The Future of Influencer Marketing: Insights from Group RFZ’s Gary Zucker

1. Why is LinkedIn emerging as a key platform for influencer marketing, and how can brands leverage it effectively ?

In the past 12-18 months, LinkedIn has evolved into one of the hottest video platforms for influencer marketing, especially for B2B. It really started taking hold after LinkedIn – drawing from the playbooks of apps like TikTok and Instagram – rolled out a dedicated video feed that serves up bite-sized videos that people can browse through. It also modified its algorithm to prioritize creator content, introduced new creator tools and improved analytics, making it a more appealing and effective platform for influencers, agencies and brands.

It's not hard to understand its growing appeal. LinkedIn users are professionals who are highly engaged and influential. Plus, in the throes of the pandemic, they became even more active and innovative on the platform.

With LinkedIn influencer marketing on the rise, we’re now seeing specialized agencies emerge, like Creator Authority, that focus specifically on LinkedIn campaigns. This trend is only going to grow, meaning brands that don’t get in the game risk falling behind. Marketers should start experimenting now by testing influencer partnerships, short-form video and organic engagement strategies to see what resonates. By figuring out what works and what doesn’t, brands will at least have baseline data to help them future campaigns for LinkedIn.

2. What metrics are most commonly used to measure the success of influencer campaigns, and how should brands refine their approach ?

The influencer marketing industry has come a long way in just the last few years. When we started Group RFZ in 2018, influencers were measured almost entirely by traditional digital advertising metrics, such as reach, engagement and click-through rates. Now we see marketers demanding measurement better suited to the channel and researchers have been adapting. While those standard metrics still have a place, the industry is beginning to evolve and look at more goal-aligned metrics. While these aren’t as easy to come by, I believe it’s the right way forward. We should measure what truly matters and leave little doubt as to whether a campaign achieved its specific objectives.

The first step is identifying what the campaign is trying to achieve. If the focus is around awareness, brand building or shifting perceptions, sentiment analysis and a brand lift study may be warranted. If there is a distinct call to action and the focus is e-commerce sales, creating discount codes, affiliate or custom links can close the loop. If the goal is to generate sales for a  popular product available both online and off, a sales lift study may be a good fit. Better ways to measure are out there and the space continues to evolve. But if measurement isn’t an integral part of the planning process, much like influencer selection, brands and agencies won’t be able to take advantage of them.

3. How is AI transforming influencer marketing, and what limitations still exist in its application ?

AI is revolutionizing all industries, and influencer marketing is certainly not immune to its charm. Marketers are still in the navigation process, but I’ve already seen clients successfully tapping into it to find the right influencers, develop more compelling creative briefs, and refine their strategies to improve their future campaigns.

But, while AI is doing all of these wonderful things on the brand side, I don’t see influencers using it as much for content creation, and there’s a good reason for that. Creators take pride in their originality and are concerned about plagiarism risks. More importantly, AI detracts from their authenticity and, at the end of the day, that’s what they have to hang their hat on. Without authenticity, the influencer-follower relationship becomes artificial and eventually dissolves. Despite AI making influencer marketing more efficient, scalable and measurable, it won’t be an easy-button for influencers because it simply can’t replace the personal touch and human creativity.   

4. What are the long-term sustainability concerns for virtual influencers, and how can brands mitigate potential pitfalls ?

Virtual influencers – computer-generated personalities that exist solely on social media – have gotten so advanced that they can now mimic human influencers by sharing content, engaging with followers and endorsing products. They’re a dream for brands and agencies because they give them complete brand control. There’s no risk of off-message content, public influencer controversies or countless other unpredictable instances that come with real influencers. They also bring a ton of additional advantages – they can scale infinitely, be active 24/7, and engage with different audiences across multiple platforms, time zones and languages.

Despite these benefits, virtual influencers have a major flaw that makes them unsustainable: they lack the human connection, authenticity and trust that make influencer marketing so impactful. In an industry built on relationships, an AI-generated persona simply can’t replace a genuine and relatable voice.

If brands do opt to use virtual influencers, I recommend pairing them with real influencers to maintain an element of authenticity and to complement their human storytelling. This helps address another issue, which is that followers may take exception to the fact that a brand is replacing real influencers with virtual ones and potentially threatening their livelihoods. That balance of innovation and authenticity will help ensure credibility and longer-term success.

5. What innovations in influencer marketing measurement are brands and agencies eager to see in the near future ?

From a measurement perspective, brands and agencies often ask for the Holy Grail - flawless, direct attribution and clear ROI. And while most of them understand that there is no magic wand or one-size-fits-all attribution model, they keep pushing the measurement community to get as close as possible through innovation, partnerships and experimentation. That push is something researchers should embrace, not scoff at, as it will continue to drive us forward.

One thing we have been hearing a lot of lately is that clients are eager for measurement solutions that can be reliably deployed across different channels and platforms. Brands and agencies aren’t typically putting all of their eggs in one social basket anymore, so they need something that cuts across different channels and allows them to compare and contrast performance. Finally, we see a deep curiosity from many of our clients around the influencer content itself. They are taking more of a creative back seat than they are used to, and they want to know what about the content worked, what didn’t, what messages resonated and more. They want these insights not only to pinpoint which pieces were well received, but to create more effective creative briefs and guide content strategies.