Influencer Marketing Trends for 2024

Though social media engagement rates took a dip from 2019 to 2022, the prevalence of influencer marketing continues to rise. Influencers are an unconventional marketing tool, allowing companies to engage their audience through a third-party personality. Unlike traditional marketing, influencers come with a niche following that helps a brand reach a market that may have been otherwise unobtainable or difficult to target. The growing trust in influencers is heavily reflected in the findings of Collabstr’s latest 2024 Influencer Marketing Report.

Based on a data set of over 110,000 brands and influencers, the 2024 Influencer Marketing Report offers a mixed outlook on the future of influencer marketing. While the surface data does indicate that the creator economy is on the rise and is expected to grow $398.74 billion over seven years, that spells an unexpected picture for individual influencers.

Are Influencers Hurt by a Growing Market?

Saturation is a necessary consideration for new and budding influencers, and as the market size increases, it should continue to weigh heavily. According to Collabstr’s report, paid collaborations saw a 16.8% drop in cost from 2022, with the average spend hovering around $214 per individual collaboration. This contradicts the rise in influencer rates, which increased as much as 15.17% across platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

As more influencers join the market, the more they must compete to secure fruitful collaborations with brands that align with their audience. Oversaturation will ultimately result in even lower rates, causing the value of an influencer to decrease respectively. Because there are more creators than ever before, we can expect to see prices continue to decrease, especially in saturated niches.

While generic influencer categories like ‘lifestyle’ and ‘fashion’ fill up and become more competitive, there are still riches in the niches. If you’re a fashion influencer specifically focused on sustainable fashion you will still command high prices for your niche audience. All this increased competition will likely force people into becoming more niche.

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The Most Active Platforms for Influencer Marketing

Influencers are vying for space on more than half a dozen active social networking platforms, including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Of those platforms, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram remain competitive for influencer marketing, though there are two platforms dominating the industry.

Holding approximately a 42% share of paid collaborations, Instagram and TikTok are where influencers are flocking, though, of 80,000 influencers, 49% state they offer services specifically on Instagram. TikTok trailed behind at 24%, despite having basically an even number of paid collaborations throughout the year.

From the previous year’s report, it was estimated that TikTok would surpass Instagram as the go-to platform for influencer marketing. However, that hasn’t been the case. One area Instagram tends to fare better than TikTok in is its diversity of content. Whereas TikTok is primarily short videos all competing to become viral and land on the For You page, Instagram offers influencers an option of still content and storytelling that can be more polished and less raw.

Surprisingly, trailing far behind both platforms with a low 2% of the share of paid collaborations is YouTube. Unlike both TikTok and Instagram, YouTube is revolved around longer-form videos, meaning collaborations need to be worked into existing or new, related content or they need to be thoughtfully planned and require more work. And if it’s more work, it’s going to cost companies more.

According to the report, YouTube influencers ask more than double the rate of Instagram influencers, with YouTube landing around $816 per collaboration and $418 for Instagram. TikTok comes in closer to Instagram at $520.

Where Does User-Generated Content Land?

While brand collaborations tend to dominate the influencer market, sitting on the fringe of the creator economy is user-generated content. With a projected growth of over $65 billion in a decade, user-generated content could become a quiet market leader, especially since half of all creators surveyed are offering UGC services for sale.

Unlike other paid collaborations, UGC allows influencers to create outside the confines of corporate and brand requirements. Posts such as reviews and unboxings are more natural and don’t have the sterility of brand-created content.

A Nielsen Global survey found that 92% of consumers trust UGC over standard advertising, but influencers also make less off of it. In 2023, the average price for UGC was $356, which is just over 10% less than 2023’s pricing and the lowest price across all platforms.

What Does This Mean for Influencer Marketing?

The 2024 Influencer Marketing Report suggests two conclusions when it comes to influencer marketing. First, companies are going to have more and more influencers to choose from as the year progresses. As the market grows, more influencers will be offering collaborative services, which should lead to lower rates across the board.

Second, influencers are going to have to work harder per collaboration to remain competitive. This trend will likely push more influencers to find a more profitable, thriving niche for themselves rather than being a generic influencer.

Instagram and TikTok will remain the platforms to watch out for, though it’s likely that the former will remain a market leader for its ability to allow for more polished, better-planned content. Outliers like YouTube Shorts will remain popular, but collaborations are likely to remain prevalent on TikTok and Instagram.

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