Top 18 Influencer Marketing Trends to Look Out For

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Consider you’ve finally reached your goal of growing a YouTube channel and attracting a following. Suddenly, you look around and realize that the people who make up your audience are total strangers. You don’t know them, but they know you. They’ve watched your videos, learned your personality, and formed opinions about your likes and dislikes. So, when you start to partner with a brand that aligns with your values and interests to create sponsored content, your audience will notice.

And because of the trust that influencer marketing builds, they will likely appreciate your new “friend” and be more receptive to your content, even if it is an ad. Understanding influencer marketing trends will help you create better content and get sponsored on YouTube more quickly. In this guide, we’ll explore the latest trends in influencer marketing to help you reach your goals, like going viral with the help of influencer marketing services. Brand partnership deals can help your business achieve its goals and reach its target audience more efficiently. Stay tuned to learn how to get sponsored on YouTube.

At Aha Creator, we connect creators and brands to facilitate these deals quickly, easily, and transparently.

What Are Influencer Marketing Trends?

Influencer marketing trends describe how brands and influencers evolve their practices, strategies, and styles for promoting products and services. These trends change as audience preferences, social media platform algorithms, and industry standards shift. Staying on top of influencer marketing trends is crucial. They can help determine the success of marketing campaigns. Following influencer marketing trends offers several benefits.

Higher Engagement

Leveraging popular trends, like video formats (e.g., short-form videos, Reels, or TikToks) or content themes (e.g., unboxing, tutorials), can increase engagement as audiences often respond well to familiar, popular formats.

Enhanced Credibility

Staying current with trends shows that a brand understands the influencer world, improving credibility. Influencers and their audiences appreciate brands aligning with relevant content strategies.

Improved Targeting

Trends help brands connect more effectively with specific demographics. For instance, Gen Z may respond better to casual, behind-the-scenes content, while millennials prefer informational or aspirational content. Aligning with these trends can enhance campaign reach and relevancy.

Better ROI

Trend-based campaigns can be more cost-effective since they leverage current formats that naturally drive engagement. This can mean a better return on investment, as trendy content is more likely to be shared, increasing organic reach without extra spending.

Boosted Brand Awareness

When brands participate in trending topics or use popular formats, they can attract new followers and expand their audience reach. This is particularly beneficial when launching new products or entering new markets.

Influencer Marketing Automation

Platforms That Pay Content Creators

Social Media Influencer Partnerships

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Influencer Brand Partnerships

5 Niches Commonly Used by Influencers

Influencer Engagement

How Do Brand Deals Work

How to Reach Out to Brands as an Influencer

How To Find Influencer Marketing Trends For Success

Aha Creator: Your Go-To for Discovering Influencer Marketing Trends

Regarding locating influencer marketing trends, Aha Creator is the best place to start. Aha Creator streamlines brand partnerships for YouTube creators and businesses alike. Aha offers a done-for-you partnership service for brands to connect with the right creators. Aha handles brand deal negotiations for content creators, ensuring you get fair value for your influence. The matching system helps pair creators with relevant brands, maximizing the potential for successful collaborations. Sign up for the waitlist today, and they’ll work to connect you with partnership opportunities that align with your content and values.

Set Campaign Goals to Find the Right Influencer Marketing Trends

Before you search for influencer marketing trends, define clear campaign goals to identify the right trends for your specific needs. What do you want to achieve with your campaign? You can measure success by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) like engagement rates, new followers, or sales data.

Authenticity is Key to Finding the Right Influencers

When looking for influencer marketing trends, focus on authenticity. Consumers value transparency, and brands should partner with influencers who genuinely connect with their audience and align with their values.

Build Trust and Transparency with Influencers

Authenticity is crucial for establishing trust with your audience. When influencers are authentic, they connect with their followers on a deeper level.

Be Transparent About Your Partnerships

Transparency and disclosure are essential in influencer marketing. These factors ensure that consumers can make informed decisions about the products they are being marketed to.

