Report from RhythmOne Illuminates Efficacy of Influencer Marketing
As influencer marketing has grown over the last several years, it has proven its power in the digital marketing ecosystem. A recent report aggregating RhythmOne campaign data showed that advertisers who used influencer marketing campaigns in 2017 saw $12.21 in earned media value for every dollar spent.
Katie Paulsen, vice president of influencer marketing at RhythmOne, pointed to the high earned media value as a testament to the investment companies have made in influencer marketing.
“Influencer marketing is no longer the new thing that people are trying to figure out,” she said. “It’s becoming more formal and has advanced over the last three years.”
At RhythmOne, brands spent around $71,000 per campaign on average, up 38.6% from 2016. Likewise, cost-per-engagement declined 74.2% from the previous year, yielding an average of $0.24.
Brands typically use influencer marketing to increase awareness of their products. In RhythmOne’s data set, advertisers that ran influencer campaigns for two or more weeks saw brand mentions increase by nearly 15%, with positive brand sentiment increasing 10% from before the campaign.
One in five influencer marketing campaigns with RhythmOne also made use of Instagram Stories and Snapchat.
“The ‘swipe-up’ feature on Instagram Stories gives the audience or consumer more detail,” Paulsen said. “It adds a click-through opportunity on Instagram.”
The Stories feature also gives audiences an “inside scoop,” by allowing potential customers to watch the influencer speak directly through the story, Paulsen added. Instagram Stories are not created in a silo, and their efficacy can be compounded when they are deployed alongside a larger suite of social media posts and blog posts.
RhythmOne broke down the results of its report by industry as well. Industries like CPG food and retail spent the most on influencer campaigns, taking up 23.8% and 7.9% of market spend, respectively.
“Retail lends itself so well to the content that is being created,” Paulsen said. People on social media often want to know, “What is my favorite influencer wearing?” she added.
Three in four of RhythmOne’s campaigns included a sponsored blog post—a long-form piece of content approved by the brand to promote a product or service. Each campaign that ran a blog post also ran social amplifications, in which the influencer promoted the post across his or her social media accounts.
More than 80% of campaigns also paid to promote content across Facebook or Instagram.
Kate Talerico is a staff writer at Street Fight.
