Marketing Via Paid Online Influencers Sees Dramatic Growth in Survey

Paid endorsements by online influencers is now used by 52 percent of online marketers -- a number that is rapidly closing in on display ads (58 percent) as the top paid avenue for online advertising. social media as a marketing tool The explosion was registered in the 2014 State of Sponsored Social Report conducted by Halverson Group on behalf of influencer marketing firm IZEA.It’s not just the fact that "sponsored social" is second on the list of channels used, it’s how quickly it rose to popularity. When asked how they feel about various marketing channels vs. how they felt a year ago, marketers showed a far greater gap between then and now in sponsored social against any other channel. In fact, sponsored social’s momentum was almost twice that of experiential marketing and more than twice that of online display ads.It destroyed traditional channels. Official sponsorship status in standard TV spots and ads in radio, magazines and newspapers all scored negative momentum from last year (meaning they are less favorable now).When asked about the leap, even the industry’s biggest supporter of sponsored posts -- IZEA CEO Ted Murphy -- was surprised.It floored me, to be honest,” Murphy says. “I think we have been watching the industry and kind of seeing this happen, but I didn’t realize the support would be quite that strong.Murphy, whose IZEA serves as a platform to connect interested brands with willing social influencers and publishers, says the results surprised the research team at Halverson as well. He says what they think is happening is earned media, paid media and content marketing are beginning to blend.social media marketing pricing Sponsored social offers so many benefits across channels -- public relations, media and marketing -- brands get more benefit for the investment, according to Murphy.Murphy started IZEA in 2006 when the industry found sponsored blog posts and social posts largely taboo. Today, the New York Times sells sponsored posts and even the Associated Press offers sponsored tweets.

Sponsored social is effective

Sponsored social ranked first among all other channels for overall effectiveness, scoring 7.27 on a 10-point scale. It beat out experiential marketing (7.25), celebrity endorsement (6.87) and television advertising (6.54). social media marketing blog Based on that list, it’s no surprise that 74 percent would use or recommend sponsored social in the future.Perhaps the most interesting and tactically useful result from the survey was the average dollar amount marketers paid for each type of post. The average video post will run $554 while a blog post comes in at $384. A sponsored tweet runs $331. But the survey does little by way of telling you who charges what, so assume that high-dollar investments were with high-follower-count influencers.The survey showed interesting upward trends for brands investing dollars on social marketing beyond a content and organic-focused program. Of those surveyed, 85 percent were moderately or highly familiar with sponsored social and 53 percent had experience with sponsored-social opportunities in the past year. However, almost 30 percent said they had no experience with it, indicating an upside potential, but also perhaps lingering hesitation. Some 52 percent of companies responding said they had standalone budgets for sponsored social and 25 percent had organizational budgets for the channel in excess of $500,000.I ultimately believe that you’re talking about a multi-billion industry,” Murphy says. “To be honest, we may already be there. The difficult thing is we’re the first folks trying to quantify this in any real way, but we already know that all the major media companies are doing sponsored posts. social media marketing experts In celebrity endorsements, sponsored posts are included but not always broken out. So this channel may already be that big. We just don’t know for certain.As for how sponsored social works, companies say 36 percent of the time, money is the incentive. Free products come in closely behind at 33 percent while discounts and coupons, 22 percent, and free service, 18 percent, follow.

Creators are word-of-mouth advocates

As for influencers, or as the report calls them, “Creators,” the main takeaway for me was that this type of influencer outreach seems to create the coveted stakeholder all brands want: an advocate. social media marketing articles Results showed 88 percent of the creators -- all IZEA program participants, so again biased but relevant -- verbally tell friends about brands that sponsor them. What that tells us is sponsored social effectively turns influencers into true word-of-mouth advocates. That’s pretty powerful stuff if you believe the Word of Mouth Marketing Institute’s statistics that word of mouth is 62 times more powerful than traditional advertising.Additionally, 72 percent say they share additional posts outside of the contractual agreement for free, adding value for the investment. And 77 percent say they are likely to purchase from brands that sponsor them, meaning the investment results in customer acquisition as well. This is something we’ve known for a long time, but never had the ability to quantify it,” Murphy says. “To put a number to that is huge. It underscores that this is more than just a transaction for these people. When someone decides they want to work for a brand and publicly share and endorse them to their followers, it’s much more about creating a relationship and doing so in an authentic way. If they were truly fans of the brand and excited to spread the word, they wouldn’t be doing things outside of what they’re contractually obligated to do.The creators bring credibility to the table, so social-media purists can calm down. The most important factors they consider when deciding to take a brand’s money social media marketing dallas include whether their audience finds the content interesting or relevant, and whether the product or service fits with their content or was something they were proud to represent.The majority of those being paid to create content or refer brands were over the age of 30. In fact, 83 percent of all creators were, with 59 percent ages 30 to 44. Only 7 percent were under the age of 25.