Search Relevant Hashtags to Find Influencer Marketing Trends

One way to uncover influencer marketing trends is to use hashtags and keywords to discover influencers actively participating in conversations relevant to your brand.

Another way to find influencer marketing trends is to search social media for topics related to your brand to identify conversations and see who is making their voice heard. You can also follow influential people and check out who they follow.

Top 18 Influencer Marketing Trends to Look Out For

1. AI is Taking Over Influencer Marketing

In 2023, artificial intelligence is king. Large language model (LLM) AI apps have exploded ever since the revealing of ChatGPT, and there is an AI app for every possible problem marketers could think of. From content creation to data analysis, AI can do the grunt work while you focus on the higher-level problems. AI has also found its way to influencer marketing. First, virtual influencers will grow as completely virtual and virtual versions of your favorite influencers. Meta is testing many features, allowing influencers to create virtual versions of themselves to answer questions, interact with their audience, and much more.

This can help take the load off influencers, although it remains to be seen how these features will work in practice and if they’ll be helpful enough. Virtual influencers have also been around for a while, but now expect more and more to pop up on your feeds, as it’s easier than ever to create them. But what about AI helping marketers work with real influencers? Well, AI will play a significant role in that, too. AI can help refine your campaign strategy, assist with planning and creativity, create & refine briefs, and even help crunch the numbers after your campaign.

AI can also assist with finding the right influencers! Searching for influencers manually is a pain, but with AI, you can simply ask them to find the perfect influencers according to your detailed criteria. We could create a post on how AI will impact influencer marketing in 2025 and beyond, but we have more trends to cover. But don’t be afraid of AI - instead, think critically about how it can help your team and your processes.

2. Let’s Go Small: The Rise of Nano and Micro-Influencers

Across all reports, there’s a consistent shift towards leveraging nano (1K–10K followers) and micro-influencers (10K–100K followers). These influencers are favored for authentic connections with niche audiences, leading to higher engagement rates than macro or mega influencers.

Key stats include

43% of marketers reported increased use of micro and nano-influencers (July 2024). Nano influencers are primarily engaged by 53.8% of brands (May 2024). 24.9% of marketers have shifted budgets from macro/mega influencers to micro/nano influencers (July 2024).

3. Relationship Goals: Long-Term Influencer Partnerships

Working with an influencer over a more extended period can lead to a better understanding of one another’s goals and stylistic preferences. As your partner learns your brand, they will become more skilled at organically promoting it in their content. The influencer’s audience will become accustomed to seeing them use your products, driving more familiarity and trust in your brand.

Long-term agreements can also be more cost-effective and economically beneficial for your business. A trusted collaborator may be open to affiliate marketing-style revenue sharing, incentivizing them to promote your brand with ongoing plugs and references. Plus, 79% of influencers prefer long-term partnerships to single-campaign collaborations.

4. Brand Marketing is Making a Comeback

Performance marketing vs Brand marketing - the eternal struggle. In today’s data-driven world, brand marketing has taken a backseat in most companies as they focus on that which they can measure. Marketers worldwide know that a strong brand is critical to steady growth. But when your boss says, “we need results now,” staying on the (brand) course is challenging. However, we need to look no further than Nike’s fall from grace to get a warning about the impact of neglecting brand marketing in favor of performance marketing. After putting all their chips on a direct-to-consumer this summer, they realized that it just didn’t work, and shareholders reacted accordingly, with Nike’s stock value plummeting 20%.

And they aren’t out of the swamp yet. Performance marketing will always have its place in a marketing mix. However, brand marketing is vital to building loyalty and enticing new customers as consumers install more adblockers, become more disillusioned with brand content, and crave more authenticity in an otherwise highly filtered civilization. And putting all your eggs in one basket is bad for investing, farming, and marketing. No matter how much DTC grows, there is still value in having products found on store shelves and not simply online. And don’t worry - even the big players are getting this wrong! In 2019, Adidas invested heavily in performance marketing as they believed it impacted revenue most.

