19 Influencer Marketing Experts give their

Predictions for 2017

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The influencer marketing landscape continues to evolve at such a rapid

pace, we now have a whole new set of challenges and opportunities to
take on. We asked 19 influencer marketing experts what we could expect
for influencer marketing in 2017, and beyond. Learn where your focus
should be, what changes are coming and some future trends to keep an
eye on. The only constant in our industry is change, so stay current, and
youll see some handsome returns on your marketing campaigns!

Summary: Quick Jump Menu

Revfluence

Onalytica

Webfluential

HYPR

NeoReach
Upfluence

Takumi

JuliusWorks

ClearVoice

Buzzoole

Vizified

TapInfluence

Traackr

BlogMint

HireInfluence

Influence.co

Revfluence

Eric Lam
Co-Founder, Revfluence

Influencer marketing will move from social and PR teams to digital teams
as influencer content becomes the most valuable asset. Influencer content
paired with deep analytics will be the most powerful medium powering
paid, owned and earned media.

Onalytica
 Joe Fields
Digital Marketing Manager, Onalytica

1 Micro Influencers will steal the limelight

2 More Cross Channel Analysis

3 Stronger differentiation between paid influencer marketing vs

organic influencer relations

4 Increased focus on Employee Advocacy

5 Maturing of influencer marketing tools

We believe 2017 is the year where brands finally start to feel as though if
theyre not doing influencer marketing, they ought to be. The question of
what is influencer marketing? will soon diminish and be replaced by
why arent we doing influencer marketing? We expect brands who have
explored the influencer marketing space before to pump more time,
money and emphasis into it as they've seen the results it produces. In 2016,
the majority of marketers spent between $25,000 $50,000 per influencer
marketing program. A recent survey carried out here reported that this
figure will double to $50,000 $100,000 per program in 2017- with 48% of
respondents saying theyre going to increase their spend.

Webfluential

Kirsty Sharman
 Head Of Global Operations, Webfluential

I predict 2017 will be the year of integration. Weve seen influencer

marketing rise from strength to strength over the last few years, but often
as an isolated tactic. Influencers are popular because they understand your
target market, they make content that resonates, and everyday they do
what we only dream of as marketers - they get the audience to care. In
order for your brands content to remain king, a new kind of creator will
need to take the throne in 2017. This will be the year that marketers realise
influencers have more to offer than just amplification - we will see
influencers become a crucial part of integrated campaigns.

HYPR

Gil Eyal
Co-Founder & CEO, HYPR

Two core elements will become more and more predominant in

Influencer Marketing. First, a shift to micro-influencers. Our measurement of
disclosed posts on Instagram show that over 90% of posts today are made
by influencers with less than 100K followers. This will require automation
and will also open the market to smaller brands and many more
influencers than before.
 Connor Gallic
Marketing Manager, HYPR

2017 is going to be a big year for influencer marketing for a few reasons.

1 Instagram will continue to dominate influencer market because

they are more aligned with advertisers than Snapchat. (Swipe up to
load links, View Transparency, Influencer audiences are already on
Instagram)

2 Influencer attribution will become more mainstream, right now

people are running influencer campaigns without an expected ROI.
This is rapidly changing as influencer budgets become more aligned
with digital marketing spend and digital departments will be forced
to show an ROI. (This is mostly looking at Instagram organic posts)

3 Micro-Influencers will continue to rise and pave the way for

performance-based pay. Big influencers are familiar with the
standard pay to post, but micro-influencers are still learning how
much money they can charge which gives advertisers an opportunity
for pay for performance.

NeoReach

Misha Talavera
Co-Founder & COO, NeoReach


1 Brands and established agencies keep moving their influencer

marketing in-house: rather than working via vendors or marketplaces,
brands and agencies will increasingly run their influencer marketing
in-house

2 Audience analytics become increasingly important: just as

important as who is endorsing your brand, is the audience that is
viewing that endorsement. Influencer audience analytics are now
available and marketers are using them

3 Influencer automation: as marketers bring their influencer

marketing in-house, they are becoming more focused on achieving
scale. This is achieved by selecting the right software partner

4 ROI analysis: Influencer marketing is no longer the new kid in the

block. Now, marketers will want to check that it can deliver a real ROI
for their brand.

