Control the Impact of Coronavirus on Influencer Marketing

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Coronavirus has impacted almost every aspect of society on a global scale. The world of marketing is no exception, and the lasting impressions of COVID-19 have left digital marketers scurrying to adapt. Influencer marketing is one of the most significant branches of social media marketing. It continues to be impacted by the spread of coronavirus.

Marketing reports show that US consumers do more online shopping than before COVID-19. As the pandemic wreaks havoc on the global economy, many businesses must ramp up digital marketing and sales efforts in order to survive.

Many brands are implementing influencer marketing to help boost sales and increase brand awareness on social media. This article offers useful tips to both brands and social media influencers to minimize the effects of the coronavirus and influencer marketing.

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is an advertising technique that uses social media influencers to promote brands by collaborating with them. Many businesses and marketers are trying to figure out the best way to use influencer marketing, and often it is because everyone is talking about it. Influencer marketing can be a powerful tool for your brand to increase brand awareness and build trust.

How to do influencer marketing during a pandemic?

The marketing space has seen drastic changes since the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020. Nowadays, you can easily connect and collaborate with your niche influencers online instead of face-to-face interactions. You can use many influencer marketing platforms to find your industry influencers, but most of them cost so much. But here is the best option for you with thousands of different categories. 

Ainfluencer

Ainfluencer is an Instagram influencer marketplace with a powerful smart AI engine that finds the most related bloggers for you. The best part is you use this platform entirely free and save tons of time and budget. Here is how to use this tool:

Once you sign up on Ainfluencer, you can create free marketplace campaigns, target, and filter influencers by categories, location, gender, language, etc., to introduce your business to qualified influencers and invite them to collaborate with you.

Coronavirus marketing impact 

The pandemic of 2021 will have an enormous impact on the advertising industry. When marketers finally return to their regular ad spend and assemble a budget for travel, they will find a much higher demand for advertising in this area. According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and iMedia, a projected growth rate of six times the overall ad market by 2023.

You can view details of this report on Zenith’s latest Business Intelligence – Travel insights to see the changes in marketing during a pandemic and covid 19 marketing impacts. 

B2B marketers have changed their marketing channel mix during the pandemic 

According to data from Ziflow, in 2021, since the pandemic began, 53% of B2B marketers have changed their marketing channel mix completely. 

In late 2020, B2B marketers in the United States were asked about the percentage of budgets devoted to promotional activities. Some 13 percent of respondents stated that they allocated more than 15 percent of their budgets to marketing. At the same time, the same share said they reinvested less than one percent of their companies’ budgets into marketing efforts. Today, during the covid marketing impact, B2B marketers devote more and more funding to digital advertising.

Coronavirus marketing impact  The pandemic of 2021 will have an enormous impact on the advertising industry. When marketers finally return to their regular ad spend and assemble a budget for travel, they will find a much higher demand for advertising in this area. According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and iMedia, a projected growth rate of six times the overall ad market by 2023. You can view details of this report on Zenith’s latest Business Intelligence – Travel insights to see the changes in marketing during a pandemic and covid 19 marketing impacts.    44% of B2B marketers have changed their marketing channel mix during the pandemic  According to data from Ziflow, in 2021, since the pandemic began, 53% of B2B marketers have changed their marketing channel mix completely.

UK Sales Rebound in August

uk-retail-sales-in-2020

At the beginning of covid, UK retail sales had a 4.7% increase on a like-for-like basis between August 2019 and August 2020; This is below the 3-month average growth of 9.7% and the 12-month average growth of 11.1%. Over the three months to August, In-Store sales of Non-Food items grew 64.9% on a Total basis, above the 12-month average increase of 20.0%

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How Influencers Can Survive the Coronavirus Pandemic?

It’s not hidden to anyone how influencer marketing during a pandemic changed. Businesses have had to build genuine connections without face-to-face interaction for influencer marketing during covid over the last two years.

Influencer marketing at the time of covid has to adapt to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

The first step is changing their strategy.

1- Create a social media brand partnership for health and education

People expect greatness from social media influencers. The more followers they have, the more expectations rise. Influencers should pivot their marketing strategy to focus on influencer culture and social media culture at large, rather than strictly revenue-generating opportunities.

In this case, influencer marketing at the time of covid should pursue new, non-ad-revenue opportunities through brand partnerships to spread health tips and educate people. Social media users will appreciate such efforts, leading to stronger, more trusting relationships with fans.

COVID-19 has significantly impacted marketing activities, spending, jobs, and performance in many sectors. However, the business of influencer and covid 19 marketing has matured enough to know that not everything is about making money; it’s also about building relationships and creating trust. This is why it’s important for influencers to take an educational stance on the pandemic, using their platform to spread awareness.

2- Influencer marketing agencies should help brands and influencers use their social influence to reach out during COVID-19

Coronavirus is a hot topic and currently one of the most searched and followed situations worldwide. This makes it one of the most efficient ways to be heard on social media, especially Instagram. People like to be informed and follow different perspectives on this urgent situation. In fact, influencer marketing agencies have found that social influencers are highly effective in reaching out to promote healthcare tips.

Recent stats show that engagement on social media posts has increased as more consumers spend time in physical isolation. Because people are at home, they’re spending more time on Instagram engaging with posts on the topic of  #coronavirus, #covid19, #covid, #pandemic, and #coronavirusoutbreak.

Influencer marketing agencies can connect brands with the right influencers to achieve the worthwhile goal of generating awareness and being helpful during the pandemic through generating relevant content on COVID 19 marketing.

3- Influencer marketers should take COVID seriously and avoid mistakes while connecting to their audience in

Influencers depend on their audience, which means they must be careful about what they share with fans. It has been seen many times; an influencer makes some big mistake and discredits themselves, effectively destroying their social influence.

Some social media influencers pretend that the pandemic is not happening and continue with their regular Instagram content.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, one huge taboo is when influencers travel and create content. There is a strong belief that sheltering at home and not traveling outside the country is critical. Influencers who decide to post such content risk being seen as careless, tone-deaf, and even dangerous by their followers.

The last tip about coronavirus and influencer marketing, influencers should avoid making jokes and kidding about the coronavirus. It is a serious issue, and jokes may not be taken lightly by followers. Influencers can easily lose the respect of their audience this way.

Brands and influencer marketing during the coronavirus pandemic

75 percent of marketers are taking advantage of influencer marketing to increase their brand awareness. It is undeniable that brands rely on influencer marketing campaigns to drive engagement and boost sales. On the flip side, the Coronavirus pandemic has caused many brands to cut marketing budgets to save money. As a result, social media influencers are losing their income and finding this type of independent job increasingly challenging.

For brands and influencers to survive this pandemic, the key is compromise. They’ll have to work together and potentially sacrifice for the greater good of making it through to the other side.

Brands and influencers can survive this pandemic by working together to create educational campaigns that benefit both parties and fulfill the social responsibility we all have to make it through COVID-19 together. With a little creativity and compromise, coronavirus and influencer marketing can get through this!

Conclusion

In the last two years, businesses and marketers have faced new challenges for their marketing during the pandemic. Brands usually try influencer marketing to increase their awareness and build trust, but influencer marketing at the time of covid has changed. In this article, we showed you the coronavirus and its influencer marketing impact of it. Also, we showed you how to control the impact of coronavirus on influencer marketing and grow your business without stopping.

Cyrus Nambakhsh

Cyrus is a serial entrepreneur, product-led-growth expert, a product visionary who launched 7 startups. He has built scalable platforms to help businesses and entrepreneurs. Contact: Cyrus@ainfluencer.com