Marketers to ditch influencers, but keep spending with Facebook

Industry Contributor 19 May 2019 - 2 min read

Marketers to ditch influencers, but keep spending with Facebook

By Paul McIntyre - Executive Editor

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Tags: social media, marketing, facebook, instagram, influencers, marketers, nano influencers, data, privacy, advertising

Concerns over fake followers and questionable results mean marketers will spend less with influencers and more with ‘nano influencers’ in the year ahead, according to eMarketer. The research firm also warns that Facebook’s woes will spread to Instagram, but marketers will continue to spend with the social media giant (eMarketer).

Key points:

Investigations into data and privacy breaches engulfing Facebook will spread to Instagram
Despite Facebook’s challenges it will continue to take almost all U.S. social ad dollars (86%, or $27.57bn of $32.18bn predicted spend), mostly for news feed ads
In 2020 social ad spend will make up 54% of TV ad spending
Yet TV shows on social platforms will struggle to gain audiences and ad dollars
Marketers will shift dollars away from influencers with large followings to ‘nano influencers’ with thousands of followers
All platforms to launch more ‘shoppable’ ad formats
But focus to move from attempting to drive on-platform transactions to encouraging purchases anywhere

When it comes to concerns over privacy and data breaches, marketers appear to have a blind spot. They are happy to spend hand over fist on Facebook and increasingly Instagram, whose revenues doubled last year as a result. However, marketers do appear to care about wasting money on influencers with questionable influence and so platforms have started to try and address the issue. A shift to ‘nano influencers’ could prove interesting as marketers target niches – providing the issue of fake followers is less entrenched than within the broader influencer market. Finding the value and building out a portfolio of deep niches to create scale could provide an opportunity for smart marketers and agencies. It could also shift the dynamics of social media, incentivising and rewarding those that are followed for their specific knowledge or expertise rather than celebrity status. In theory that should yield better results for marketers. It also happens to open up more sellable inventory for the platforms. It’s an interesting one to watch.