08 de September de 2020
What are the main challenges that Influencer Marketing (IM) has to tackle at a global level? What about Spain? What challenges and goals does the trend have in cities like Madrid and Barcelona? Without a doubt, influencers represent one of the fastest rising branches of marketing in recent years. Among many other reasons, this is due to the increase in globalization and the impact of technology in all areas of our everyday lives. Nowadays, due to social media, the commercialization paradigm has transformed and influencers have become the new opinion leaders in an increasingly interconnected world.
So, what is the current situation of Influencer Marketing at a global level and in Spain? The Venezuelan lecturer and researcher at EAE Business School, Javier Barazarte-Larré, recently published a report entitled “Influencer Marketing: Main challenges, measuring campaigns and social media” in which he gives an interesting and in-depth overview of the current state of this trend at both a global and Spanish level.
Let’s take a look at the results obtained in the research!
Key challenges of Influencer Marketing
The report highlights that, nowadays, a campaign without influencers is simply unviable. However, the success of a campaign not only depends on the influencer in their own right, but rather on their capacity to represent the brand’s values and essence effectively. Moreover, it is important to choose the right communication channel and have a clear idea of your budget.
As we can see, despite the progress made, Influencer Marketing still faces several challenges. It is a complex trend that depends on many factors. So, what are the main challenges right now?
Types of influencers and their influence on the purchasing decision
According to the report, “the number of followers is no longer relevant for digital marketing professionals”, because it seems that, due to their close connection with the audience, influencers with fewer followers have the power to generate true value for the brand and generate more traffic.
According to Rakuten Marketing (2019), there are 3 main types of influencers:
As the researcher Barazarte-Larré explains, micro-influencers prove to be more effective than the other types and they are therefore more attractive. They tend to be seen as experts in their respective fields and, as such, generate a higher rate of interaction. In contrast, megainfluencers or celebrities are only known for their name and not a specific topic.
Main goals of Influencer Marketing at a global level
Having identified the main challenges and types of influencers, we have to define the goals of Influencer Marketing. Barazarte-Larré explained that “the main objective of an Influencer Marketing program is to increase brand awareness”. Also known as brand recognition, brand awareness measures the extent to which customers recognise or remember a brand. Therefore, it is a crucial indicator for all branding
Favourite Social Network for Influencer Marketing at a global level
So, which is the preferred social network for conducting Influencer Marketing? While many people may think it is Facebook or YouTube, the results of the report reveal that, at a global level, the favourite social media platform for Influencer Marketing right now is actually Instagram. Thanks to applications such as Instagram Stories and Instagram TV, the platform has positioned itself as the leader worldwide.
Main challenges of Influencer Marketing in Spain
At a national level, the challenges of Influencer Marketing vary somewhat, but perhaps not as much as it may first appear. Before analysing them, however, it is important to highlight that, over the last few months, the IM trend has established itself as the brand of marketing with the best return on investment (ROI) compared to other branches such as SEO and Social Ads.
Despite the challenges that exist, the following data, obtained by Socialpubli.com (2019), show the effectiveness and exponential growth in IM compared to its internal competitors.
Although it is now the preferred branch of marketing among Spanish professionals, IM still poses multiple challenges in Spain that still need to be overcome. Let’s find out what they are.
Main goals of Influencer Marketing in Spain
Just like measuring ROI is a challenge at both a global and national level, brand awareness is also a goal shared by professionals in Spain and the rest of the world. However, at a Spanish level, marketers seem to pursue other individual goals with greater vigour, such as generating brand engagement and reaching new target audiences.
Favourite Social Network for Influencer Marketing in Spain
In Spain, Instagram is also the preferred social media platform for this type of marketing. The report reveals that this is primarily due to the “ease that this tool offers opinion leaders, who can post professional images and mini-videos, powerful stories and lives”.
Global projections and trends
In addition, the report includes sections outlining its projections for the IM market over the next few years, as well as the trends that with dominate the field in the future.
Projections:
Trends to use:
While IM may well be subject to various criticisms and an “increasingly well-defines framework of operation” is required to steer the trend, nobody can dispute the fact, now more than ever, especially in times of pandemic, it is essential that brands establish lasting relationships with influencers who are able to generate a sufficient amount quality content.