Linqia Releases 2018 Influencer Marketing Trends

It is the last month of 2017 which means the season of predictions for 2018 is underway. Linqia released results of The State of Influencer Marketing 2018 survey, in which 181 marketers from CPG, Food & Beverage, Media, & Retail were surveyed. It demonstrated how brands and agencies plan to use influencer marketing and leverage cross-channeling for 2018.

In 2017, the survey discovered that 86 percent of marketers utilized influencer marketing while 92 percent deemed it effective. For 2018, 39 percent of marketers claim they will boost influencer marketing budgets, only five percent looking to decrease the budget. As for program budgets, 30 percent of marketers will spend $25-50K per program while 25 percent say $50-100K will be spent per program with 46 percent of marketers running two to five programs per year.

More than half of marketers (52 percent) have said that for 2018 the programs will leverage numerous varieties of influencers. This includes celebrities, top-tier, and micro-influencers as part of integrated strategies implemented. To enhance digital channel performance, 44 percent are using influencer content as 36 percent of marketers plan to mesh influencer content with e-commerce to fuel product sales.

“The key to realizing influencer marketing ROI is to leverage the content beyond the initial campaign to improve the performance of other programs. Our survey found that 81% of marketers are using influencer content in other channels, with 51% reporting that it outperforms brand-created content. Of those that haven’t tested influencer content against brand created content yet, 59% plan to do so. In 2018, you will start to see marketers use influencer marketing to develop a strategic blueprint that will enable them to drive greater returns from their paid, owned, and earned media,” says Nader Alizadeh, CEO and co-founder of Linqia.

What about the biggest challenges marketers believe they will face in the coming year? 76 percent feel determining influencer marketing ROI will be number one with social media algorithms following behind for 42 percent of marketers. Speaking of social media, Snapchat is looked at as the least important network (50 percent) but 92 percent say Instagram is the most important network for influencer marketing with Facebook at 77 percent.

The survey was conducted in November of 2017 and it is only a short time until the industry will see if these results hold true merit.