Jesse Leimgruber
CEO, NeoReach

We're seeing a higher frequency of long term engagements, many

influencers are signed to multi-month long contracts and campaigns are
extending to be evergreen. Budgets are often larger than 2014 and 2015,
with a number of brands spending $50k-$100k, which I expect to increase.
Earned media value is becoming an increasing metric to measure ROI.
Upfluence

Nicolas Miachon
CMO, Upfluence

1 There is a transition from editorial content to using multimedia.

We see a constant decline of blogs performances in favor of pure
social campaigns on Instagram, Snapchat and live video platforms.
Millennials read less than previous generations which encourages
bloggers to close their website to go on Youtube and post live
videos and "Stories" - recently copied from Snapchat by Instagram -
which are extremely popular. These vloggers do not create editorial
content, they shoot movies about their lives, and so do brands

2 Partnerships between influencers and brands are evolving. In the

past influencers were provided a brief and they agreed to follow
brands' process. In 2017 this is not true anymore. Some brands give
their Snapchat credentials to influencers for a limited period of time
(#SnapchatTakeover), other brands leave the entire creation process
to influencers. The most famous influencers will be considered just
like any other VIP, and brands will launch real celebrity endorsement
programs with them.

Takumi
 Solberg Audunsson
Co-Founder, Takumi

Further shift to smaller influencers. Move away from self-serve to managed

services and platforms. Engagement will be core metric. IG stories will be
more popular with marketers than Snapchat. Plain old Instagram posts will
remain king.

JuliusWorks

Russ Wilde Jr.

Strategy and Operations Manager, JuliusWorks (Thuzio)

In 2017, more brands will look to hire influencers for branded Facebook
Live series (not just one off videos, but scheduled streams). Brands need to
drive traffic to their channels and create content that doesn't say 'buy my
product.' Leveraging influencers to create content can humanize a brand
to an extent and makes the brand more personal to consumers.
ClearVoice

Joe Griffin
CEO, ClearVoice

Right-Sizing Campaigns

Influencer marketers will shift efforts deeper down the marketing

automation funnel and better learn to right-size their campaigns.
Although egos with big vanity metrics will still be courted for awareness
campaigns, niche influencers (mico-influencers) with smaller but more
highly engaged followings will become much more valued for longer
term ROI and activation.

Buzzoole

Fabrizio Perrone
CEO & Founder, Buzzoole

If 2016 was the year that influencer marketing took off, 2017 will see brands
embrace a more sophisticated approach. Automating the search for the
right influencer will play a huge part here. For companies a key challenge
has been finding influencers with the perfect level of engagement and
brand fit. Brands dont just want influencers wholl reach their target
audience, they want to be certain theyve found an influencer they can
trust to complement their values. Searching for appropriate influencers
manually has fast become outdated. Its time-consuming, ineffective and a
waste of resource that could be better spent elsewhere.

Automation, which uses an algorithm to assess influencers suitability,

streamlines this process significantly. Plus, its an approach that is scalable,
robust and capable of generating significant cost-savings. Automation is
central to our daily lives already and it underpins a great deal of the
technology we use without us even knowing it. Right now, as algorithms
grow even more advanced, automation will become increasingly central
to the way we do business. And for those new to influencer marketing in
2017, it will be a tremendous help.

Vizified

James Waddington
Co-Founder, Vizified

Not all social impressions are equal! In 2017 influencer marketing will have
moved beyond just an influencer's reach and audience size. Its all about
the magical alchemy of the 3 Rs of influencer marketing: relevance,
relationships and reach.

1 Relevance: 75% of brand decision-makers now value relevance

over reach. Gone are the days of social media celebrities with huge
 followings sharing content that has no connection to that brand's
market or message. Noise over impact. Consumers are wiser and can
now quickly sniff out an endorsement deal, quickly losing their trust
in both the brand and influencer! Rather than the scattergun
approach, agencies/brands are putting more time and money into
researching and identifying those relevant, engagement-driving
influencers that are the perfect match to their audiences

2 Relationships: relationship-driven marketing is something that has

been missing in this new age of influencer marketing. At Vizified we
develop more meaningful relationships with our Pinterest influencers
who captivate their audiences and are trusted authorities in their
niche. That personalization allows us to match brands with
influencers that are truly knowledgeable, passionate and authentic in
their area, and are seen as a trusted source

3 Reach: Although engagement rate is undeniably important, we

still work with influencers that have a large reach and generate huge
impressions. But its all about balance, and putting relevance and
relationships at the heart of a campaign will produce long lasting
results worthy of an x10 return.

