Influencer marketing is still a relatively new concept. However, it is a concept that is growing fast in popularity and is regularly referred to in the mainstream media. It can be a useful tool for companies, but how exactly does influencer marketing work, how do companies use it, and how effective is it?

In this article, you will find key information on influencer marketing in Canada, including statistics on the most used platforms in influencer marketing, what influencers look for when choosing brands to collaborate with, and the market value of influencer marketing. We will also explain what influencer marketing is, in case there are readers who are not yet fully familiar with this marketing style.

Influencer Marketing Statistics for Canadians

  • Internet searches for influencer marketing have grown by 465% since 2016.
  • Global market size for influencer marketing was expected to reach $16.4 billion in 2022.
  • 620 agencies and platforms focused on influencer marketing have opened just in the last two years.
  • 75% of Canadian companies have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing.
  • 90% of brands and marketers believe content marketing to be effective.
  • 89% of influencers will only represent brands whose products or services they like.
  • 65% of social media influencers find the changing algorithms their biggest challenge.
  • Facebook is the most popular social media platform in Canada.
  • Instagram users post 95 million photos and videos every day.
  • The number of posts with sponsored content was expected to reach 6.12 million by the end of 2023.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Since there are still people and brands who are not entirely familiar with influencer marketing, we will share key points of this style of marketing first. If you are already familiar with the concept, you will find the statistics a little later in the article.

Influencer marketing can be said to be a hybrid of traditional and new marketing tools. It has taken the idea of using celebrities to endorse products or services and transferred it into content-focused marketing campaigns on social media.

There are some differences between traditional and influencer marketing such as the results of marketing campaigns on social media are usually collaborations between influencers and brands. Another difference is that more often than using celebrities, brands will collaborate with popular social media accounts. The people behind these accounts are known as influencers.

What is An Influencer?

An influencer is someone who can influence other people’s purchasing decisions because of their relationship with their audience or because of their position or knowledge of a certain concept or product.

Influencers generally have a dedicated following in their niche, and they engage actively with their audience. They usually have put a lot of effort into building their social media following and it is not a coincidence that their audience follows them instead of a particular brand.

What do Influencer Marketers Need to Understand?

When a brand wants to collaborate with an influencer, they need to understand that the audience cares more about the person they follow than they do about the brand. The audience also cares a lot more about the opinion of the influencer than what the brand has to say about its product or service. Marketers should not try to impose their business practices or rules on the influencers who have carefully created their brands on social media.

Who Can Be an Influencer?

Anyone who works hard to create a presence on social media can potentially be an influencer. What makes them influential is their dedicated followers who trust what the influencer recommends.

While some influencers in certain niches can have hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions of followers, most will have far less. However, research has found that people are more likely to be persuaded by these influencers than celebrity endorsements.

What Not to Expect From Influencers

Brands that are looking to use influencer marketing should do their research and only approach influencers they think would genuinely be the right representative for their product. Most people who have built their brand on social media are protective of their reputation and aware that their followers trust them and expect them to be genuine in their recommendations. Do not expect them to represent a brand simply for the money, although of course, those influencers exist, too.

Statistics on Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has seen a huge increase in popularity in recent years. The number of times people searched the term influencer marketing on Google has increased by 465% since 2016. Some people searching for the term are people looking to become influencers, while others are brands who would like to harness the power of influencer marketing to raise brand awareness and sell their products.

Global Influencer Marketing Was Predicted to Grow to $16.4 Billion in 2022

The growth of influencer marketing was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. While in 2016, the market size of influencer marketing was a mere $1.7 billion, by 2020 it had grown to $9.7 billion. The market has continued to grow and was predicted to reach $16.4 billion in 2022.

The Number of Platforms And Agencies Focused on Influencer Marketing Doubled in Two Years

A sure sign that influencer marketing is now mainstream is the number of platforms and agencies that focus on influencer marketing. They offer brand services where they search and select suitable influencers for them. In the last twelve months, 240 influencer marketing-focused agencies and platforms opened and 380 entered the market the previous year.

How Much Do Businesses Earn From Influencer Marketing?

According to the Influencer Marketing Hub, in 2020 businesses earned an average of $5.78 of promotional publicity for every dollar they spent on influencer marketing. While some companies gained up to $18 per dollar, 25% of marketers lost money or just broke even.

¾ of Companies Now Budget For Influencer Marketing

75% of companies that took part in an influencer marketing survey say they have a dedicated budget for influencer marketing in 2023. This is a substantially higher percentage compared to 2017 when only 37% of companies had an influencer marketing budget.

