A new report from AI analytics platform HypeAuditor has tipped Instagram influencer marketing to grow 15 per cent in 2021 to become a $US5.8 billion ($7.4 billion) industry this year.
With more than 80 per cent of Instagram’s users aged 34 or younger, the platform is ripe for brands and marketers looking to find an engaged audience.
The continued growth of the influencer market has come despite a global pandemic.
According to HypeAuditor CEO and co-founder Alex Frolov, these influencers were able to navigate these changes and continue to engage with customers in creative ways.
“Unsurprisingly, 2020 was an extraordinary year in every sense, and the digital and social landscape continues to evolve so fast that it can be hard for even the most progressive brands to stay abreast of all changes,” said Frolov.
“The global pandemic offered unprecedented opportunities for influencer collaborations, who uniquely leveraged their platforms to drive awareness for social justice and political campaigns, and our new report reveals that whether they drove these conversations or sidestepped them, only the savviest influencers knew how to monetise them effectively.”
Local tourism gets a boost
And while the influencer marketing industry continues to boom at a global level, locally, influencers are helping drive the revival of the tourism sector.
According to the report, tree of the Top 10 most tagged and talked about brands on Instagram in Q1 2021 include ‘sydney’, ‘visitnsw’ and ‘tasmania’ official accounts.
Between January and March alone, there have been 329 Instagram posts that tagged @Sydney generating an estimated reach of 4M people, 437 tagged posts of @visitnsw reaching 3.6M people and 181 of @tasmania reaching 3.3M people.
Frolov said the data suggests Australia’s love to travel is now focused on domestic tourism opportunities and could soon extend to New Zealand.
“Australians are known globally for their love of travel and they are very fortunate to be able to go back to doing what they enjoy, which is travelling. In Q1, our analysis of influencer accounts has reflected Aussies’ state of wanderlust with a total of 947 social media posts by 390 influencers pertaining to travel, discovery and experiences, reaching close to 11M people,” Frolov said.
“With the Trans-Tasman travel bubble between New Zealand and Australia operational since April 19, we expect official Instagram accounts such as @newzealand and @australia to make it into the Top 10 most tagged and talked about brands in Q2. This is an opportunity not to be missed by travel brands for influencer collaborations, to fuel the travel boom between the two countries as well as interstate.”
