The influencer marketing industry seems to take a huge beating every once in a while and it’s usually sparked by a controversy surrounding an influencer.
Despite the industry’s general bad image, businesses hardly care about what the public think of influencers; they are more concerned if influencer marketing is effective.
But here to put the marketing channel’s effectiveness in question is InfluencerDB. Its widely-discussed influencer marketing benchmark report is introducing some cracks on the polished veneer of Instagram influencers, shedding a little light on what seems to be the beginning of a decline in the industry.
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Like-follower ratio by verticals
The like-follower ratio (LFR) benchmarks has seen a sharp decrease over the past year across all verticals that are measured.
- Even though it has the highest LFR in both years, travel fell the most from 8.0% in 2018 to 4.5% in 2019.
- Food fell by the same margin as travel, from 6.7% in 2018 to 3.2% in 2019.
- At 3.2%, beauty has the lowest LFR in 2019, sharing the spot with food.
- Sports and fitness fell the least, dropping 1.5% from 5.2% in 2018 to 3.7% in 2019.
Based on the decline in LFR, InfluencerDB also raises the possibility that “the ‘gold rush’ of influencer marketing is over”.
Like-follower ratio by account size
The company also observed that LFR seems to plateau after a certain number of followers.
- LFR for accounts with 1k-5k followers is the highest at 8.8%, followed by 5k-10k at 6.3%
- Beyond 10k followers, however, the LFR hovers between 3.4% and 3.8%.
This seems to indicate that size doesn’t matter. In fact, the smaller, the better.
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Sponsored vs non-sponsored post engagement
Engagement is on a general decline across the board.
- Sponsored posts generally performed better than non-sponsored posts.
- Since 2016, global sponsored post engagement fell from about 4.6% to 2.4% in 2019.
- Over the same period, global non-sponsored post engagement fell from about 4.0% to 1.9%.
- In Singapore, sponsored post engagement fell from about 4.2% in 2016 to 1.9% in 2019.
- Over the same period, non-sponsored post engagement in Singapore fell from about 3.9% to 1.7% in 2019.
InfluencerDB recommendations
- Advertisers need to be more discerning about who they choose to work with. Consider all available data and the quality of work of the influencer.
- Influencers with 1k-5k followers yield the best engagement.
- The shift towards nano-influencers means that influencer marketing is now more affordable to small businesses.
For more details, download a copy of the report.
This article first appeared on SBO.sg under the title “Are Instagram Influencers Losing Their Influence?“