However, as Marketing Week says, “... while Adidas thought only performance drove e-commerce sales it was brand activity driving 65% of sales across wholesale, retail and e-commerce, while performance also drove wholesale and retail sales.” This applies heavily to influencer marketing, where having the right brand match is essential for building relevance and resonance. We expect influencer marketing to become the core of most brand marketing strategies and for those strategies to rise in importance. Ida Nevala, Marketing Communications Manager at Fonum, has this to say about brand marketing and its importance.

"It is clear that in recent years, data-driven digital marketing has led brands to focus heavily on what drives sales, as evidenced by data. This can be seen in the erosion of long-term brand awareness and brand loyalty, to which larger companies in particular are waking up or have woken up and are starting to change their strategy back to brand-driven marketing and increasing brand loyalty. At Fonum, we believe in strong long-term brand awareness building and have invested in it, not on a campaign-by-campaign basis, but strategically and over the long term. Short campaigns support sales momentarily, but their value is only seen in the campaign period and they do not build a long-lasting impression on our customers.”

5. Platform Preferences and Strategic Shifts

With influencer marketing, you must go where your target audience hangs out. Currently, platform preferences are shifting, with YouTube gaining traction while TikTok shows a slight decline in usage due to regulatory concerns.

Key stats include

YouTube usage increased by 41.1%, while TikTok decreased by 12.3% (June 2024). Instagram remains the top platform, used by 39.2% of respondents, closely followed by TikTok at 38% (May 2024).

6. Emphasis on Diverse Video Content

Video marketing has always been the backbone of influencer marketing, but today’s influencers have access to even more options for publishing such content. Many make use of a combination of short-form and long-form channels to mix things up and expand their reach. Choosing an influencer who posts several different forms of content can help you connect with a broader audience.

For instance, a partner that publishes Instagram Reels, YouTube shorts, and long-form YouTube videos can help you reach various niches within your target demographic in one fell swoop. Their long-form videos will provide an excellent tool for educating consumers about your brand and products. And since short-form clips are snappy and to the point, they’ll be a great option for generating buzz and encouraging people to learn more about your business.

7. Hyper-Personalization and Niche Influencers

In 2025, the "one-size-fits-all" approach will become obsolete. Brands increasingly turn to micro- and nano-influencers who cater to specific audiences with highly personalized content. These influencers often have smaller followings but generate higher engagement rates by targeting niche communities. Hyper-personalized content tailored to unique audiences will create stronger brand affinity and trust, making it a valuable strategy for brands looking to build loyalty.

8. Increased Scrutiny on Results

Alright, so what gives? We’ve just said that brand marketing, a marketing form notoriously hard to track, will reign, yet there will be increased scrutiny on results. Let us explain. As marketers, we’ve gotten better at proving the results of our efforts, and brand marketing reporting is improving in that area. While it’s hard to confirm everything, we have options, such as follower growth, share of voice, etc. And so services will improve to serve that need! For example, at Boksi, we have improved our influencer search and launched our Discovery tool to help you find the best influencers to drive the best results.

You can evaluate influencers according to specific factors, such as Audience demographics, Content views, Follower count, and Engagement rate. This helps you find the best influencers based on statistics and brand values. And as social media platforms continue to improve, they’ll provide more information on who saw your posts and which action they took. So don’t hesitate to measure your campaigns - many options are available.

9. Marketers Will Spend More Money on TikTok

You might think that we should remove this section from this post – we’ve predicted increased recognition of TikTok by marketers for years now. However, despite some disquiet by some politicians, TikTok isn’t going anywhere. It can now boast over 1 billion users worldwide (a feat only bettered by Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and WeChat. According to the Digital 2023 July Global Statshot Report, global users spend more time on TikTok each month (31 hours, 14 minutes) than any other social platform. For example, users of influencer marketing darling Instagram only average 13 hours and 49 minutes per month on the platform. TikTok users spend more time on the platform than watching YouTube (on average, 27 hours, 21 minutes per month).

10. Live Streaming and Real-Time Engagement

Don’t forget about the value of real-time engagement with your audience. In Q4 2023, 28.5% of respondents said they watched live-streamed content at least once a week. With that in mind, going live can help you and your influencer partners mix up the content you deliver to users while driving enhanced engagement.

