CONTACTS
NEWS
DATES
VACANCIES
Date Posted: Friday 22nd March 2019
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.
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%).
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.
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).
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?”
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.
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.
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.
This report delivers insight into how influencer marketing impacts consumers and their shopping behaviours. Through this research, Rakuten Marketing discovered:
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.
If you would like to know more about DIARY directory's industryINFLUENCERS section - please get in touch!
The DIARY directory platform provides fashion, beauty and lifestyle industry news, interviews, dates, vacancies and contacts. Our huge database of contacts includes thousands of digital influencers, media titles (UK and overseas) and their editorial teams, freelance journalists and creatives, PRs and brands and representative agencies. Live and sortable social media stats for entries allow comparative analysis and insight within filtered sections, plus additional engagement metrics for industryINFLUENCERS.
Get in touch to discover how DIARY directory membership would benefit you.