Five new trends in influencer marketing in 2024

With the rise of social media, influencer marketing has become an important marketing method. The golden age of influencer marketing has arrived. How can brands grasp the trend?

Since the rise of social media, influencer marketing has become an important marketing method. In the era of Weibo and WeChat, they were called KOLs. In the era of short videos, influencers became the mainstream name in the industry for the first time and formed the most important force in brand marketing.

Starting from the rise of TikTok in 2018, influencer marketing has been around for about 5 years. So has influencer marketing reached its peak? Far from it. According to the data of Juliangxingtu, in 2023, the number of influencers who can accept orders increased by 137% year-on-year, and the growth rate of the number of orders received reached 142%. It can be seen that the marketing ecosystem based on influencers is still thriving.

I believe that the golden age of influencer marketing has just begun. However, after five years, some new trends have emerged in influencer marketing. These trends will be what brand marketing needs to study and pay attention to.

1. New Trends in Influencer Marketing

1. The rise of micro-influencers, forming a stable ecosystem

In the influencer marketing trend in recent years, the rise of micro-influencers marks an important shift. Unlike top influencers with a huge number of fans, micro-influencers usually have a small number of fans, but they are favored by brands for their authenticity, credibility and close fan relationships.

The most effective way of marketing is word-of-mouth marketing. In the traditional era, micro-influencers are our relatives, friends, classmates, neighbors... Although the number of people they influence is limited, their influence is real and effective.

In the era of social marketing, micro-influencers exist in large numbers among the middle and lower levels of the platform and vertical influencers. Most of their followers are close friends, classmates or partners. When they post a recommended content, these fans will pay close attention and be influenced.

In the past few years, when some brands were doing grass-roots marketing on Douyin, they did not choose top influencers, but instead chose dozens or hundreds of KOCs or mid- and low-end influencers. This type of marketing took into account the authenticity and credibility of micro-influencers.

Nowadays, more and more brands are working with micro-influencers, especially for those brands seeking precise positioning or creating deep engagement, micro-influencers have become indispensable partners.

In such an environment, influencer marketing is transforming from a single top influencer-dominated model to a more diverse and balanced ecosystem, gradually forming a healthier olive-shaped influencer ecosystem.

2. Niche markets are experiencing a boom in vertical influencer marketing

I once heard a story from a friend about a self-employed piano teacher who, in his spare time, obtained clues by teaching people piano techniques on Douyin, and then successfully recruited new students through offline contacts. In fact, professionals in various fields can become experts in their vertical fields in this way.

This is also true. Practitioners in specific fields such as teachers, real estate consultants, organizers, etc. are accelerating their entry into the ecosystem and participating in talent marketing. These vertical talents are not only content creators, but also experts in their respective fields. They attract a group of specific audiences through their professional knowledge and practical experience.

For example, some vertical experts and 4S store salesmen who are very knowledgeable about cars can use live broadcasts to introduce the selling points and promotional information of a certain model, attracting interested users to watch, thereby helping car brands obtain leads.

There is such an example on Douyin, where a certain brand finds hundreds of such KOCs to conduct live broadcasts, and each live broadcast can bring in dozens or even hundreds of leads on average. For such vertical creators, they themselves do not have many fans, but through this marketing method, they can earn up to several thousand yuan a day.

3. The link between product and effect is shortened

In the traditional marketing model, consumers usually need to go through a long path from learning about a product to finally purchasing it. This process often involves multiple platforms and steps, such as from content exposure on social media to purchase on e-commerce platforms. In this model, brand exposure and effect conversion are often separated.

Now, this model is changing. Take Douyin as an example. The influencer marketing on the Douyin platform is achieving a rapid conversion from content exposure to user purchases. This is due to the various functions integrated on Douyin, such as matching video anchors of different industries and product categories, and post-view search. These functions allow users to directly search for related products or purchase directly through links while watching influencer content, greatly shortening the decision-making path.

