Influencer Intelligence launches whitepaper on ‘The Role of Influencers in Social Commerce’ featuring brand-side interviews and new research

• Three quarters of marketers (74%) believe the growth of social commerce will drive better practices in ROI and measurement within influencer marketing

• Shoppable links identified as the most popular way to integrate social commerce into influencer strategy among majority (61%) of marketers

• Over half (51%) agree that shoppable live streaming will become a ‘must’ for all brands within the next year

Influencer Intelligence, a leading influencer marketing solution, today announces the launch of its whitepaper focusing on ‘The Role of Influencers in Social Commerce’.

The new research, which surveys 150 marketers across the UK, US, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East, reveals agreement among two-thirds (62%) that social commerce will be the most popular influencer marketing campaign objective within the next year, demonstrating the growth of social commerce in influencer marketing.

The report explores the perceptions of marketers across a variety of industries and across a range of platforms including Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch and Snapchat. Key themes include the growth trajectory of social commerce and future trends, social commerce lessons from China for western markets and insights to help marketers optimise ecommerce activity in influencer marketing campaigns.

Social commerce occupying half of influencer budgets and performing key commercial function for brands

The whitepaper explores how marketers increasingly integrate social commerce objectives into influencer campaigns, with more than a third (36%) including selling products or services as a measurable objective within their influencer marketing for the past two to four years already. The influencer industry has matured rapidly from a brand promotion and storytelling avenue for brands, into a key operational and sales function for many businesses.

This growing confidence in social commerce as an influencer marketing strategy translates into increased spend as one in ten now allocate more than half of their influencer marketing budget to social commerce campaigns.

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How & where marketers are spending budgets

The research also reveals

• Shoppable links are the most popular way of driving commerce ROI through influencers, according to almost two-thirds (61%) of social media strategists.
• Two-thirds of marketers (68%) cited Instagram as the most successful platform for social commerce campaigns
• Almost half (43%) of marketers have seen the most success with micro-influencers as part of their social commerce strategy

Shopping live streaming will become a ‘must-do’ practice for all brands within the next year

Half (51%) of all marketers in the study said that shoppable live streaming will become a ‘must-do’ practice for all brands within the next year.

A third (36%) also predict that influencer marketing campaigns using Augmented Reality (AR) will dominate social commerce strategies by 2024, and (30%) believe AI powered conversation and personalisation within influencer marketing campaigns will also be a leading trend.

As social commerce practices are refined, marketers overwhelmingly agree (74%) that it will drive better practices in return-on-investment (ROI) and measurement within influencer marketing. However, the main barriers to social commerce success in influencer marketing remain obtaining sufficient data from influencers to measure ROI (24%) and identifying talent who can deliver sales objectives (21%).

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Sarah Penny, Content & Research Director at Influencer Intelligence, says: “Influencer marketing continues to evolve, with influencers playing an increasingly significant role in brands’ social commerce strategies. As new in-app shopping functionalities develop within social media platforms and marketers grow ever more confident with executing social commerce strategies, this trend is likely to accelerate.

“Our research findings demonstrate this trend with marketers agreeing that social commerce will become more prominent as an influencer marketing campaign objective, supported by news that significant budgets are being allocated towards shopping campaigns. This is something we’re seeing day in day out at Influencer Intelligence, across a variety of sectors, from fashion to food.

“As social commerce becomes increasingly embedded into brands’ influencer activity, there are signs that marketers will grow more experimental into the future, exploring new formats, features and technology. However, certain pain points continue to pose challenges and the platforms and  marketers will need to identify new ways to optimise their social commerce activity to get the best out of their increasing spend.”

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