For instance, let’s say you are getting ready to launch a new product. You could invite your collaborators to your business and livestream a “behind-the-scenes” look at your upcoming release. Livestreams can also provide you with real-time feedback about consumer preferences and sentiments. Taking that information to heart will help you create more impactful content and better connect with your target audience in future campaigns.

Social platforms are improving their social commerce features to help influencers drive direct sales instead of mere promotions. For example, it’s easier than ever to make in-app purchases and live-stream unboxings that share links directly to the products mentioned. Live-streamed video is becoming more popular than ever, with 27% of all internet users watching live-streamed content weekly. When you look at social media, 37% of users find live video content most engaging, and 43% of 18-34-year-olds prefer Instagram for their live video content.

Most expect that figure only to grow, so now is the time to consider your live-streaming strategy. You may recall that these were big things a few years ago, only to have TikTok halt their planned live shopping rollout to Europe and Meta cancel their live shopping features altogether in 2023. However, social commerce is still alive and well on other platforms like YouTube and Twitch, and now that TikTok plans to bring their shop to Europe, you can bet that Meta will follow close behind (after learning what TikTok did right and wrong, of course).

What are the main benefits of social commerce and live shopping on social media platforms? Well, instead of influencers providing a link to your store with a discount code to use at checkout, now influencers can promote the products live, and viewers can purchase them directly in the app, with discounts and influencer commissions already applied.

12. Challenges in Influencer Marketing

Identifying the right influencers remains the top challenge, along with measuring ROI and adapting to platform changes. Key stats include: 44% of marketers cited identifying the right influencers as their biggest challenge (May 2024). 21.9% of brands monitor social media sentiment, focusing on real-time, qualitative metrics (July 2024).

13. Cross-Platform Strategies Become Easier and Better

Finally, cross-platform influencer marketing campaigns will be more accessible than ever. Social media platforms like YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram, and more are embracing new technologies to attract more people and give creators more tools to create fantastic content. Sharing and repurposing content for each channel will be easier as platforms develop. For example, influencers can create filters related to your brand that others can use in their posts, and those filters don’t have to be limited to one platform.

They can also run simultaneous live streams that connect to multiple platforms, meaning less work for more sales. Implementing these features today can be costly and time-consuming, but we predict that they will become more accessible and easier to work with in the future. And as they improve, so does your ability to create even more immersive, interactive experiences that truly resonate with your target audience.

14. Emerging Content Formats

There’s a growing adoption of new content formats like TikTok’s Branded Hashtag Challenges, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels, catering to the demand for short-form, dynamic content.

Key stats include

TikTok Branded Hashtag Challenges (20.7%) and TikTok Shop (20.3%) are widely adopted (July 2024). Video posts (57.4%) are considered the most effective content format (May 2024). These findings underscore brands' need to continuously refine their influencer marketing strategies, embracing new technologies and content formats while strongly focusing on authentic engagement and measurable results.

15. Influencers Will Become Key to Many Affiliate Programs

Until recently, most people viewed influencer and affiliate marketing as two different activities. In reality, though, they’re very much interrelated. Both activities involve an "outsider" promoting and encouraging their supporters to buy somebody's products. Indeed, one of the platforms, Refersion, already recognizes the connection and doubles up as an affiliate and influencer platform. As our reviewer of that platform observed, "The line between affiliates and influencers is becoming increasingly blurred as influencer platforms integrate with eCommerce more and more, moving beyond simple 'awareness' campaigns actually to drive sales."

In the past, most affiliates were traditional bloggers or publishers. They would include product demonstrations, walkthroughs, and reviews on their sites. In addition, they often promoted multiple, sometimes competing, affiliate programs to increase their chances of getting referral fees from a broader range of readers. We're now seeing a change, however. Influencers are now recommending products to their followers – but typically only those they use or trust themselves. They don't want to alienate their followers by promoting products they don't believe in. As a result, brands are discovering that influencers can be true champions of their products.

