It all began with watching lifestyle vlogs on YouTube and gaming streams on Twitch. Ordinary people shared glimpses of their lives through a camera and rose to fame in the process. Little did we know, they weren’t just entertaining us; they were disrupting traditional advertising and shaping what would become a multi-billion-dollar influencer marketing industry.

The Rise of Influencer Marketing

In marketing, social media has become one of the most effective tools for brands to engage audiences. Alongside its rise is the growth of influencer marketing, a strategy that allows brands to leverage the credibility and reach of social media stars to connect with consumers. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have made everyday individuals famous by earning loyal followers by sharing their lifestyles and hobbies. This has led to the global influencer marketing market size exponentially increasing over the past five years, reaching 24 billion U.S. dollars. (Statista)

Traditionally, brands relied on celebrity endorsements, using A-list stars to promote products. Recently, this has evolved beyond celebrities with large audiences to industry experts with targeted audiences and micro-influencers with niche communities. Influencer marketing outperforms this traditional method when measuring return on investment (ROI). Celebrity endorsements require significant financial assets, making tracking their direct impact on sales difficult. Meanwhile, influencer marketing allows companies to better measure ROI through key performance metrics such as likes, shares, link clicks, website traffic, and conversions.

These individuals have built their engaged communities by sharing content about their daily lives, personal hobbies, and unique perspectives, building the loyalty that traditional advertising struggles to achieve. What sets influencer marketing apart is its ability to meet consumers who spend much time on social media. Unlike traditional ads, influencer marketing seamlessly integrates into users’ daily lives, making promotional content more natural and relatable.

Why Do Influencers Work?

In recent years, brands have faced many obstacles: a pandemic that shut their stores down, drastic changes in consumer behaviors, and advancements in digital marketing. Because of this, these brands are seeking consistency and security in their marketing strategy. Influencer marketing creates stability by driving brand sales, fostering consumer trust, and enabling influencers to shape brand strategies.

For Brands: An Investment Worth the Price

For businesses, influencers are a cost-effective and strategic investment bridging the gap between brands and target demographics that may be difficult to reach through traditional channels. These relatable content creators serve as brand ambassadors, transferring the trust they’ve built with their audience to the products they endorse, ultimately benefiting the company.

Partnering with influencers allows brands to tap into existing loyalty, making promotions feel organic and personal rather than forced commercials or billboards. Unlike traditional advertising, influencer marketing is very adaptable, and strategies can be easily adjusted. Since influencers are very close to their community and understand their preferences and interests, they can quickly adapt to shifts that may arise in the market, helping brands stay relevant even as the market changes. 

For Consumers: A Human Connection in Marketing

For consumers, influencers are the gateway of trust for a brand. Before access to social media, we listened to companies tell us what we needed. However, the shift to digital marketing has given consumers more power, allowing them to research brands, compare products, and seek peer recommendations.

Gen Z, in particular, has transitioned to using social media platforms as search engines, redefining how product discovery works (Haan). Instagram and TikTok are used for scrolling and finding new products, reading reviews, and learning about the company. This is because, as consumers, we are more inclined to trust influencers who are people just like us. But why is this? Why do we trust people we’ve never met?

We’ve developed a para-social relationship with them, creating the illusion that we know these creators, contributing to the emotional appeal of marketing. This appeal makes their recommendations feel genuine, like taking advice from a friend rather than a sales pitch. Also, as humans, we tend to follow what is popular, craving the need to fit in and follow what others are saying is credible. Ultimately, this non-traditional marketing trend is easier for us to follow because it feeds into the illusion that we aren’t being sold something.

For Influencers: Revenue Streams and Career Paths

For many influencers, brand partnerships start with something simple: free products. After all, who doesn’t love free stuff? Public relations (PR) packages are a common way for brands to introduce their products to influencers, hoping they will share them with their audience. However, influencer marketing goes beyond gifts; it has become an avenue to form a career path with multiple revenue streams.

Influencers benefit by monetizing their platforms in various ways, including brand deals, sponsored content, and affiliate marketing, where they earn commissions from link clicks and product sales. This profession is appealing to ordinary people because of its seamless integration into everyday life. Many influencers document their daily routines, turning activities they would already be doing into content that resonates with their followers.

Beyond financial opportunities, influencer marketing opens doors to industries like acting, modeling, and entrepreneurship. A strong online presence can attract opportunities from major brands, media companies, and talent agencies, transforming what started as content creation into aspiring careers.

A Successful Disruption

For some reason, we as consumers don't like being sold on products; we run past a salesperson and enable ad blockers on our computers to ignore advertising. Companies have found a way to bypass our preferences by collaborating with people we love to watch and reaching us through influencer marketing.

Works Cited:

chararadana. “Beyond Traditional Advertising: The Rise of Influencer Marketing.” Marketing Numérique | Digital Marketing | HEC Montréal, 21 Mar. 2024, digital.hec.ca/en/blog/the-rise-of-influencer-marketing/.

Doty, David. “Influencers on the Rise Make Way for a New Breed of Agencies.” Forbes, 16 Sept. 2024, www.forbes.com/sites/daviddoty/2024/09/12/influencer-agencies-marketers-choose-for-tiktok-instagram-more/.

Haan, Katherine. “Is Social Media the New Google? Gen Z Turn to Google 25% Less than Gen X When Searching – Forbes Advisor.” Www.forbes.com, 31 May 2024, www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/social-media-new-google/.

Kuzminov, Michael. “Council Post: How Influencer Marketing Can Help Increase Sales amid Uncertain Times.” Forbes, 12 Aug. 2024, www.forbes.com/councils/forbesagencycouncil/2023/09/05/how-influencer-marketing-can-help-increase-sales-amid-uncertain-times/.

---. “The Power of Influencer Marketing: Your Strategic Investment for Success.” Forbes, 12 Aug. 2024, www.forbes.com/councils/forbesagencycouncil/2024/01/05/the-power-of-influencer-marketing-your-strategic-investment-for-success/.

Pinkerton, Lisa Ann. “The Power of Influencer Marketing.” PRSA, Mar. 2022, www.prsa.org/article/the-power-of-influencer-marketing.

Statista. “Influencer Marketing Market Size Worldwide from 2016 to 2024.” Statista, 10 Dec. 2024, www.statista.com/statistics/1092819/global-influencer-market-size/.