Influencer marketing continues to gain momentum as we move deeper into the second half of 2018.
A Big Splash for Sponsored Content
A new report published by influencer marketing company Buzzoole has revealed some interesting findings in terms of Instagram’s advertising program. In short, the Facebook-owned platform experienced 44% growth with its sponsored posts ads (not including Stories) in the first half of 2018 compared to the first half of last year.
Image Source: Buzzoole
Nearly 60% of all global sponsored content were taken up by the fashion (33%), beauty (13%) and food & beverage (13%) industries, showing just how lucrative the program is for advertisers in those verticals.
Image Source: Buzzoole
The Power of Influencers
The growth of Instagram’s sponsored content program can be largely attributed to the majority of influencers choosing the platform as their primary medium. In fact, nearly 90% of all influencers worldwide are using Instagram more for their marketing campaigns than they did a year ago.
“The influencer marketing industry is booming. It isn’t just about projections, the data we have collected shows that marketers continue to double down on investment,” said Ian Samuel, chief commercial officer at Buzzoole. “The challenges we are now working on are helping marketeers answer the big questions around attribution, measurement and transparency to justify continued budget shifts."
More than half a million content creators were involved with Instagram’s sponsored posts, which produced close to a billion interactions. To put things into perspective, that’s nearly 1000 engagements for every piece of sponsored content out there.
A Healthy Future
While brands still seem to have a challenge with determining ROI from influencer marketing campaigns, as a channel, influencer marketing is still very healthy and poised for continued growth.
Approximately $1.6 billion is expected to be spent on influencer marketing campaigns by the end of this year, and the influencer marketing industry as a whole is positioned to be worth $4-$8 billion by the end of next year. By 2022, that could hit as high as $10 billion.
Image Source: MediaKix
Powering Ahead
Despite earlier concerns that heightened FTC regulations would dissuade brands from investing more in influencer marketing campaigns, it’s clear that the opposite is happening.
This is great news for advertisers who may have been reluctant to partner up with an influencer or a thought leader in their space.
Even if teaming up with an influencer isn’t a feasible option under your current marketing strategy, the platform itself is still proving to generate incredible results when compared with some of the other social platforms. There are over half a billion daily active users on the platform, and its shoppable post ad format has seen adoption rates jump by 41%.
Simply put - Instagram is one of the most significant social channels to be advertising on.