Since the birth of the influencer, influencers have dominated social media platforms and flooded our feeds with sponsored posts from the smallest brands to the biggest and most well-known brands in the world. With their perfectly curated and coordinated posts, they have won our hearts over and managed to influence audiences for a long time, but is it possible that their time on social media is close to being up? 

Influencer stats

According to a study made my Mobile Marketer, it could seem as if the influencer days are over since influencer engagement rates are quickly declining. These are the statistics: 

• The engagement rate for sponsored posts went down from 4% in 2016, to 2.4% in 2019. 
• In just one year, the tourism industry who held the highest engagement rates, has seen them fall from 8% in 2018 to 4.5% in 2019. 
• According to Social Media Today, only 3% of consumers are influenced by influencers. This is specifically the case for celebrity influencers. 

These changes in engagement rates are largely due to a change an attitude towards influencers:

• There is a great demand for authentic collaborations and content. This demand comes from younger generations like millennials and Gen Z. 
• The public, and brands, have lost trust in influencers due to an increase in fake influencer profiles. There have been cases where an influencer account’s following was 70% fake or bought. 
• 47% of consumers are tired of seeing repetitive content within individual accounts and through the platform. 

While things don’t seem to look good for the influencer industry, there is still some hope. It is simply a matter of redefining how we look and approach influencers. The most important thing is to remember that bigger doesn’t mean better, and that more reach doesn’t mean more influence. According to InfluencerDB, the influencers with better engagement rates are those that have smaller followings. Influencers with more than 10,000 followers have an engagement rate of 3.6%, influencers that have 5,000 to 10,000 followers have a 6.3% engagement rate, and those with 1,000 to 5,000 followers have an engagement rate of 8.8%. 

It could be tempting to collaborate with celebrity influencers since their posts will have a bigger following and therefor reach. However, it’s important to remember that its harder to influence larger audiences since they can be more diverse in terms of tastes and interests. Because of this its recommended to approach influencers with a strong influence within consumer communities that are united through a shared interest, aka consumer tribes. This is a good strategy as long as y our product remains relevant to the tribe of your choosing. Remember that in this case, authenticity is of high value. Because of this, it’s very important for influencers to have a meaningful relationship with its audience or tribe, as well as with the brand that they are going to collaborate with. 

source: mobilemarketer.com // socialmediatoday.com // thenextweb.com