The creator economy is rapidly accelerating as brands expand the ways they are growing affinity and sales through creators. LTK, the global influencer marketing platform that works with more than 5,000 brands to power creator commerce, released its annual Brand Influence Forecast for 2022 to reveal the top influencer marketing trends and considerations among brands.
The LTK Brand Influence Forecast is based on qualitative interviews with marketers from leading brands on the LTK Brand Platform and quantitative analysis using LTK Influencer Benchmark™, a tool that identifies creator and shopper engagement, brand share of voice, impressions, clicks, items sold and sales across industry verticals and creator-led marketing disciplines.
“Creator marketing is no longer a single tactic sitting in one portion of a brand’s marketing funnel,” said Kristi O’Brien, General Manager of LTK Brand. “It has become a multi-layered strategy consisting of audience targeting, an understanding of the market landscape and testing into new channels. Sales are still a top focus, but marketers are beginning to rely much more on creators to meet a variety of objectives.”
LTK Brand, a division of LTK that powers influencer marketing campaigns for hundreds of global brands, has seen an acceleration in retailers and brands of all sizes turning to creators to drive innovation, hyper targeting, content-first awareness campaigns and word-of-mouth significantly more than in prior years.
Here is a summary of the top trend predictions in influencer marketing for 2022.
5. Video content will continue to drive greater engagement and conversions.
LTK has seen a significant rise in video content across social platforms and in its shopping app for its ability to dimensionalize creator content and make shopping more engaging. As discovered in LTK’s 2021 Influential Shopper study, the social platforms most used by influential shoppers heavily revolve around video content and include: 1) Instagram 2) Facebook 3) Youtube and 4) TikTok. TikTok in particular is performing well as it allows creators’ short-form video content to remain up longer, giving creators more time to reach their audience. Video continues to drive significant engagement on the LTK shopping app as well.
4. Gen Z partnerships are a top priority.
Partnering with influencers who appeal to Gen Z is a top focus for brands as they realize how heavily this group depends on influencers for their purchase decisions. The 2021 LTK Gen Z study found that 92 percent of Gen Z shoppers rely on influencers to inform their purchases across virtually every category. This, coupled with the influence Gen Z has on the general population, has brands disproportionately focused on the coveted audience.
3. Influencer benchmarking will increasingly inform influencer strategy.
As investments increase, brands will focus more on tracking influencer industry benchmarks across categories with the goal to become more strategic and to better own areas of influence. As more dollars are flowing into creator marketing from other channels, understanding a brand’s positioning within the influencer ecosystem is imperative.
2. Co-op creator influencer marketing will expand as retail media groups grow.
As retail shifts, co-op media will extend more deeply into digital influencer marketing, quickly becoming a part of the co-op marketing mix. Retail co-op is a growing macro trend in retail marketing and creator marketing will continue to follow.
1. Content-first creator campaigns and influencer boosting are accelerating as they outperform traditional ad creative.
Retailers are seeing double-digit engagement increases in offer and awareness messaging using creators’ content. This is driving a significant increase in demand for creator content, both for use in brand advertising, but also in boosting creators’ placements wherever they appear, sometimes doubling or tripling their reach.
Learn more about these findings during LTK’s ‘Top 5 Influencer Trends in 2022’ webinar on Wednesday, February 16, 2022. To register, visit: https://company.shopltk.com/top52022.
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