audience. Podcasts work well in both the B2B and B2C industries. A good example is the podcast by the British influencer Estèe Lalonde.

Gamers

The streaming site Twitch keeps on growing, football clubs hire e-athletes and LAN parties are getting bigger. Gamers are becoming increasingly popular. The expectation is that marketers will also increasingly use the services of gamers and live streaming. For example, various 'streamers' (gamers with a stream on Twitch) are already sponsoring themselves. In exchange, for example, they put a logo on the screen, use your products or regularly call your name.

Collabs

Collabs will be on the rise in 2019. It is perhaps the ultimate way of working together. Hereby you go all the way back to basics with an influencer. You switch this on before you offer a product or service. For example, make a healthy snack with the face of a food or health blogger, or set up a fashion brand with a fashionista.

Entrepreneurs and influencers really go into the depths of a collab. This is a collaboration in various areas: expertise, processes and branding. Involve your potential followers right from the start of the brand: that indicates a certain degree of exclusivity.