Rakuten Marketing has published its ‘Influencer Marketing Global Survey – Consumers’ to help understand the effect influencers can have on a brand’s success. Rakuten Marketing conducted research with Viga in December 2018 and January 2019, and the survey includes the responses of 3,600 global consumers interviewed across the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, France and Germany. The below content is taken from their report which can be downloaded in full here.

Most Popular Influencer Types for Consumers to Follow

The top three influencer categories for females to follow are beauty (56%), entertainers (48%), and a tie between celebrities and fashion (47%). Men, on the other hand, most commonly follow gaming influencers (54%), followed by influencers covering technology (46%), and then finally entertainer influencers (44%).

Where are Influencers Being Followed, and What are People Watching?

How Are Consumers Finding New Influencers?

Thirty-two percent of those surveyed said that they found a new influencer to follow through a contest or giveaway that invites them to follow the influencer in exchange for a prize. This is an interesting opportunity to create a symbiotic relationship between marketer and influencer. The brand provides the products for the giveaway, while influencer promotes the giveaway with the products. This not only drives an increase in followers for the influencer, but also in the number of people who are now more familiar with the brand and its products.

Brand/Product Discovery and Shopping Inspiration

As many as 41% of consumers across the globe say they find at least one new brand or product from an influencer weekly, and 24% say they do so daily.

Globally, four in five surveyed consumers (80%) said that they made a purchase recommended by an influencer by clicking on the link or image that was shared (81% in the UK).

Consumer’s Purchasing Through Influencers

International Influencers

Influencers seem to be transcending regions, with almost 70% of consumers saying they follow an influencer from a country not their own. A question many marketers will need to ask themselves is not “how will this affect our sales if we’re getting traffic from other countries via influencers” but rather “are we prepared to deliver a borderless shopping experience for international shoppers?”

Do Consumers Avoid Clicking Sponsored Links?

Of those surveyed, 61% said that they will click a sponsored link from an influencer to find out more about the product, while 39% said they would avoid the sponsored link and search for the product elsewhere. By and large, this is positive news for many marketers who carried concerns about whether consumers were deterred by knowing a link or piece of content resulted from a sponsorship – the answer is no, they are not deterred.

When Consumers Distrust or Stop Following Influencers

Consumers are not naïve – they know that influencers are receiving some form of compensation when they work with a brand. However, there is still plenty that marketers and influencers must be aware of regarding the impact of these partnerships. For example, 43% of consumers not only trust the influencer to give an honest review or evaluation of whatever they’re discussing, they appreciate that they have disclosed their relationship with the brand. In the UK, 97% of consumers express they still trust influencers when their relationship with a brand has been disclosed. However, 34% of global consumers feel that they can’t trust a review that’s coming from a sponsored post in some fashion, even if the influencer is trustworthy.

When Consumers Distrust or Stop Following Influencers

With only 3% of consumers stating that a sponsored piece of content would cause them to distrust the influencer and the brand, brands and influencers have little to worry about in losing the trust of their followers or consumers. If anything, this highlights a net positive with recent legislation that influencers must disclose sponsorships and partnerships – influencers can follow their legal obligations without worrying about losing their followers. Sponsored posts or distrust are not the primary reasons why a consumer would stop following an influencer.

CONCLUSION

This report delivers insight into how influencer marketing impacts consumers and their shopping behaviours. Through this research, Rakuten Marketing discovered:

• Consumers still regularly rely on influencers for brand and product discovery
• Consumers often share influencer content with friends and family, continuously growing an influencer’s audience reach, increasing brand awareness for brand partners
• Authenticity and transparency still remain at the heart of successful influencer marketing strategies

Influencers create genuine, long-lasting relationships with consumers, revealing that influencers are indeed still worth a brand’s spend.

DIARY directory launched industryINFLUENCERS earlier this year - a new section allowing DIARY members to access additional social metrics for selected industry contacts, including filtering by countries / UK region and sorting by Instagram engagement.

One of the key advantages of DIARY directory contacts is that they are industry influencers - from editorial staff on print titles, to bloggers, Instagram influencers and freelance creatives working in the industry - including make-up artists, hair stylists, stylists and photographers.  

• Filter contacts by Instagram follower brackets 
• Filter by country, and additionally for UK contacts by region
• Sort your filtered results by number of followers on any of the given social platforms
• Sort your filtered results by average Instagram post engagement percentage and average post engagement number 

If you would like to know more about DIARY directory's industryINFLUENCERS section - please get in touch! 

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