Influencers are the new catalogs.
And that’s how it should be.
I bought my first product on Instagram today.
It was only a matter of time, right? In 2020 alone, Instagram has expanded in-app shopping to include IGTV, and put the Shop tab in the former place of the Activity tab. Gizmodo dubbed the platform a “ glorified home shopping network,” as influencers of all sizes have embraced its commerce potential.
Buyer’s remorse aside… I think it’s brilliant.
For a long time, we’ve been doing influencers wrong. Marketers have thought of influencers as word-of-mouth channels: a way to build awareness. Early studies suggested that an influencer recommendation could create high memory encoding. As a channel, influencers seemed to have brand-building potential.
Recent years have revealed some flaws in that plan. According to WARC, while people are open to influencer content, 42% say they’re overexposed to branded posts. Reaching enough people through influencers to drive awareness can be prohibitively expensive. Plus, truly achieving a strong memory link through an influencer-brand relationship would require a long-term partnership with the spokesperson: something brands (and influencers) aren’t always willing to commit to.
And so the influencer model is maturing before our eyes. We’re reconsidering their role in the advertising mix, and prioritizing the type of content they create over the size of their following.
I’ll acknowledge that “micro-influencers” — content creators with smaller, but potentially more devoted or niche followings — have been popular for a while. These influencers have a different superpower; smaller networks mean they’re seen as more relatable and credible within their corner of culture. But the clumsy marketer uses them as a low-scale awareness channel. Micro-influencers can’t be expected to succeed with the same content brief you’d give to Kim Kardashian.
Savvier marketers and influencers are thriving at the bottom of the funnel. Some are shifting their pages to operate more like a digital catalog, curating products and offering direct links to buy. In December, many micro-influencers created shoppable gift-guides in their Stories: hubs of specific brands and products that they’d recommend. In October, Shopify partnered with Tik Tok to launch e-commerce features. (When Walmart explored buying the platform, it was rumored that they saw major next-gen shopping potential.)
Influencers are taking on the role of the trusted salesperson on a department store floor. In an increasingly e-comm world that lacks that personal touch, they fill a need. Amazon is enlisting influencers to host product-focused live-streams. Over 40,000 people tuned in when YouTuber Nikita Dragun held a similar event on Instagram.
For marketers, this has huge potential benefits. When an influencer is used as an awareness channel, it’s nearly impossible to measure success. Sure, sales went up — but whose post drove that lift? Did posts even drive it at all?
When an influencer’s post is a shoppable catalog, it’s much easier to answer these questions. The last-click attribution potential of a lower-funnel approach to influencer marketing can help marketers better demonstrate short-term effectiveness.
Beyond that, this trend is more transparent about the nature of the partnership between brands and influencers. As influencers mature as a marketer channel, we may see that their followers become more willing to engage with brands in an explicitly commercial capacity, not through ads thinly-veiled as recommendations.
Not all influencers are a good fit for brand-building — but they’re filling a void left by in-person retail and becoming one of the most precise sales activation channels available today. It’s an exciting time to think about influencers, and perhaps re-think where they belong in the marketing mix.