Influencers often give personal testimonials, demonstrations, and calls to action when discussing a brand. They can help their followers through the entire sales funnel, from awareness to consideration and purchase. What’s more, they do all of this authentically and personally. On his blog, Neal Schaffer adds that as brands discover that influencers are indeed a type of affiliate, it can work in their favor. It can encourage influencers to work harder as they know they’ll get paid for their results. He also highlights that this new way of thinking about influencers will benefit brands and consumers. Brands will find that they don’t have to pay inflated rates, while consumers will find that affiliate links shared by their favorite influencers will make the shopping experience more convenient.

16. Live Shopping Will Continue to Play a Greater Role in Influencer Campaigns

Live shopping has become increasingly popular in recent years and will continue in 2024. As Marijana Kay of Shopify says, “Live commerce is here to stay.” Influencers and key thought leaders will continue promoting products to their communities on their favorite social platforms, using live video and interactive content. In fact, according to statistics about live shopping, the majority is starting to prefer livestream over other types of social media purchases. In response, Amazon, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram have all developed livestream shopping tools and partnerships.

For example, Instagram launched Live Shopping, allowing users to buy products directly via Instagram Live. According to the platform, the appeal of this format is that it gives shoppers an immersive way to discover and purchase products. Many influencers successfully used live shopping and partnered with brands. Even Walmart has partnered with TikTok creators to host live shopping experiences. So, expect to see many more of these types of collaborations over the next year.

17. Authenticity and Transparency

Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy, quickly spotting inauthentic endorsements from a mile away. Lackluster or shameless pushes for products turn consumers off from those items and can cause your influencer partner to lose credibility with their audience. In other words, poor matches are bad for all parties. Influencers who genuinely believe in the products or services they promote can avoid the dangers of inauthenticity. With that in mind, encourage your partners to try your products before creating content so they can provide honest endorsements. Additionally, align yourself with social media influencers who are transparent about their partnerships, even if they are organically plugging your products into their content.

18. Performance-Based Deals Will Increase in Popularity

As influencers are starting to play an important role in affiliate marketing programs and more brands are seeking out long-term partnerships with influencers, it’s anticipated that performance-based deals will become more prevalent in 2024. This means that clients will expect influencers to deliver on their promises, such as a specific number of sales or clicks. If you're an influencer with a performance-based contract, you might consider turning it into ongoing royalties instead of accepting a single payment. You'll also want to be diligent in your contract review before signing to ensure you know what you agree to before guaranteeing a specific return.

9 Incredible Tips For Successful Influencer Marketing

1. Use Aha Creator to Boost Brand Partnerships

Aha Creator streamlines brand partnerships for YouTube creators and businesses alike. We offer a done-for-you partnership service for brands to connect with the right creators. For content creators, we handle the heavy lifting of brand deal negotiations, ensuring you get fair value for your influence. Our matching system helps pair creators with relevant brands, maximizing the potential for successful collaborations. Sign up for our waitlist today, and we'll work to connect you with partnership opportunities that align with your content and values.

2. Be Clear About Your Goals

Gone are the days of posting an ad and praying the content gets in front of the right audience. Given the amount of time, effort, and resources you spend on your marketing, you need a well-defined strategy that helps you achieve the desired results. The first step towards this is to define your goals. Next, you have to ensure you communicate these goals to your influencers. Provide them with detailed campaign briefs so that everyone is clear on expectations. Otherwise, you risk running a muddled campaign with everyone paddling in different directions.

3. Building Long-term Partnerships for Lasted Consumer Trust

According to ION, brands that invest in ongoing collaborations with influencers ensure that 82% of consumers are more likely to buy due to repeated, trusted exposure, and the 54% who value authenticity over metrics, like follower count, will be more inclined to engage with consistent, relatable content over time. Consumers are looking for relatability, and influencers provide that authenticity that brands can’t always match.

