Influencer marketers have had a steep learning curve during recent years due to the pandemic, the acceleration of eCommerce, and the growth of new social platforms. With a new year ahead of us and still a lot of uncertainty, how can we best plan for 2022? While we don’t have a crystal ball to look into the future, we have observed some important trends that will be shaping influencer marketing in 2022.
Learn about these 5 key influencer marketing trends for 2022 to help plan a robust (yet flexible) influencer marketing strategy for the year. As the industry continues to grow and mature, 2022 will offer eCommerce businesses exciting opportunities for growth, utilizing the latest technology to create authentic and profitable partnerships.
Influencers will be crucial partners in delivering a seamless shopping experience
In a world of endless distractions and responsibilities, consumers are looking for the easiest way to shop for the things they need. But, brand loyalty is waning. 73% of US customers and 63% of UK customers have tried new shopping behaviors since the onset of the pandemic according to McKinsey. This means that people are less likely to buy from brands by default. New routines have also meant new shopping habits, and for the most part, this has revealed a preference for digital.
Declining brand loyalty is not all bad news. There’s an opportunity for brands to convert new customers by offering a seamless shopping journey. Brands that can tap into what consumers are looking for at each stage of the shopping journey, and who can deliver that on the corresponding platform (whether that be on social, via a mobile app, or website) will undoubtedly be best placed to capture a host of new customers.
Influencers will be key partners in delivering a seamless shopping experience and converting awareness into purchases. As social commerce and in-app checkout continue to grow in 2022, influencer marketing campaigns will be crucial to generating not only brand awareness but facilitating online sales. Creator partnerships can be harnessed to reach your target audience with authentic product recommendations. Further along the purchase journey, influencers can offer social proof, product information, and the means of purchase in live social shopping or affiliate marketing campaigns for example. Influencers can help you to deliver the right message, at the right time, on the right platform, which will drive further sales.
Influencers will be key to scaling affiliate marketing
Working with influencers for affiliate marketing campaigns is the perfect example of how influencers will play a key role in offering a seamless shopping journey. Combining influencer marketing with the affiliate model will help brands to increase sales, incentivize influencers, and better track their performance. Social media influencers have a valuable online reach which means they can help you to grow your customer base and effectively scale the impact of your affiliate campaigns by directly generating sales with affiliate links.
Brands are always looking to maximize their ROI and ensure they’re running profitable marketing strategies. This means that 2022 will see more brands activating influencers in their affiliate marketing strategies. Brands will be able to capitalize on their influencers’ significant reach to generate revenue measurably. Using an affiliate model means influencers will be paid a share of the profits they generate, helping to incentivize them as long-term partners. With trackable affiliate links, brands can also measure the value of sales generated by their campaign and assess individual influencer performance.
First-party consumer data will drive organic influencer discovery
As Google will phase out third-party cookies by 2023, marketers need to start preparing in 2022 for a future without access to certain data points. This challenge does however present a new opportunity for brands to focus on leveraging first-party data for strategic marketing.
First-party data is owned by you and isn’t going anywhere! When it comes to influencer marketing, first-party data about your customer network will be crucial to identifying and activating brand advocates for your marketing campaigns. Analyzing the social reach and purchasing habits of your current customer base will help to pinpoint organic brand champions who can be activated as online ambassadors within your influencer marketing strategy.
You can get ahead of this influencer marketing trend for 2022 and find out more about how to use data to overhaul your strategy in our dedicated webinar session, part of Upfluence’s virtual summit Connect:Collab:Create with Klaviyo and The Atfluence Agency.
TikTok creators will continue to drive commerce trends
TikTok is a platform designed for content discovery and high engagement (Check out this post on discovering TikTok influencers). This has in turn increased the potential for TikTok creators to make viral content thanks to the possibility of reaching vast audiences with their incredibly engaging content. TikTok creators collaborate with their favorite brands to feature their products in content that doesn’t look or feel like an ad. This makes the platform all the more powerful at fuelling commerce trends through brand challenges and influencer-generated content. In 2022 we can expect the #tiktokmademebuyit hashtag which refers to the biggest viral commerce trends will grow even more popular in the next year as the platform continues to invest in seamless commerce features such as its partnership with Shopify.
The role of influencers will become increasingly professionalized
One of the top influencer marketing trends in 2022 will be the continued professionalization of creators thanks to new monetization models on social media platforms. Social media apps know the value that influencers bring to audiences on their platforms. As such, they are investing in compensation models to incentivize influencers to keep using creating on their platforms to continue growing platform usage and engagement.
Facebook is planning to pay $1 billion to creators through 2022, TikTok has launched a creator fund and individual users can pay for content from their favorite creators on Twitter and Twitch. As the potential for influencers to drive commerce activity on these platforms will grow, brands and social media apps need to consider how to compensate and incentivize influencers as key partners in their success.
Make sure you’re equipped to run the best influencer campaigns with our guide, Everything You Need To Know About Running Influencer Marketing Campaigns.
