Influencer marketing has become a key digital advertising option in recent times, with the rise of Instagram, in particular, driving increased demand for more specialized content expertise.
The reason that Instagram has lead to an increase in demand for influencer services is due to the visual focus of the platform. Effective Instagram content requires a level of understanding of the platform's tools, and a level of skill in posting, in order to create stand-out, thumb-stopping creative. If your visuals don't stand out, you'll have a harder time gaining any traction on Insta, while the rise of Stories also requires its own, specific understanding.
Brands can try and wing it, but with so many skilled creators already out there, and with already established followings, influencers clearly hold significant appeal.
But influencer marketing is also unregulated and uncontrolled. Given the relative recency of its rise, at least in a digital marketing sense, there are no set rules around how you should go about it, which can lead to confusion as to how to find the right influencers, which numbers and data points you should trust - and, crucially, how much you should expect to pay for an influencer to post about your product or service.
The last point is where this new report from Klear comes in - to help provide more transparency in the influencer marketing process, Klear surveyed more than 2,500 different types of influencers across three major social networks (Instagram, YouTube and Facebook), in order to gain some perspective on what they're charging for sponsored content.
You can read Klear's full report here, but this listing below shows their top line findings, divided by influencer category.
You can immediately see why more niche, nano-influencers can have more appeal - not only are they often more connected with their specific online communities, but they also charge far less than celebrities.
Of course, this data is not definitive - as noted, essentially there are no official rules or regulations in influencer marketing deals, and each individual will charge differently. But given the sample size, this is a fairly good indicator of what you can expect, which may help in your strategic planning.
The best way to utilize influencers is to conduct thorough research on their output and their audience, then cross-match that against your own strategic objectives. If there's a clear merge between those you want to reach, and the audience of said influencer, as well as a fit in their presentation style, then the opportunities will be clear.
Audience crossover is obviously more likely with larger influencers, due to the sheer scale of their reach, but the same may be possible in smaller groups. But it does require more research effort.
Either way, Klear's data may help in your planning - again, you can read Klear's full "2019 Influencer Rate Card" report here.