15 Best influencer marketing trends in 2022

You’ve come to the right place if you want to know what influencer marketing trends 2022 will bring your way. Influencer marketing is already huge, and it’ll continue to grow. Every year, new social media platforms, content types, and ways for brands to communicate with potential customers emerge. The best influencers keep up with the latest trends so they can provide brands with the tools they need to succeed.

Because the social media landscape is constantly evolving, it’s critical that influencers take advantage of the latest influencer marketing trends as soon as possible to develop their authority and expertise, and be more appealing to companies. Brands, for their part, will want to take advantage of these influencer marketing trends in order to grow their audience, generate new leads, and increase revenue.

In this article, we have reviewed the top 15 trends in the field of influencer marketing:

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on using key individuals, called influencers, to drive a message to a larger market. These influencers can be from celebrities to bloggers to regular people with large social media followings. Many brands now use influencer marketing as a way to reach new customers and promote their products or services.

Rather than relying on traditional advertising methods, such as TV or radio commercials, influencer marketing uses users having an audience in a specific market to promote and sell products or services. Because these influencers have already built trust and credibility with their followers, they are often more effective at getting the message across than traditional advertising methods.

Using trend influencer marketing methods is one of the best ways for you to build and increase your brand awareness. In the following, we’ll introduce you to the top 15 influencer marketing trends to enhance your business strategy. 

Top 15 Influencer marketing trends

In recent years, the popularity of influencer marketing has skyrocketed. Celebrities and everyday people alike use their social media platforms to promote brands and products. And as the industry continues to grow, so do the trends. Here are the top 15 influencer marketing trends to watch in 2022:

1. Increase the emphasis on influencer marketing

Today, more brands than ever before are using the influencer marketing model. The truth is that traditional TV advertising and classic marketing methods no longer have the result that brands expect. For this reason, brands are more inclined to invest in the environments of interest to their audience. No other environment is as appealing to modern audiences as social media.

The main benefit of influencer marketing is that more social media users trust people instead of brands. In any case, if we do not trust them, we will not follow their account.

2. Local and micro influence as a trend

As one of the best influencer marketing trends in the last few years shows, in the field of influencer marketing, the big ones are not always the most successful. That’s why many brands rely on influencers on a small, local scale. If we want to define micro influencers, we have to refer to personal accounts with less than 10,000 followers. The main advantage of such a group of people is the ability to influence more people.

The level of interaction and the level of relationships between micro influencers is much higher compared to the big giants in this field. In any case, you have a better chance of knowing your 5,000 followers accurately than 2 million followers. Thus, celebrities and influencers, although they have high followers, their influence is very limited.

3. Focus on Instagram Story

Influencer marketing is at the core of the story. The best influencer marketing campaigns are created when a brand works with an influencer to create an engaging and profound story. Undoubtedly, interesting stories attract the attention of the audience and encourage them to buy our products more than ever. 

In order to attract the audience and try to sell products, just one story and a few side photos are not enough, but we must produce attractive content that is in line with the taste of our audience. This is why most big brands do a little study on the interests of their audience when producing content for their campaign.

4. Rapid development of video and live content on social networks

Most of us have a laid-back attitude when it comes to painting a picture of ourselves. However, we are all interested in entertainment. That’s why video marketing is evolving day by day. Interestingly, video content now accounts for two-thirds of international traffic, with a significant difference.

Video content conveys more charm and joy to the audience while watching. That’s why most influencers are focused on using it in their content production. Official statistics also show that video is more effective than image or text.

Meanwhile, brands, as the main investors in the marketing stream, have become more willing to work with influencers focused on video production. In addition, online video recording has become very popular.

The main reason for this is the possibility of talking live and directly with our loved ones on social networks. The most viewed live videos on Instagram are related to celebrities. However, the small number of views of influencer live videos should not mislead us. 

In terms of sales, micro influencers perform much better than others. The key to success in performing live videos is to add attractive elements to them. Therefore, never ignore controversial questions from users. Answering such questions will increase the motivation of users to watch your videos.

5. Rules in advertising

Recently, with the development of brands investing in social networks, the rules of advertising in many of them have become stricter. The Federal Trade Commission has sent a message to influencers and marketers calling for transparency in their relationship with brands.

For many people, the reason for being strict about advertising is very vague. However, if we look at the advertising laws of the countries, the reason for this strictness will become clear. When countries have specific rules for advertising, the lack of rules for social media will confuse them. 

The general rules for managing online advertising have been explained globally. If you are careful, advertising posts on Instagram have a special brand for advertising. This happened shortly after protesting against the advertising rules of this platform. 

If your brand is also looking to work with influencers, you need to be specific about your relationship with them. Otherwise, social networks will react negatively to your actions.

6. The need to use influencer marketing platforms

Influencer marketing platforms provide a way for businesses to connect with influential people and promote their products or services through those people’s social media channels. These platforms allow businesses to find and connect with influencers in specific niches, who can then endorse or promote the company’s products or services on their social media channels. This strategy can help businesses reach a wider audience and increase brand awareness.

