We are stepping into the last few weeks of 2022.
Are you ready for 2023? What is the new opportunities in 2023 for influencer marketing?
Like many other segments in the marketing industry, the changes in influencer marketing are driven by a combination of sophisticated marketing technology advancement and ever-evolving consumer needs and wants.
So what’s next for influencer marketing in 2023?
Here are 5 key influencer marketing trends for 2023 that businesses should be looking at:
5 Key Influencer Marketing Trends for 2023:
#1 The Rise of Virtual Creators and Influencers
The trend of using virtual influencers is not new, we can trace it all the way to 2018 with the so-called “virtual influencers” like Miquela and Shudu. Before that, Lu Do Magalu has already made it first debut and she is currently the No.1 virtual influencer in terms of number of followers on Instagram.
With the maturity of technology, virtual influencers use cases are likely to increase in 2023, with more brands wanting to explore creating a character that can carry out their brands stories. As the creative team behind the virtual influencers has total control over the content created for the brands, using virtual influencers can be a lot less risky, as the content can be designed to perfectly match a given brief.
# 2 The Rise of Community Influencers
As the online advertising fees, interest rates and inflation soar, many brand owners are searching for alternative ways to do marketing. One of these alternative ways is community influencer marketing.
Who are community influencers?
Community influencers come from all walks of life, and build their followings through shared passions and authentic connections within a niche community. They are brand fans, knowledgeable and avid product users, and the go-to-person within niche communities. Most importantly, community influencers are powerful advocates for the brands and strong supporters of products they love.
#3 The Rise of Relational Influencer Marketing
In the last few years, we saw the trends of influencer marketing campaigns shift from transactional to relational. We believe that in 2023, more brands will jump on the bandwagon and start working on building relationship with influencers. Brands see the importance of recruiting ambassadors and residential influencers from their existing customer base.
Brands now realise that they need to set long term community marketing goals and power up programmes to engage brand ambassador and affiliates. As these programmes progress, they will examine how successful their influencers are at meeting their campaign goals.
#4 The Rise of Creator Management
An end-to-end Creator Relationship Management (CRM) or Influencer Relationship Management solution such as StarNgage Pro would help in measuring the campaign performance and encourage brands to place a greater focus on driving on-going brands engagement and exposure. Ultimately, genuine engagement will lead to higher revenue for the brands and advertisers.
#5 The Rise of Community Commerce
It is no doubt that customer experience will continue to be a top priority in 2023 and community commerce can be a perfect strategy as part of the long term strategy. It can offer an opportunity to satisfy both revenue and customer satisfaction goals with an established community.
What is community commerce?
According to a recent study by WARC, Publicis and TikTok, community commerce "specifically speaks to the notion of entertaining, compelling content that just happens to feature brands," and this content is generally on social media platforms. Indeed, 70% of consumers say they have been driven to make a purchase on social media even when they weren't looking to buy something. However, both of these descriptions leave "community" out of the equation.
Conclusion
Many predict that 2023 is going to be a year which would focus more on growing authentic relationship with creators, influencers, advocates, ambassadors and affiliates.
This is only the beginning of "Community Influencer marketing".
What are you seeing as the biggest trends for influencer marketing next year? Are you also planning to incorporate influencer marketing into your 2023 marketing plan?
We would love to know how you do it. Share with us in the comments.
