HypeAuditor has released its fourth annual “State of Influencer Marketing” 2023 report, which provides an overview of the latest news from social media platforms most used by marketers (Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube), as well as the predicted trends for the year ahead.
There are three key trends that marketers need to be aware of as they kick off 2023.
Cracking down on fraud
In comparison to 2021, the average percentage of Instagram accounts impacted by fraud has decreased by 12.5 per cent – a concrete result of the platform’s efforts in fighting against dubious practices. This is the fourth consecutive year that this percentage has decreased since 2019.
However, the overall number of influencers impacted by fraud remains high (36.28 per cent). Close to 60 per cent of Mega and Celebrities influencers with over 1 million followers are impacted by fraud making them the largest category to be impacted.
The rise of the Nano Influencer
Nano influencers (with 1,000 to 10,000 followers) is unsurprisingly the largest group and most influential across TikTok and Instagram, which represents great opportunities for marketers to connect authentically with their audiences. On TikTok and Instagram, Nano influencers represent the largest category of all content creators, with 58% in this category on Instagram and 49% on TikTok.
Nano influencers maintain the top spot when it comes to having the strongest connection with their audience, with an Engagement Rate (ER) of 2.78% on Instagram and of 12.6% on TikTok.
Australia ranked seventh, globally, in terms of brands’ reliance of Instagram for their influencer marketing
The 2023 report reveals that Instagram remains crucial for Aussie brands due to its large and active user base, with more than 12 million monthly active users in the market. Australia took the seventh spot globally, ahead of Spain, Germany and Italy, with 646 Aussie brands having over 50 mentions in posts from a minimum of 20 influencers, in the past 90 days alone (from 1st October to 31st December 2022).
The report highlights that in Australia, the most talked about brands on Instagram, in terms of tags, are Kmart with 6,000 mentions, followed by Woolworths (4,600 mentions) and Coles (3,800 mentions).
Alexander Frolov, CEO and co-founder at HypeAuditor, commented: “In 2022, it has become clear that the influencer marketing industry is maturing. Action taken by social media platforms to reduce fraud is having a real impact, and the percentage of accounts impacted by fraud has decreased once again.” He added, “As a result, influencer marketing is being recognised by the majority of marketers as an important tool to connect authentically with their audiences. This will become more important as we face a year of economic challenges which encourage shoppers to tighten their purse strings.”
The concrete impact of influencer marketing to help brands connect with social media users is also echoed by recent findings from Meta which highlight that 87% of Instagram users take a specific action (i.e following a brand, visiting a retail store, or making a purchase) after seeing a post about a product. As a result, 79% of marketing specialists consider this platform as an integral part of their campaigns.
In addition, YouTube is also one of the most engaging platforms, with reports suggesting that six in 10 YouTube subscribers would follow advice on what to buy from their favourite content creators. This is especially true among younger generations who admit relating the most to YouTube influencers, than traditional celebrities. In turn television has a smaller influence on Generation Z, in comparison to other generations”.
For this research, HypeAuditor checked and combined data from 600,000 Instagram influencer accounts, 28,000 TikTok accounts and 32,000 YouTube channels, from HypeAuditor’s internal database.
Data was collected in January 2023 and reflects average metrics for 2022.