Ainfluencer is one the free Instagram marketing platforms that acts as a middleman in the influencer marketing campaign and lets you either sign up as a brand to find and invite your target influencer or as an influencer to make offers for brands to collaborate with. 

7. Honesty and credibility of influencers as a principle

Users on social media react very badly to fake news and content. Until a few years ago, many small sites and brands were publishing fake content to attract users. Although this brought them more audiences in the short term, it soon wiped them out of the business arena.

The model of influencer marketing as a credible branch in the field of marketing will be effective only if the influencers are honest and their content is credible.

In order to increase the credibility of the campaign, many brands are looking for influencers who are using their products normally. 

In this way, their marketing process will be much more natural. When a brand starts working with an influencer, the person in question, instead of starting to use the products of that brand, only describes its quality and features. The main reason is to use the product for a long time. Undoubtedly, this has a very high impact on the acceptance of our marketing message by the audience.

8. The riddle of fake followers

Another tip in our influencer marketing trends list is noticing the fake followers of the influencer you want to collaborate with.In influencer marketing, the most important problem is unreal followers. In this way, people are trying to attract brands by using fake followers. If your brand falls into the trap of such profiteers, only your budget will be wasted. There is no doubt that fake followers should not be expected to buy or pay more attention to our brand.

An interesting way to understand the authenticity of account followers is to take a brief look at their list of followers. Accordingly, when most of the followers of an account do not have a photo with strange names, that account is considered unrealistic and profiteering.

9. Increase impact with VR

Thanks to the development of technology, we are all now familiar with the concept of virtual reality. However, we have heard less about the use of this technology in the field of advertising and marketing. The trend of virtual reality marketing after the creation of the first virtual reality girl in order to respond to the users of the brands’ site became popular. 

A creative marketing idea is to produce a virtual version of real characters. Based on this, a Japanese brand has started to make a virtual sample of one of the famous models of this country. Although this is still being tested, it will enter a new phase by exploiting that field of virtual reality and its connection to the business world.

10. Instagram platform

The main reason for Instagram uniqueness is the simple user interface as well as the optimal support for video content. However, the popularity of Instagram should not deprive us of the importance of other platforms. The important thing for brands is the presence of a large number of influencers on these platforms. So we have to take a look at them.

By far, Facebook, Pinterest, and SnapChat are also growing. In the field of influencer marketing, the number of influencers on these platforms is much less. However, the range of their users, especially for Facebook, is very high. 

11- Use live shopping tools in your influencer marketing campaigns

Online shopping has become very popular during the 2019=2021 pandemic, which will continue until 2022. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon have all developed online shopping tools and partnerships. So it can be a new trend influencer marketing strategy to ask your business influencers to promote your online shop and products. 

12- Focus on new social media platforms

As social media platforms become more popular, businesses are looking to reach new customers. While Facebook and Twitter remain the most popular platforms, companies should also focus on newer platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and Pinterest for influencers opportunities. 

These platforms offer unique options for businesses to reach new customers. For example, Snapchat provides a “stories” feature that allows companies to share short videos with their followers. Instagram allows businesses to post photos and videos that followers can share. Also, these platforms are one of the best options for your influencer marketing campaigns. 

13- Keep an eye on your influencer generated content 

Brands need to work with their niche influencers whose audiences overlap with theirs. This means if they want to receive a high engagement from their influencer marketing campaigns, they need to be careful about choosing the right ones. 

Also, keep an eye on the authenticity of the content they are sharing to build trust for your brand. 

14- Your customers can become your brand influencers

Your customers are the best people to help promote your brand. They are already familiar with your product and what it can do for them, so they make natural brand ambassadors. Not only will they be more likely to recommend your product to others, but they can also influence others’ purchasing decisions. 

To make the most of your customers’ influence, you need to engage them and give them a voice. Let them know that their opinion matters, and reward them for their involvement. Fashion Nova was one of the first brands that used this trend influencer marketing strategy. 

15- Use familiar audio, music, and TV shows to connect your audience

Using famous and trending songs is the final tip for influencer marketing trends that can help you reach a wider audience. Content creators and advertisers are starting to use trending music and audio clips between TikTok, Instagram, and Spotify to get the audience’s attention. In your next influencer marketing campaigns, ask your influencers and advertisers to use these audios to reach younger buyers. 

Conclusion

In recent years, influencer marketing and working with trend influencers have experienced unprecedented growth. Nowadays, brands and businesses of all sizes are working with social media influencers to reach more audiences and increase brand awareness. This article introduces you to the top 15 influencer marketing trends to use in your influencer marketing campaigns and boost your reach. Also, we introduced you to the best Influencer marketing platform, Ainfluencer, which allows you to find and collaborate with your niche influencers for free.