Advantages for Influencer-generated Content

Improves Brand Awareness

• Influencer marketing can greatly expand the reach and positioning of a brand online as the 50 most followed Instagram influencers account for more than 2.5 billion followers.
• Moreover, over 85% of Gen Z actively look for products in social media, which means that influencer-promoted products have a good chance of capturing that audience.
• As "two-thirds of consumers use ad blockers on their computers and smartphones," authentic content from influencers has become a much more reliable way of reaching them.
•  71% of marketers feel that influencer marketing is more effective at driving quality traffic and leads.

Builds Trust

• As influencers have built their trust and relationship with the audience, when they recommend a product, their followers are more likely to respect that opinion and engage with that brand.
• In fact, tweets from influencers and brands increase the likelihood of a purchase by over 5 times.
• In fact, 40% of customers have reported that "they made a purchase after seeing a social media influencer use the product or service."
• It also resonates more with women, as 45% of them have noted that they are more willing to purchase a product recommended by an influencer.

Disadvantages of Influencer-generated Content

Fake Influencers

• There has been a big increase in the number of fake influencers or people that have bought their followers instead of building them over time.
• In fact, "up to 24 percent of influencers have falsely manipulated their engagement numbers."
• As the influencers have no influence over their actual followers, engaging with such an influence can become quite the problem, especially for smaller and medium-size brands that rely on smaller marketing budgets.

High Risk

• It was reported that "two-thirds of companies will increase their influencer marketing budgets in 2019."
• Unfortunately, if the influencer is not capable of properly driving content to the product, increasing the budget might not have the intended effects.
• The problem is intensified by the fact that it is hard to actually measure the results from an influencer marketing campaign.