Influencer Marketing Doesn’t End With the Post: Key Takeaways From the Future of Influence

We rounded up the latest creator economy trends in our fourth iteration of our Influencer Marketing Trends Report. 

But we didn't stop there—not without telling you how to apply these insights to your strategic program decisions. 

That's why we invited a few of the industry’s leading voices to talk about the future of influencer marketing. 

Brit Starr, CreatorIQ's Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing, sat down with Grace Niu, Brand Engagement and Influencer Marketing Manager at Quest Nutrition, and Riley Cronin, President and Co-founder of ZeroTo1, for a webinar titled Future of Influence: The Top Creator Marketing Trends for 2024.

Read on for key takeaways from the discussion, or listen to the full webinar.

Influencer Programs, but Make It Multi-dimensional

Creator marketing isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, though we often talk about it that way. Instead, it involves a blend of strategies that cater to specific brand goals, whether that’s focusing on brand awareness at the top of the funnel or driving sales at the bottom. 

Influencer marketing no longer ends with the post. It really starts with the post. Creator content is being used in more places for more things. We're seeing creators move to the center of the marketing stack, with creators as commerce partners, creators as content partners, creators as creative partners, and creators as media partners.

Brit Starr, CreatorIQ

A multi-dimensional approach takes this versatility into account, leveraging creators across sponsored digital ads, affiliate, and paid social. A pro-tip from Riley at ZeroTo1 is that you can leverage organic social insights to create a pipeline of content to repurpose across paid social.

How influencer affiliate works is that it recruits influencers at scale who are creating content for you on a performance basis. You're working with them to build an ownable community that drives a sizable amount of high margin revenue for your company...it starts with sponsored content and doing that at scale. You're talking about having hundreds or even thousands of influencers creating content for your company on a monthly basis. It's a powerful thing. You've got the EMV, the awareness, and just being able to reach that audience on borrowed trust and influence by partnering with these influencers.

Riley Cronin, Zeroto1

Meanwhile, Quest Nutrition was more focused on user-generated content and whitelisting as its preferred impactful marketing strategies. 

UGC does perform a lot better than just the static ads.

Grace Niu, Quest Nutrition

To build out your influencer-driven creative, Grace recommended the following steps:

1. Assemble a list of target creators
2. Email them with monthly challenges
3. Identify the creators with high-quality content 
4. Invest more in high-performing creators with concentrated partnerships

This multifaceted approach is essential to leverage the full potential of each creator, even those who may not have as many followers. 

Social Media Platform Trends

According to respondents of our 2024 Influencer Marketing Trends Report, Instagram was the most integral platform for 62% of organizations. This means that in 2023, Instagram was the platform of choice for the majority of brands practicing creator marketing. 

However, TikTok is rapidly closing the gap: the short-form video service ranked as the primary platform for 28% of brand respondents. Further, according to CreatorIQ's campaign data, the use of TikTok is growing at a rate of over 200% YoY. 

Riley shared that Instagram is central to ZeroTo1, in part because of the platform’s focus on story:

When it comes to building a performance channel, you want to have the least amount of friction possible for the end consumer. When they are consuming content, you want to be able to capitalize on their intention to buy your product or have an interest in your product. So with Instagram, and Instagram Stories in particular, it enables that process the most seamlessly. And then when it comes to budget, we find that Instagram Stories content is going to be the cheapest content placement type for the most consistent return.

Riley Cronin, ZeroTo1

In order to secure a high engagement rate, marketers should balance the potential for virality embedded with Instagram Reels and TikTok with consistent content types like Instagram Stories.

Quest Nutrition focuses on the top of the funnel, compared to ZeroTo1's lower-funnel approach, so the two brands’ social media strategies differ accordingly.

Between TikTok and Instagram, the use case is a little different. With TikTok, people want to be entertained more, right? So they're scrolling, they want content that captures them...Whereas Instagram, you might go there for a deeper look at something. I get tricked all the time. Every time I go on Instagram, I end up buying something.

Grace Niu, Quest Nutrition

The panelists expanded beyond the usual TikTok vs. Instagram debate by noting that YouTube’s long-form content is better for category leaders in a high-competition space. This content’s searchability creates an unmatched opportunity for long-tail gains. 

The panelists have also noticed more creators using Snapchat, though the jury is out on whether this trend is enough to be called a full resurgence. 

Ultimately, all our panelists agreed that a brand’s choice of platform largely depends on its goals, budget, and the preferences of its target audience.

Navigating Challenges and Setting Realistic Expectations

There are only so many hours in a day, and there's only so much energy you have to dedicate, especially when you're wearing multiple hats and having to juggle.

Grace Niu, Quest Nutrition

Despite the growth of the creator economy and YoY gains in investment, the webinar didn't shy away from addressing challenges. Resource constraints, budget limitations, and measuring influencer performance remained roadblocks. 

Riley mentioned that iOS 14.5 has created obstacles to paid social. Additionally, customer acquisition costs have risen YoY. He advises brands to diversify their channels and build out their owned channels versus relying on rent-to-own channels. Brands might also focus on building an owned community of creators.

There's difficulty measuring influence performance because I think that really goes down to what your leadership is looking for, what's important to them. Because if ROAS is important to them, then you have to report things differently. If impressions are important to them, then there are different ways to get there through boosting.

Grace Niu, Quest Nutrition

The Evolution of Influencer Marketing YoY

For every 21 ads that we produce, 15 are creator-driven. So 71% of the ads that we develop for our clients are creator-driven. That doesn't mean that 71% of the total ads that they're running are creator driven. I'd say, for most of them, and it varies per client and industry, it's closer to 50/50, but it's still a dramatic swing. Just about every brand that we talk to or work with is testing UGC creative or influencer-driven creative. And there's less teeth-pulling to get them to see influencer marketing outside of that one-dimensional lens. They see that, hey, you already have these influencers, you already have this content, you need to test that content on the paid side. It is really cool to see how that's kind of transitioned over just the past year.

Riley Cronin, ZeroTo1

For more on commission structures, how to incentivize creators, and how influencer marketing can operate as a performance channel, check out the full webinar here.