In addition, most companies are looking to increase their budget for influencer marketing. 62% of companies that already have an influencer budget planned to increase it in 2023. Only 7% of companies said they were decreasing their influencer marketing budget or moving away from it.

How do Marketers Judge Influencer Marketing?

It is clear that brands and marketers find influencer marketing effective. This has led to an increase in content created in 2022. 90% of brands and marketers believe using influencers to market products and services is effective. There has been little change in this statistic since 2017.

Influencers With Fewer Followers Get More Engagement

It is interesting to note that influencers with fewer followers have higher engagement rates than those with over 100,000 followers. This could benefit smaller brands with less money to spend on influencer marketing. Getting an influencer with fewer, but more dedicated followers can produce the same results as signing a more popular account with less active or dedicated followers.

On Instagram, influencers who have under 1,000 followers get a 7.2% engagement rate. On TikTok, the rate is 9.38%, and 1.4% on Twitter. Influencers with over 100,000 followers get a 1.1% engagement rate on Instagram, 0.3% on Twitter, and 5.3% on TikTok.

How Much Do Influencers Charge?

How much an influencer will charge to post sponsored content varies greatly, with some doing it for a few dollars while others ask for over $1 million. What brands can expect to spend on influencer marketing depends on various factors including which platform they use, how many followers the influencer has, the industry of the brand, and the type of content they want. For example, reels will cost the brand more than a simple photo post.

How do Influencers Choose Who to Work With?

Seeing that influencers have built their brand carefully, it is hardly surprising that the most important criterion for influencers when entering a partnership with a company is liking the product or service. 89% of influencers will only work with companies whose products they genuinely like.

88% of the influencers only represent brands whose values align with their own.  78% will only work with companies that let them have complete creative freedom on the posts they publish on their social media accounts.

Challenges For Influencers

There are some challenges that influencer marketing faces on social media. The biggest challenge is the changing algorithms with 65% of influencers stating this was their biggest challenge. 

Use of Social Media in Canada

If a brand is looking to use influencer marketing, choosing the right platform is important. In Canada, there are 34.47 million people who regularly use social media and a penetration rate of 89% makes Canada one of the most connected countries in the world.

Facebook is the most popular social media platform, with social media users visiting the site 92 times per month on average. YouTube is the second most popular, with 55 monthly visits with Twitter and Instagram coming next with 51 and 29 visits, respectively.

78% of Canadian social media users have a Facebook account, while 53% and 31% use Instagram and TikTok, respectively. The number of Facebook users in Canada is 29.44 million, and it is expected to reach 35 million by 2027.

Instagram Influencer Insights

While there are influencers on all social media platforms including TikTok and YouTube, and while Facebook is the most popular social media platform, for many people social media influencers are synonymous with Instagram. Instagram has 1.074 billion active users and 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day.

Instagram Users Post 95 Million Photos And Videos Per Day

Instagram has grown significantly in the last few years. On an average day, its users post 95 million videos and photos. Instagram users interact with 4.2 billion posts each day. 64.4% of posts on the main feed are photos, carousel posts represent 18.8%, and videos 16.8% of all posted content.

Spending on Instagram Influencer Marketing

Since Instagram has increased its user numbers, brands have increased the money they spend on Instagram influencers. While YouTube is still the most popular channel for influencer marketers, Instagram is now a firm second with 55% of marketers using it in 2022.

Brand-Sponsored Content Was Expected to Reach 6.12 Million Posts in 2023

There has been massive growth in posts with sponsored content on Instagram. The number of sponsored posts doubled from 2015 to 2017 when there were 2.68 million sponsored posts. It was expected that in 2023 there would be 6.12 million posts with sponsored content.

Conclusion

Despite being a relatively new form of marketing, influencer marketing has rapidly grown in size in recent years and 75% of companies now have budgets dedicated to influencer marketing. Brands who are looking to work with social media influencers need to be aware that 89% of influencers will only work with brands whose products or services they like.

While influencers with the widest reach can charge around $1 million within some industries, the good news for smaller brands is that some influencers will only charge a few dollars per post. While 90% of brands consider influencer marketing to be effective, the competition is fierce with 6.12 million posts on Instagram alone expected to include sponsored content in 2023.

Frequently Asked Questions

Research shows that consumers trust the influencers on YouTube the most. Consumers are also likely to trust endorsements by “regular people” more than celebrities.

The majority of influencers will only work with brands whose products or services they like and whose values align with their own. 89% and 88% of influencers said these qualities were important when choosing brands to collaborate with.

How much you can earn depends on various factors. While some influencers only get paid a few dollars per post, others can charge over a million. The fee depends on the number of followers, the industry, and the platform among other factors.

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