The influencer marketing landscape continues to evolve at such a rapid pace, we now have a whole new set of challenges and opportunities to take on. We asked 19 influencer marketing experts what we could expect for influencer marketing in 2017, and beyond. Learn where your focus should be, what changes are coming and some future trends to keep an eye on. The only constant in our industry is change, so stay current, and you’ll see some handsome returns on your marketing campaigns!

Influencer marketing will move from social and PR teams to digital teams as influencer content becomes the most valuable asset. Influencer content paired with deep analytics will be the most powerful medium powering paid, owned and earned media.

1. Micro Influencers will steal the limelight
2. More Cross Channel Analysis
3. Stronger differentiation between paid influencer marketing vs organic influencer relations
4. Increased focus on Employee Advocacy
5. Maturing of influencer marketing tools

We believe 2017 is the year where brands finally start to feel as though if they’re not doing influencer marketing, they ought to be. The question of “what is influencer marketing?” will soon diminish and be replaced by “why aren’t we doing influencer marketing?” We expect brands who have explored the influencer marketing space before to pump more time, money and emphasis into it as they’ve seen the results it produces. In 2016, the majority of marketers spent between $25,000 – $50,000 per influencer marketing program. A recent survey carried out here reported that this figure will double to $50,000 – $100,000 per program in 2017- with 48% of respondents saying they’re going to increase their spend.

I predict 2017 will be the year of integration. We’ve seen influencer marketing rise from strength to strength over the last few years, but often as an isolated tactic. Influencers are popular because they understand your target market, they make content that resonates, and everyday they do what we only dream of as marketers – they get the audience to care. In order for your brand’s content to remain king, a new kind of creator will need to take the throne in 2017. This will be the year that marketers realise influencers have more to offer than just amplification – we will see influencers become a crucial part of integrated campaigns.

Two core elements will become more and more predominant in Influencer Marketing. First, a shift to micro-influencers. Our measurement of disclosed posts on Instagram show that over 90% of posts today are made by influencers with less than 100K followers. This will require automation and will also open the market to smaller brands and many more influencers than before.

2017 is going to be a big year for influencer marketing for a few reasons.

1. Instagram will continue to dominate influencer market because they are more aligned with advertisers than Snapchat. (Swipe up to load links, View Transparency, Influencer audiences are already on Instagram)
2. Influencer attribution will become more mainstream, right now people are running influencer campaigns without an expected ROI. This is rapidly changing as influencer budgets become more aligned with digital marketing spend and digital departments will be forced to show an ROI. (This is mostly looking at Instagram organic posts)
3. Micro-Influencers will continue to rise and pave the way for performance-based pay. Big influencers are familiar with the standard pay to post, but micro-influencers are still learning how much money they can charge which gives advertisers an opportunity for pay for performance.

NeoReach

1. Brands and established agencies keep moving their influencer marketing in-house: rather than working via vendors or marketplaces, brands and agencies will increasingly run their influencer marketing in-house
2. Audience analytics become increasingly important: just as important as who is endorsing your brand, is the audience that is viewing that endorsement. Influencer audience analytics are now available and marketers are using them
3. Influencer automation: as marketers bring their influencer marketing in-house, they are becoming more focused on achieving scale. This is achieved by selecting the right software partner
4. ROI analysis: Influencer marketing is no longer the new kid in the block. Now, marketers will want to check that it can deliver a real ROI for their brand.

We’re seeing a higher frequency of long term engagements, many influencers are signed to multi-month long contracts and campaigns are extending to be evergreen. Budgets are often larger than 2014 and 2015, with a number of brands spending $50k-$100k, which I expect to increase. Earned media value is becoming an increasing metric to measure ROI.

1. There is a transition from editorial content to using multimedia. We see a constant decline of blogs performances in favor of pure social campaigns on Instagram, Snapchat and live video platforms. Millennials read less than previous generations which encourages bloggers to close their website to go on Youtube and post live videos and “Stories” – recently copied from Snapchat by Instagram – which are extremely popular. These vloggers do not create editorial content, they shoot movies about their lives, and so do brands
2. Partnerships between influencers and brands are evolving. In the past influencers were provided a brief and they agreed to follow brands’ process. In 2017 this is not true anymore. Some brands give their Snapchat credentials to influencers for a limited period of time (#SnapchatTakeover), other brands leave the entire creation process to influencers. The most famous influencers will be considered just like any other VIP, and brands will launch real celebrity endorsement programs with them.

Takumi

Further shift to smaller influencers. Move away from self-serve to managed services and platforms. Engagement will be core metric. IG stories will be more popular with marketers than Snapchat. Plain old Instagram posts will remain king.

In 2017, more brands will look to hire influencers for branded Facebook Live series (not just one off videos, but scheduled streams). Brands need to drive traffic to their channels and create content that doesn’t say ‘buy my product.’ Leveraging influencers to create content can humanize a brand to an extent and makes the brand more personal to consumers.