How Women Really Feel About Influencer Marketing
January 4, 2017
For the time being at least, influencer marketing is a popular and effective way to reach consumers. Influencer platform Bloglovin’ sought to find out how female consumers feel about the tactic, and what would cause them to respond in a negative way to influencer posts.
Fifty-four percent of female consumers purchased a product after seeing it recommended by an influencer, according to the November 2016 survey, which polled 22,000 women in its global user base. And, 45% have followed a brand directly from an influencer’s post.
Women don’t want to be inundated. Respondents said too many sponsored posts can be off-putting. The research showed that 37% of women have unfollowed an influencer because they posted too much sponsored content.
Authenticity also plays a key role in engagement—61% of women said content that doesn’t feel genuine would deter them from engaging with sponsored social posts.
Bloglovin’ asked women to describe what they consider inauthentic, and 59% said posts that are inconsistent with the rest of an influencer’s feed feel fake. More than 30% said posts labeled with the hashtag #ad or #paid are inauthentic as well.
According to new FTC guidelines regarding sponsored content, however, all paid posts must be labeled as such.
Bloglovin’s report suggested that brands that want to get the most out of their influencer marketing should run campaigns across social platform.
What social platforms are the most popular? More than 62% of women follow influencers on at least two platforms. Out of this group, 32.8% follow influencers on three platforms.
Influencer posts on Facebook yield the highest engagements with 57.1% of women saying they interact with sponsored content there. Instagram is a close second—48.4% of women prefer it.
Only 7% engage with influencer posts on Snapchat, likely because, in its terms of service, the company prohibits getting paid to post.
Looking ahead to 2017, influencer marketing will be increasingly important to brands. According to separate data from Linqia, 48% of US marketers will increase their influencer marketing budgets.
Courtesy of eMarketer
