Is Instagram Influencer Marketing Still a Powerful Tool?
If you use Instagram, you’ll know you don’t need to scroll for long before you find a post promoting a product with #ad at the end of it. This is commonly known as Instagram influencer marketing, where users with a large following (usually celebrities) are paid to become brand advocates and encourage their audience to convert or buy.
With the hype about Love Island at the moment, and ex-islanders already promoting vitamins they probably don’t use and clothes from brands like Miss Guided, it got us thinking. Will Instagram influencer marketing effectiveness decline?
We’re all wising up to the fact they promote a product because they get paid, not because they like it, but will this stop us buying what they encourage us to?
The growth of social media has triggered influencer marketing. There’s no doubt about it that Instagram is an incredible marketing tool, boasting around 800 million accounts.
How Instagram Proves Its Worth as an Influencer Platform
1. Increasing Brand Awareness
60% of Instagram users say they have learned about a product or service on Instagram. This clearly demonstrates that Instagram is a good way to get consumers on the sales funnel. Instagram brings brand awareness and allows the promoter to let their persuasive platform promote a product.
2. Instagram Influencer Marketing Brings Honesty
Often, influencers are promoting a product through their positive personal experience of using it. Whether they have or haven’t actually used it, their following includes loyal fans who hang on to every word they say. With this in mind, influencers are powerful in the sense their impressionable following could believe what they ever they say about the product or service they’re promoting, encouraging them to make a purchase.
3. Instagram’s Impressive Engagement Rate
The average Instagram account has an average engagement of 3%. Although this might not sound like much, it’s leads and bounds ahead of platforms like Facebook and Twitter who have an engagement rate of only 0.5 – 1.0%.
So, in perspective, Instagram’s high engagement rate means it’s the go-to-platform for influencer marketing. A higher engagement rate means more return on investment, ROI, for the brand who are promoting their product via the influencer.
Our Verdict
For now, Instagram influencer marketing is thriving. Influencers have shown no signed of slowing down, yet, so we’ll probably be seeing plenty more teeth whitening promotions for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps as consumers are exposed to more and more promotional content they’ll grow tired of it. But this will simply call for more innovative promotions to keep Instagram influencer marketing alive.
We’d love to know what you think; do you convert or buy from Instagram influencers?
You can check out our previous Instagram posts here:
- How to Use Instagram Stories for Business
- Introduction to Instagram for Business
- The Styles of Instagram Ads
- Making the Most of Instagram for Business
- 6 Examples of Successful Instagram Business Accounts
Why not check out our Digital Marketing Terms Glossary?
About the author:
Marie Harwood is a Digital Marketing Assistant at Different Gravy Digital, Hale, Cheshire.
Different Gravy Digital are a full service Digital Marketing Agency operating in the Hospitality & Leisure, Financial Services, Legal & Property sectors. Products and services range from; 3D & 360° Tours, Website Design & Build, Social Media, Video Production, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Content Creation, Email Marketing, Online Feedback / Review Systems and Paid Advertising (Google, Bing and Social Media).
Contact Details:
marie@differentgravydigital.co.uk
0161 706 0004
120a Ashley Road, Hale, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA14 2UN