Hypeauditor – an A.I. analytics platform for brands seeking fair, transparent, and effective influencer marketing – has released their third annual “State of Influencer Marketing 2022” report, focusing on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
The report provides valuable insight into influencer marketing and details the evolutions that occurred in 2021 and the predicted trends for the year ahead.
It analysed Instagram influencers’ accounts to see the average yearly growth of followers in order to identify the most trending Instagram categories in 2021.
The data revealed that “finance and economics” grew the most in 2021 at a rate of 26.75%, followed by “health and medicine” at 23.68%.
Individual “finfluencers” have also seen tremendous growth, like 25-year-old Colin Yurcisin who has grown at a rate of 122.6% in 2021, as well as entrepreneur Armando Juan Pantoja and author Robert Kiyosaki whose accounts grew 111.7% and 30.7%, respectively.
With the rise of online banking, cryptocurrency, and economic uncertainty, the corresponding growth of “finfluencers” across social media platforms is not surprising.
HypeAuditor’s data also found that 49% of Instagram influencers were impacted by fraud in 2021.
Despite this high percentage, it has decreased by 14.3% since 2019, making this the second year in a row that HypeAuditor has discovered a decrease in fraud on Instagram. This positive trend illustrates the efforts made by Instagram to fight fraud on its platform more effectively.
Overall, the report highlights that the influencer marketing industry remains strong. HypeAuditor conservatively estimates that the global Instagram influencer market will grow from $13.8 billion in 2021 to $22.2 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.6% during the forecast period.
The rise of social commerce, and the redistribution of the advertising budget from television and offline, towards digital advertising, are some of the key factors driving this growth.
In 2021, TikTok saw its growth explode amid the pandemic and reached a billion active users, according to the platform. However, HypeAuditor’s report highlights that the engagement rate (ER) for all tiers of TikTok influencers in the US has decreased.
As we saw in 2020, mega-influencers (1+ million followers) have the highest ER at 15.63%. Bella Poarch was the top growing account on TikTok, surpassing Charli D’Amelio by gaining 35 million followers at a rate of 71%, compared to D’Amelio’s 25 million new followers at a rate of 24%.
New to 2021’s list was singer Billie Eilish, gaining 22 million followers at an immense growth rate of 152%. Mega-influencers can charge brands on average over $1000 per post according to the report.
Alexander Frolov, co-founder and CEO of HypeAuditor, said: “The influencer marketing industry continued to gain momentum and popularity in 2021, and there’s no doubt that the opportunities available will grow indefinitely this upcoming year.”
“But with more opportunities arising in the market, it is inevitable that the challenges in navigating influencer marketing, for both influencers and brands, will escalate with them. Our ‘State of the Influencer’ report provides influencers and brands alike with the necessary analyses and trends to consider when implementing effective influencer marketing strategies.”