In the ever-evolving influencer marketing industry, it’s difficult to anticipate what trends will shape influencer campaigns and strategies even just a month from now, let alone a year. Perhaps the only constant is its unwavering growth, with spending on influencers set to reach $24 billion by the end of 2024, up from just over $21 billion in 2023, according to data from Influencer Marketing Hub.
Additionally, nearly 60% of marketers said at the start of 2024 that they planned to up their influencer spend this year, while just under one quarter said they would be allotting over 40% of their overall 2024 marketing budgets to influencer marketing, per Influencer Marketing Hub.
Ad Age spoke with 20 influencer marketers across agencies, consultancies and brands about their predictions for the biggest trends they anticipate will shape influencer marketing strategies over the second half 2024. Below are six of the most widely shared predictions among the group, from LinkedIn’s burgeoning role in influencer strategies to the increased adoption of generative AI.
A growing distinction between influencers and creators
Until recently, the terms “influencer” and “creator” have largely been considered interchangeable. But several influencer marketers anticipate more brands will develop distinct strategies for collaborating with the two categories of social content makers in the coming months.
“‘Influencer’ represents a status, whereas ‘content creator’ represents a function,” said Errick Page Jr., influencer partnerships specialist at The Martin Agency. “You cannot be a content creator if you are not constantly creating—weekly, daily. You have to have a cadence.”
Influencers, meanwhile, “may or may not” be content creators, and often kick-start their social media careers by capitalizing on a moment of virality to establish themselves as a kind of digital celebrity, Page said. He pointed to Hailey Welch, aka the “Hawk Tuah Girl,” who recently drew widespread pop culture attention for her vulgar response to a man-on-the-street interview, as an example of an influencer who will now need to “start creating content to sustain [her] newfound popularity.”
More brands are beginning to recognize the different roles influencers and creators play in the marketing funnel, launching campaigns that leverage the two groups in distinct ways, said Cristina Lawrence, executive VP of consumer and content experience at Publicis Groupe agency Razorfish. Razorfish’s clients are increasingly interested in leveraging a “media mix model” for their influencer and creator campaigns to “hit every different audience or niche that [they] possibly can … in different places in the funnel,” Lawrence said.
Razorfish now often breaks clients’ influencer campaigns into three tiers—influencers, for “broad reach and brand awareness”; creators, to help pump out short-form video content, often for a brand’s own social channels through the agency’s in-house “Creator Colab” offering; and micro- or nano-influencers with niche but highly engaged audiences, Lawrence said.
Peter Chun, senior VP and global head of partnerships & growth at VaynerX, agrees that micro- and nano-influencers who have carved out unique online niches play an increasingly pivotal role in influencer strategies.
“Content consumption has never been more fragmented or more personalized than it is now,” Chun said. “Savvy brands will recognize that the more creators they have, the more sound their strategy will probably be. It’s less about trying to be appealing to every consumer that’s out there,” and instead about identifying relevant subcultures on platforms such as TikTok and identifying creators “whose voices matter in those niches.”
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