For example, when a mother and baby expert shares parenting tips and recommends a milk powder on Douyin, users can directly link to related products through the video anchor. After watching the video and becoming interested, viewers can directly click on the link to browse and purchase without leaving the platform. Similarly, through the post-view search function, users can directly search for brand or product information after watching the content, learn more about the product details and complete the purchase.

This integrated marketing model not only improves consumers' shopping experience, but also creates a more direct and efficient conversion path for brands. It reduces users' jumping between different platforms and reduces the obstacles to purchasing decisions. It can be foreseen that further shortening the product-effect link will become an important development direction in the field of influencer marketing.

4. Intelligent and scientific marketing of influencers

In the early days, influencer marketing often relied on manual operations, including manually searching for suitable influencers, communicating cooperation details, etc. The measurement criteria for early influencer marketing were also relatively subjective, lacking scientificity and accuracy.

This is all changing with the introduction of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

Most platforms have launched tools to connect brands and influencers today. With these tools, brands can automatically match suitable influencers according to their marketing goals, including locating target audiences through data analysis, predicting content trends, and automatically recommending suitable influencers. For example, Big Data Cloud provides brands with data analysis and insights to help them understand consumer behavior and trends. This information can be used to guide brands' strategies in selecting influencers to work with, ensuring that marketing activities are more targeted and effective.

In terms of effect measurement, marketing science is becoming easier and easier to achieve today. Because the platform provides pre-investment data insight tools, post-investment conversion links and all relevant data, it is becoming easier and easier for brands to measure from early data research-driven decision-making, mid-term content strategy scientificization to late-stage marketing effect quantification and optimization.

5. From spontaneous marketing to co-created marketing with platforms

In the marketing industry, many marketers like to work blindly and do not pay attention to the dynamics of some large platforms. In essence, they are still working with traditional marketing thinking. When you pay attention to the dynamics of the platform, you will find that the platform is leading some marketing activities almost every month. Their purpose is to get more brands to participate. In this process, the platform often tilts policies and traffic. People who are good at taking advantage of platform activities can enjoy extra dividends.

The essence of brand participation in platform activities is hot spot logic. When brands leverage hot spot marketing, it is to gain the hot spot's inclination in user emotions and platform traffic. Platform activities are actually the platform itself creating hot spots. The platform needs more brands to participate in order to expand the hot spots, and brands should also participate to gain the potential energy of the hot spots.

Under the logic of e-commerce, brands that want good business will definitely participate in big promotions. Under the logic of marketing, brands that want good results should also consider participating in the platform's marketing activities. The same principle applies.

2. Under the new trend, how can brands do influencer marketing well?

When new trends come, brands must adapt to them and change their marketing strategies. So how should brands do marketing well in the new situation? Here are some of my suggestions.

1. Break through the head effect and tap into the value of top, mid and tail talents

When brands are doing marketing, they often have a mindset that if they have a budget, they will find a top KOL to do it. The problem with this mindset is that it is very risky. Once the marketing is not done well, at least half of the budget will be wasted. This is essentially a gamble.

Under the new trend of influencer marketing, brands should break through the single-minded thinking of over-reliance on top influencers and instead dig deeper into the value of mid- and low-end influencers. Although this diversified strategy is unlikely to make a brand a hit overnight, steady and long-term management can accumulate brand assets and also allow quantitative changes to lead to qualitative changes.

At last week’s Juleliang Xingtu Talent Festival, Douyin divided talents into four categories. There is no need to say much about the top talents who meet the needs of brands breaking the circle. Here we will talk about the other three categories of talents.

Mid-level influencers: These influencers are better at “planting grass” and their audiences tend to be more focused and loyal, so their recommendations are more likely to gain trust.

For example, Luckin's sauce-flavored latte was spread through the matrix of mid-level influencers, and it topped 43 hot lists on Douyin on the same day. The related content was played 1 billion times. On Douyin, one cup of sauce-flavored latte was sold for every 7 interactions on the related short video, setting a new record for the most popular single product.

Vertical experts: They focus on specific vertical fields, such as food, health, travel, etc. They have high professionalism and influence in their fields and can effectively drive conversions.

