Instagram is largely dubbed as the best platform for influencer marketing campaigns
If you want to start an influencer marketing campaign on Instagram but aren’t sure where to start or what you can achieve, make sure to check out the Quick Win here to learn everything you need to know.
But first…why should you choose Instagram rather than another social network?
So, why choose Instagram for your influencer marketing campaign?
There are plethora of influencers on all major social networks – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube – but somehow, 93% of all influencer marketing campaigns happen on Instagram.
Why is that? Why do so many brands prefer to work with Instagram influencers?
Reason no. 1: Instagram influencers have higher engagement rates than other social networks
The biggest reason why so many influencer marketing campaigns happen on Instagram – and why it’s also one of the best choices for influencer marketing – is because Instagram actually sees much higher engagement rates than other social networks.
For example, a micro-influencer from Twitter would get an average engagement rate of about 1.45%. On the other hand, an Instagram micro-influencer with the same number of fans and followers can see up to 5.7% engagement rates on their posts – which is quite impressive.
In fact, even Instagram’s parent company – Facebook – gets less engagement than the popular visual social network when it comes to brands in particular. One study found that brands can get as much as four times more engagement on Instagram than they do on Facebook.
But why exactly is that? Why do people engage so much more on Instagram rather than the other popular social networks, especially considering how Facebook has considerably more users?
There could be a number of reasons why this happens: perhaps it’s the visual nature of the platform that gets people to engage. Or maybe it’s that Instagram users love seeing what they can buy in their feeds. Or perhaps the platform is simply better suited for brands than Facebook is, as they get to be very creative with how they promote their products.
Reason no. 2: The close relationship between brands and Instagram users
There is a much closer relationship between brands and Instagram users than you’d get on other social networks. In fact, as per Instagram, about 80% of Instagram users follow at least one brand on the popular social network.
Plus, as I mentioned before, not only do more people follow brands, they also engage with them more. Instagram users seem to love to see amazing products in their feeds and even use their Instagram feed as a way to keep up to date with the latest products, recipes, services, etc. that they’d be interested in – along with content from their friends and from preferred influencers.
Reason no. 3: Instagram has a huge and very active audience
Instagram has a large and, most importantly, active audience. As per Instagram, there are over 1 billion active users every month. What’s more, half of them – 500 million users – are active every day, while 38% log into to Instagram multiple times a day. That’s not to mention Instagram Stories, which have rapidly become one of Instagram’s most popular forms of content: 400 million people check Stories every day. To put this into a different perspective, a quarter of smartphones owners are said to use Instagram – 1 in 4 smartphone users.
Reason no. 4: Instagram users have disposable incomes
While you can use Instagram influencer marketing simply to boost your own followers and engagement or just to boost brand awareness, many influencer marketing campaigns are all about the sales they can generate: the more, the better (obviously!).
However, in order to sell products, you don’t just need a great campaign and a highly relevant influencer – you also need an audience that can afford to buy from you.
Luckily, studies show that some Instagram users have quite high levels of disposable income. Here’s a taste of their findings regarding disposable income:
- As many as 31% of people who make over 75k/per year use Instagram
- Out of those who make between 50k-74k per year, 32% are on Instagram
- Out of those who make between 30k to 49k per year, 32% are on Instagram
Reason no. 5: Instagram has huge potential reach for influencer posts
Beyond the large audience that is active on Instagram (which I’ve told you about earlier), there is another similar reason why Instagram is a better solution for influencer marketing: the potential reach. Even if you work with a smaller influencer, one who has a few thousand or some tens of thousands of followers, has the potential to reach a larger audience than their own.
How? With hashtags.
Even though hashtags were made popular on Twitter, they work much better with Instagram’s format. Not only do users frequently search for hashtags to discover content, but they also have the ability to follow a hashtag. So even though an influencer doesn’t have that many followers of their own, the right hashtags can help them reach a larger audience.
That’s why, when you plan to create an Instagram influencer marketing campaign, you (and the influencer) should take the time to research the best hashtags to use as part of the campaign: a mix of very popular hashtags (with millions of posts), hashtags with a “medium” following (hundreds of thousands of posts), along with some niche hashtags with fewer posts. Since you’re allowed to use up to 30 hashtags per post, you can experiment with numerous hashtags at the same time.
How to work with Instagram influencers
Learn how to get started with Instagram influencer marketing, find the right Instagram influencers to work with, and start promoting your brand to millions of potential new customers.