TapInfluence

Promise Phelon
CEO, TapInfluence

In 2017, micro-influencers will stake their claim. Marketers will start to

engage influencers who have the same audience as their brand, rather
than focusing on the amount of followers. This will allow audiences to
become more important than the influencer, who in the end, are the
purchasers of the product. Influencers will begin to tell the story in an
organic way rather than being told what to post. This will allow influencers
to develop a real relationship with the brand and will bridge the gap
between online and offline. What does this mean? Marketers will leverage
online influencers to spark offline action from consumers. The one TOP
prediction from my team is that authenticity will REALLY develop in 2017. If
marketers stop micro-managing influencers will tell stories from a place of
truth and authenticity.

Joseph Cole
VP & Marketing, TapInfluence

It needs to get easier from every perspective. Management to execution

to measurement. People will realize that doing influencer marketing
manually isn't as effective as using a "service provider" from the time it
takes to find an influencer and building a relationship with that influencer
to actually do work with the brand. Brands will wise up to audience size
doesn't always equate to influence. Marketers will pay more attention to
an influencer's audience and how the audience relates to the brand's
audience. Influencer marketing will become more transactional, marketers
will look for opportunities to substitute budget from AdWords and content
syndication so that they can try influencer marketing.

Traackr
 Pierre-Loic Assayag
Founder & CEO, Traackr

In 2017 we will draw the line where influencer marketing splits between
paid influencer endorsements and ads versus ongoing influencer relations.
Building and managing influencer relations is where the market is headed
because marketers will see a better return on authentic relationships over
time. In order to see this return, enterprises need the ability to normalize
processes, standardize KPIs and scale the practice. My prediction is that
the influencer marketing best practices that emerge in 2017 will lead to
massive scaling of the practice in 2018.

BlogMint

Irfan Khan
CEO, BlogMint

1 While Instagramers and YouTubers continue to be in demand, it's

the Facebookers and Live Performers (FB Live, Insta Live, Periscope)
 that will be most sought-after in 2017

2 Micro-influencers will be the new influencers

3 Long-term Association - treating influencer relationships like one-

night stands isn't the best approach

4 Influencer Marketing will go mainstream in 2017 - Both B2B and

B2C businesses will allocate budget for IM. Also, Social Media and/or
Corporate Communication team will own influencer programs this
year as opposed to it being a one-off activity spearheaded by CXOs
in 2016.

HireInfluence

Jason Pampell
CEO, HireInfluence

In 2017 expect a massive shift in content marketing with an overarching

focus on influencers. Video and live streaming will continue its strong
upward trend, primarily on the Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat
channels. Newer platforms such as Twitch will thrive, while Twitters
decline in popularity progresses.

Influencer marketing will evolve into modern methods of SEO strategy, as

user-generated content (UGC) becomes a fast and effective way to gain
search results.

Watch for a flood of traditional marketing agencies crossing over into the
content-driven space. The overabundance of suppliers lacking adequate
knowledge, will cut corners trying to compete, resulting in a tainted
reputation for influencer marketing as a whole. Supply and demand of
influencer cost-per-post will be driven so high that it will exceed the point
of ROI.

FTC will continue raising the bar on restrictions and requirements that help
everyday users differentiate between #ads and organic content.

Influence.co

Julianna Vorhaus
Director of Influencers, Influence.co

First, we expect to see an increase in outbound activity from the truly

professional influencers. Unlike their more junior counterparts,
professionals will recognize the need for direct brand contacts and doing
their own pitching. Passively waiting for opportunities will fall to those who
dont have the time or expertise to go out and find opportunities that best
fit their content and audience. Second, influencers will begin publishing
their rates publicly and well see the market normalize. 33% of our users are
already doing this and we expect these numbers to continue to rise. We
anticipate that influencers will be able to self regulate with access to more
data around what other influencers like them are charging. Brands will gain
a better understanding of how to budget for influencer activations and
campaigns. Lastly, were going to start see a variety of influencer talent
getting bundled by agencies, networks and MCNs for brand activations.
The bundles will create significantly more value for the brand and the
talent in equal parts. The campaigns will be much more diverse, engaging
and interactive for the consumer as a result.

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