Influencer Marketing Guide: Why Your Brand Needs Influencers in 2024

With consumers seeing marketing messaging on every possible platform, it’s more difficult than ever to cut through the noise and get your brand noticed. That’s where influencer marketing comes in.

Influencer marketing consists of partnering with social media personalities (influencers) to promote your brand or products to their audience. These influencers have built trust and rapport with their followers, working to make their recommendations more believable and impactful than traditional advertising.

Why is influencer marketing so important in 2024?

• It reaches a wider audience: Influencers have large and engaged followings on social media. By partnering with the right influencers, you can potentially reach a much larger audience than you could through traditional marketing channels.
• It builds trust and credibility: Consumers are more likely to trust recommendations from people they know and admire than from brands themselves. Influencer marketing helps brands to build trust and credibility with their target audiences.
• It drives engagement: Influencer marketing can generate a lot of engagement, including likes, shares, comments and video views. This engagement can help you reach a wider audience and improve your brand awareness.
• It’s cost-effective: Influencer marketing can be a very cost-effective way to reach your target audience. Compared to traditional advertising, influencer marketing can deliver a much higher return on investment (ROI).

Influencer marketing in the UK and Ireland:

• The UK influencer marketing market is expected to reach £5.8 billion by 2024.
• In Ireland, influencer marketing is also on the rise, with the market expected to reach €50 million by 2024.
• Some of the most popular influencer marketing platforms in the UK and Ireland include Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
• Millennial and Gen Z consumers are the most likely to be influenced by influencer marketing.

Tips for successful influencer marketing:

• Choose the right influencers: Partnering with influencers who align with your brand values and target audience is important.
• Set clear goals: What are you aiming to achieve with your influencer marketing campaign? Increase brand awareness? Drive sales? Once you know your goals, you can choose the right influencers and metrics to track your success and set KPIs accordingly.
• Create authentic content: Consumers can spot inauthentic influencer marketing a mile away. Make sure the content your influencers create is authentic and feels natural to their audience.
• Track your results: It’s important to track the results of your influencer marketing campaigns so you can see what’s working and what’s not.

How to select influencers for your brand marketing campaigns in 2024:

• Follower numbers aren’t everything: While influencers with large followings may reach more users, there’s no guarantee that they’re your target demographic. Creators with lower social followings can create a fantastic output while also having a tight-knit, engaged audience.
• Vet your influencers thoroughly: In the same vein, ensure that the influencers selected have genuine success. Request stats in advance, from content reach and impressions to video views and overall engagement – these are important, especially if you have key KPIs set for your campaign that influencer content will contribute to.
• Choose authenticity: If there’s one thing that social media users dislike, it’s a hard sell with content that’s obviously an ad. With genuine creators, their followers follow them for a reason and may be a better fit for your brand overall.
• What’s your niche? Selecting based on your niche is super important: if you’re a well-known food brand, a fashion blogger may not be the best fit here. Choose creators who can make an authentic piece of content based on what they already specialise in/what their audience follow them for and engage with.
• Widen the audience net: Define your target audience and choose creators from multiple demographics to magnify your brand awareness and exposure. Our recommendation is to cater to your core audience group and bolster this with additional demographics. EG: if your core audience group is women age 40+ and you’d like to expand this, consider the above points and choose from a range of creators: Gen Z, millenials and male creators who align with your brand values to engage increased audience segments.

Influencer marketing is a powerful tool that can help you reach your target audience, build trust and credibility and drive sales. If you’re not already using influencer marketing, 2024 is the year to start.

Additional statistics:

• 61% of consumers trust influencers’ endorsements.
• 38% of consumers only rely on branded social media content, which they often perceive as biased.
• 72% of marketers used Instagram for influencer campaigns in 2023.
• The average time spent on TikTok is expected to increase to 58.4 minutes per day in 2024.

By using influencer marketing strategically, you can achieve your marketing goals and take your brand to the next level.