Wanna know everything about the main Influencer Marketing Trends for the next few years? TREND #1 : the scarcity of data

Introduction :

After 10 years paving the way of the Influencer Marketing industry, I wanted to share my vision of the main trends I have identified for this new digital eldorado.

In 2020, Influence Marketing (IM) is a young market that is still in its infancy. Kolsquare is an industry pioneer. Our team has been working for 10 years on more than 3000 social media collaborations between brands and celebrities (the first influencers). For example on Facebook in 2012 in France between McDonald’s and boxing world champion Jean-Marc Mormeck. Then these projects accelerated in 2015 with the campaigns of the first Youtube stars (aka Youtubers). For example between Orangina and “La Ferme Jérôme”.

It is only in the last 4 years that technology has become more democratic and the sector has really accelerated. Initially a PR topic – Public Relations and Press Relations – mainly with bloggers, influence has gradually become a real Media topic. With much greater financial stakes: the media investment market in 2018 was indeed $ 590 billion.

The Influencer Marketing market is currently estimated at $ 8 billion worldwide and a prospect of $ 20 billion in 2022. Ultimately, it is potentially 50% of media investments that will go through native advertising and influence. … An extraordinary potential that could make Influence Marketing one of the world’s leading industries.

In this context of hyper-growth and daily technological innovation, practices and strategies of the stakeholders (social networks, distributors, agencies, advertisers, K.O.Ls and agents) are evolving at an accelerated rate.

The first phase was a phase of euphoria (« the gold rush ») which was quickly accompanied by a desire to professionalize and make practices more accountable, in particular through the search for authenticity.

I believe that 7 influencer marketing trends are now emerging for the next 3 years (for 2023). Here is the first one:

1. The scarcity of data: end of easy and free access to data from social networks

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TREND #1 : the scarcity of data

End of easy and free access to data from social networks

Most global platforms already have strategies in place to limit third party access to their data

Twitter has severely limited the freely accessible data in recent years and has been offering paid access for 2 years (exorbitant prices)

Facebook / Instagram has drastically reduced the data accessible via API and now strictly limits uses (only K.O.Ls can use or give access to this data)

Youtube drastically controls accessible data via its API and no reprocessing of raw data can be carried out (via aggregated indices for example)

Snapchat, Twitch, TikTok, 21 Buttons or even Linkedin do not have an API

Only Pinterest currently seems to have a strategy of openness to its data (especially reach data that are impressive on the platform). Probably at odds with its competitors in order to attract advertisers.

Two recent factors have accelerated this trend:

Cambridge Analytica « Gate »

Under the guise of user protection, platforms now further reduce the possibility of profiling their users.

In 2018, Facebook thus decided overnight to change its API. They brought forward by several months the migration to the new API which was in preparation and which required complex permissions to obtain, unlike the previous one … which many were finally not granted.

Social Media own IM initiatives

The burst of the Influence Marketing market is prompting platforms to limit access to their data for third parties. And to launch their own Influencer Marketing initiatives to capture the huge budgets that go through their technologies but still escape them completely.

Twitter and Youtube have acquired specialized IM players (Niche and Famebit respectively in 2015 and 2016)

Facebook and then Instagram launched their own IM platform in 2018 and 2019, accelerating in 2020

Twitch has its own platform (Twitch Bounty Board – launched October 2019)

TikTok plans to internalize IM but has yet to officially position itself on it

Snapchat maintains its culture of secrecy and does not communicate any data to third parties, let alone audiences and content via an API

It seems that Asian social networks have also decided to internalize IM, drastically limiting access to data

So, within 3 years, almost none of the currently useful data will be accessible to third parties. At least no socio-demographic data. In any case not for free.

Partnerships will be required to access data.

Social networks will probably sign partnerships with IM platforms “partner”, pure players like Kolsquare for example. In exchange for payments to access the data, probably as revenue sharing or guaranteed revenues. Those partners will have to be big enough to guarantee those revenues, and they will have to be technically compatible with them.

It is sensible to consider that access to and use of data will at best be very limited and controlled, in particular subject to the agreement of K.O.Ls and advertisers. Almost no player in the market being able to access data, the added value will shift from « discovery » to other functionalities that will not be dependent on data.

And you, did you identified this trend too? What would be the future of IM without data?