Note from Geno Prussakov: Ladies and gentlemen, below you may find the first guest post by our newest guest blogger, Brandon Leibowitz.
So you’ve decided to launch an influencer marketing campaign. But you still have some doubts about which social network you should use for the campaign. While it would be ideal to be able to market your brand through every platform available, you have to consider the most cost-effective yet high-ROI option. If you are going to choose only one platform for now, Instagram may be your most viable option. And if you have doubts about this option, here are some of the reasons why you should use Instagram for influencer marketing:
1. Massive Reach
The first reason why Instagram is such an excellent choice for influencer marketing is because of its large audience. As of June 2016, the platform has 500 million active users on a monthly basis, making it one of the most popular social networking platforms. The number of users has increased by 100 million within just nine months, which shows that there is significant growth in its popularity.
And more than 67 million Americans are actively using Instagram. With such a massive audience, you have the opportunity to reach out to a large audience through influencers and boost your visibility.
2. Influencers Favor Instagram
Influencers themselves love Instagram and consider it as one of the best social networking platforms. In fact, it ranks second to Facebook as the best social media channel for influencer marketing. So if the people you’re planning to work with are in favor of it, that’s a good reason why you should launch your campaign through Instagram.
Influencers are considered experts in their respective categories and it’s likely that they know what they’re talking about. If they are considering Instagram as one of the best social networks for launching an influencer marketing campaign, it’s because they know that campaigns launched through the channel have a high chance of success.
3. High Engagement
Back in 2014, people were spending an average of 21 minutes every day using Instagram. The social media platform continues to engage audiences across the globe, making it the perfect channel for launching an influencer marketing campaign. And compared to other social networks, Instagram has the highest engagement rate according to Locowise.
In a study conducted by the Locowise team, Instagram’s engagement in February 2016 dropped by 11.58% since January 2016. However, it still continues to outrank every other social media platform in this metric. So if you’re planning to engage your audience better, this platform could be your best bet.
A Forrester study also supports this data with their 2015 study that shows Instagram as the top social network for user-brand interactions. Their study showed that user interactions with brands were especially high on Instagram at 2.3%. Even the second-ranking platform, Facebook only had 0.2% user-brand interactions.
4. Best Platform For Follower Growth
Another good reason why Instagram is a great channel for influencer marketing is because brand follower growth is the highest on the platform. According to a TrackMaven study, brands on Instagram experience a 6-8% average increase in number of followers every month. And follower growth doubles every year on Instagram while follower growth on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter averages at 1/4th annually.
5. Brings in the Most Engaged Traffic
In addition to having a highly-engaged user base, Instagram also brings in highly-engaged site visitors. Yotpo conducted a study on the average time spent by visitors from different channels including Instagram, Facebook, email, search, and more. They found that visitors coming from Instagram are the most engaged, staying 45% longer than visitors coming from Facebook.
So when you’re promoting your products or services through Instagram influencers, you’re generating high-quality leads that are likely to spend a long time on your site. This improves your chances of driving conversions and an overall improvement in your performance.
6. Changes in Instagram Algorithm
Previously, Instagram used to follow a chronological arrangement for displaying posts on users’ news feeds. This means that your posts were getting displayed on your followers’ news feeds based on the time it was created. But now, Instagram has switched to an algorithmic arrangement for post display. This means that it is prioritizing posts users are most likely to engage with.
So people will no longer miss posts created by their favorite accounts and influencers. If users are regularly interacting with an influencer’s posts, they will be able to see more posts by the influencer before they see posts made by a less-favored account. This gives influencers the opportunity to get branded and sponsored content in front of a more engaged audience.
Conclusion
These facts and data should be enough to convince you that influencer marketing on Instagram can prove to be highly beneficial and cost effective. The platform fulfills all aspects of your goals including reach, engagement, and conversions. And influencer will also be more willing to work with you on a platform that they themselves are in favor of.
What do you think about the stats mentioned in this post? Will you be launching an influencer marketing campaign on Instagram soon? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below.