With influencer marketing seeing an increased state of exponential growth, many corporations are working hard to uncover the true potential of this industry. Meltwater has published a report that details how influencer marketing has supported the growth of many popular brands during the Coronavirus pandemic. Netinfluencer has everything you need to know about the State of Influencer Marketing Report by Meltwater.

Who Conducted the Survey?

The findings from the State of Influencer Marketing Report were collected by Meltwater, a media monitoring, and social listening platform. Meltwater is best known for its work with iconic brands such as Google and H&M. They were also mentioned in a CBS documentary series called Global Thought Leaders which showed how Meltwater is working to better combine PR and marketing in the modern world.

Survey Methodology 

This report explores how brands from around the world were using influencer marketing between 2020 and 2021, with a sharper focus on the effects of the pandemic. Meltwater aimed to unpack how modern consumers feel about brands and whether influencers can help to better manage their overall marketing strategies.

The findings were sourced using Meltwater’s own software, particularly their media monitoring and consumer insight tools. They also used Klear’s AI pricing technology to assess pay rates across the market. The data collected in 2021 was then compared to the previous year’s, to better document and assess any changes. 

Alongside a collection of key findings, Meltwater also published a set of influencer marketing trends for 2021. These are listed below.

1. Social Commerce: Leveraging Influencers To Drive Sales
2. FinTok: TikTok Influencers Giving Financial Advice
3. Conscious Messaging: Gender Neutrality and Influencer Marketing
4. Multi-Influencer Campaigns: Inclusivity and Diversity

Three Key Takeaways

Meltwater’s report gave us key insights into the workings of the influencer marketing industry and allowed brands to see its value. Three Key Findings include

1. Instagram remains the most popular platform for brand campaigns.
2. Micro-Influencers are more prominent on TikTok than on any other platform.
3. TikTok has surpassed YouTube in popularity for sponsored influencer campaigns. 

What does this mean for influencer marketing?

The findings of this report help to offer a prediction for the future of influencer marketing, helping brands to create more effective campaigns on social media. The first finding uses a sample of over 1,800 campaigns and states that 94% of these campaigns incorporated Instagram in 2021. In comparison, Facebook was only used in 43% of campaigns. However, Meltwater explains that because influencers are encouraged to post on more than one platform for each campaign, they indicate that Instagram is the most commonly used platform for conventional influencer marketing campaigns. 

The second finding highlights how TikTok is becoming more popular with micro-influencers and sponsored ad content. Meltwater reviewed TikTok content using #ad and found that 55% of these influencers had 50,000-500,000 followers. In contrast, only 15% of these influencers have over 1 million followers on the platform. Meltwater believes that many brands are still experimenting with the platform and have found more success with micro-influencers on other platforms so have decided to move this strategy to TikTok. 

The final finding compares the growing success of TikTok with YouTube with regard to sponsored collaborations. The data explains that 13% of all of the reviewed marketing campaigns used TikTok to promote their product or service. However, only 10% used YouTube to communicate their cause. Although this is only a slight difference, Meltwater believes that TikTok is likely to become a more stable and powerful force in the industry, like its competitor Instagram.

Link to the Survey

The State of Influencer Marketing Report 2022 by Meltwater can be found on their website along with a plethora of other resources such as webinars and blog articles.