A celebrity example would be Nespresso, who trusted George Clooney as its global ambassador since 2006. A 2023 study done by Personality Media in Spain shows that 60% of consumers associate directly with the brand. Long-term partnerships like this build more substantial brand recognition and trust over time. Consistency is vital, given it creates an authentic connection between the celebrity and the brand, making the message more credible and leading to higher consumer loyalty and engagement.

4. Be Aware of Algorithm and Policy Changes

Since your audience is on social media, your marketing team must be there, too. Ensure your team understands the platforms and works out their strategy accordingly. For example, Facebook changed its algorithm to make content more relevant to users. Fewer brand messages now appear on users’ feeds because Facebook prioritizes content shared by the people they know, like friends, family, and influencers they follow. Developments like this make influencer marketing more crucial than ever. To engage with audiences more meaningfully, brands must partner with authentic influencers who can help share content that resonates with target audiences.

5. Leveraging Influencer-Generated Content (IGC)

Unlike User-Generated Content, which depends on the spontaneity and authenticity of everyday users, Influencer-Generated Content typically stems from a strategic collaboration between a brand and an influencer. Their extensive reach and ability to create and curate content tailored to each platform can significantly boost your engagement rate compared to traditional brand-created content. In the following case study, The Honest Company partnered with 30 influencers who aligned with the brand's values to promote a bedtime bundle for moms.

The approach

From micro to macro, the influencers created 103 posts across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The goal was to create visual and tonal content that felt like Honest had developed in-house, emphasizing brand consistency.

The results

Engagement rates were six times higher than the campaign's initial benchmarks. Specifically, the in-feed posts achieved an impressive 4.32% engagement rate, and the overall engagement rate across all platforms was 4.25%, considered very high in influencer marketing.

6. Use Hashtags Wisely

Using relevant hashtags is still one of the most effective ways to increase your reach on Instagram posts. Websites like Hashtagify, RiteTag, and Iconosquare are solid resources for finding which popular hashtags work best for your brand. One common misconception is that more hashtags always mean more reach.

While Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags, maxing out on every post is only sometimes wise. The optimal number of hashtags to use depends on your following size. Ten or more hashtags work best for users with fewer than 1,000 followers, but the more significant the following, the fewer hashtags you should use.

7. The Multiple Content Format Strategy

Social media marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all game; different types of content serve different needs and grab attention in various ways. Mixing things with text, video, audio, and interactive content can do wonders for your brand. Let’s dive into why using multiple content formats can be a game-changer:

Different Preferences

Everyone consumes information differently. Some prefer reading articles, others watch videos, some might tune into podcasts, and many enjoy interactive quizzes. By offering content in various formats, you can reach a broader audience.

Expand Your Reach

Different formats help you connect with various audience segments across multiple platforms. By giving what you already have a new spin and repurposing content into other formats, you can keep things exciting and attract more potential customers to your brand.

Reinforce Your Message

Different types of content can help reinforce your brand’s identity. For example, written content can showcase your tone, visuals can highlight your style, and audio can convey your personality. Try connecting with your audience differently and help create a memorable and consistent brand impression. In short, mixing up your content formats can make your marketing efforts more effective and engaging, helping you connect with a broader audience and strengthen your brand’s presence.

8. Make Your Campaigns Locally Relevant

Local businesses should first consider collaborating with popular local influencers. Even if a nationally recognized celebrity or macro influencer is willing to promote your brand, a smaller local influencer might have more long-term success with a much smaller price tag. Local creators know how to talk to local audiences and appear far more authentic than someone unfamiliar.

9. Leverage Micro-Influencers

Micro-influencers have fewer followers but often make just as good, if not better, better partners than their larger counterparts. One of the most significant benefits of working with micro-influencers is Trust. Audiences trust micro-influencers because they are more authentic. About 56% of social media users said they prefer to follow micro-influencers over macro and celebrity influencers because they seem more like ordinary people.

Affordability. The more followers a creator has, the more they will charge for branded content. Although influencer rates are rising across the board, working with micro-influencers is far more affordable than working with macro or celebrity influencers. Availability. The micro-influencer market is getting larger as social media platforms continue to expand tools for creators.