For example, the "Only Dream of Red Mansions·Drama Fantasy City" scenic spot in Langfang, Hebei, successfully attracted high-spending people in the surrounding area and achieved effective conversion by cooperating with vertical experts in the cultural and tourism fields.

Emerging influencers: These emerging influencers are still growing, but they are usually more dynamic and creative, and can bring fresh perspectives and content to brands.

Their content may not have high traffic in the short term, but it is of relatively high quality. If brands are good at using their materials, they may be able to achieve large-scale dissemination with small costs.

In view of the value of different types of influencers, Julebao Star Map has also launched the "Influencer PLUS" solution. From a brand perspective, it can help merchants achieve more certain marketing and measurement methods. From the influencer perspective, it provides influencers with more suitable growth and monetization paths. During the entire marketing process, the platform provides a more efficient link between the two, thereby improving matchmaking efficiency.

Therefore, under the new circumstances, brand marketing does not need to focus on the top. Making good use of the value of mid-level and low-level influencers can also bring value to the brand.

2. Break through the pure exposure mentality and integrate tracking and marketing

Most traditional marketing only pursues brand exposure, but as mentioned above, under the new trend of influencer marketing, the link from brand exposure to effect conversion is extremely shortened, so marketers should pursue integrated marketing.

For example, the full-link solution of "Star Push and Search Direct" of Jueliang Star Map, through the cooperation with Jueliang Star Map experts, first obtains high-quality content, and then exposes and amplifies the high-quality content through content hot promotion, DOU+, etc., and then combines it with the search product special, and then completes the conversion in the live broadcast room.

In the middle of this year, Honor released a new tablet, Magic pad13. Honor's marketing strategy is to achieve integrated planting and harvesting through exposure through influencers.

Honor first cooperated with a large number of Star Map experts, selected top experts and vertical circle experts, and delivered the core selling points of office products through the content interpretation of technology, evaluation, drama and workplace experts.

Then, by embedding product links and search keywords in the content, the audience was guided to further explore product information and complete "search after viewing". Through star promotion and search traffic, the search PV increased by 341% in more than a month.

Finally, Honor has taken over the traffic by setting up search product specialties and Douyin live broadcast rooms, which has driven the positive growth of live broadcast room search GPM and GMV and further improved conversion effects.

3. Break through the independent operational thinking and leverage the platform IP and traffic

There are more and more brand collaborations this year, such as Luckin Coffee collaborating with Moutai, Heytea collaborating with Fendi... Because it is becoming increasingly difficult to create momentum, more and more brands are learning to take advantage of the momentum.

Brands cooperate with influencers to build IP together with the platform, or participate in the platform IP activities, and leverage traffic, which is much more efficient than going it alone. The IP creation project launched by Juliang Xingtu helps brands customize topics and achieve hot spots, which is to market together with brands and influencers.

For example, this year, Juliang Star Map and outdoor clothing brand clients jointly created #在玩一种很全新室内讨论銷銷. Specifically, Juliang Star Map linked up with Juliang Suanshu to predict content trends in advance, and then called on influencers to publish relevant content, such as outdoor equipment displays and outdoor activity experience sharing, to stimulate users' interest in outdoor lifestyles. Among them, the sub-topic #人在城市心在野 rushed to the top 5 of the hot list.

This event proves that through in-depth cooperation with platforms and influencers, brands can effectively leverage the platform's traffic and IP to achieve higher marketing efficiency.

3. Conclusion

2023 is already entering the end of the year. The five trends in influencer marketing mentioned above: the rise of micro-influencers, the craze for vertical influencer marketing, the extreme shortening of the product-effect link, co-creation of marketing with platforms, and scientific marketing, will also run through influencer marketing in 2024.

Therefore, it is a compulsory course for every brand to follow the evolution of the marketing ecology of influencers and constantly improve and practice their own marketing methods.

Author: Xunkong

WeChat Official Account: Xunkong’s Marketing Revelation