We already know that influencer marketing is a collaboration between influential persons on social media with brands. We also know that the method is effective, with Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook as leading platforms for influencers in 2023. However, there’s usually a shortage of facts and stats when it comes to influencer marketing.
Below we will explore influencer marketing statistics to help you see why the marketing method should be part of any online marketing strategy in 2023. We’ve covered every important influencer marketing statistic to give you firsthand insights on the marketing method over all major social media sites today.
You’ll discover which social media platform is best for influencers today, how big the industry is, most effective types of influencers, cost of influencer marketing, benefits of influencer marketing statistics, and more. Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
- Why Influencer Marketing Is So Effective
- General Influencer Marketing Statistics To Know
- Influencers Types Stats
- Influencer Marketing Target Audience Age, Gender, and Race-based Insights
- Instagram Influencer Marketing Statistics
- YouTube Influencer Marketing Statistics
- TikTok Influencer Marketing Statistics
- Facebook Influencer Marketing Statistics
- Influencer Marketing FAQs
Why Influencer Marketing Is So Effective
1. Influencers have a better result in product recommendations than celebrities
Statistics suggest that 50% of Millennials trust product/service recommendations from influencers. Considering influencers have surpassed celebrities in product recommendations at 50% vs. 38% for celebrities. What’s more, 92% of marketers in 2023 believe in the effectiveness of influencer marketing.
2. Marketers can expect to an average influencer marketing ROI of 6.5
Generally, businesses that use influencers can expect to make $6.50 for every dollar spent. What’s more, 60% of all marketers that use influencer marketing agree that the marketing method has a better ROI when compared to traditional advertising.
3. Influencer Marketing has better ROI than other digital marketing campaigns
Influencer marketing offers an impressive ROI (up to 11 times more) when compared to traditional marketing. Brands are also shifting focus to influencer marketing. For instance, 59% of all marketers using influencer marketing currently plan to increase their budget in the future. On the other end, most marketers are reducing their budgets on traditional marketing, indicating that influencer marketing is the future.
General Influencer Marketing Statistics To Know
4. The influencer marketing has a global market size of $16.4 billion
Brands must advertise to get customers. Marketing is therefore mandatory for any business. However, there are countless ways of marketing businesses. Influencer marketing is one of the most effective and popular online marketing ways today. The influencer marketing industry is currently valued at $16.4 billion.
5. The best average engagement rate is 1%-5%
Social media experts suggest that a 1 to 5% engagement rate is good for influencer marketing campaigns. This simply means that for an influencer with at least 1 million followers, 10,000 to 50,000 should take favorable action during a campaign i.e., click on links, or register and buy a product/service, etc.
6. Approximately 40% of marketers state that they work with more than 10 influencers
Usually brands would find different influencers on their niches to promote their brands and products. A global 2023 survey shows that there are about 39% of the marketers would collaborate up to the influencers. What’s more, 12% of the respondents said there were over a thousand influencers to help promote their brands.
7. 25% of the marketers say they invest 10%-20% of their marketing budget into influencer marketing
A global 2023 survey revealed that approximately 25% of marketers invested between 10% and 20% of their entire marketing budget on influencer marketing campaigns. Of the amount invested in influencer marketing, businesses can expect a 6.5x return for every dollar invested.
8. Fake followers in influencer marketing seem to be widespread
Research suggests that 25% of all influencers today have fake followers. Fake followers can be defined as social media profiles from fake/non-existent or inactive persons/bots set up solely for mass following.
Other studies also suggest that almost half (49%) of all Instagram influencers participate in some form of follower fraud. Moreover, follower fraud is more prevalent among mega-influencers with a massive following i.e., over 63% of all mega influencers with a massive following have fake followers or have participated in some form of fraud such as automated likes and comments.
9. Over a half of all brands globally run brand ambassador programs
Influencer brand ambassador program is a type of long-term collaboration between influencers and brands. The ambassador would promote brands in different ways on their social media channels. 52% of all brands globally with a social media presence run influencer brand ambassador programs aimed at building deeper and more genuine relationships with content creators.
Influencers Types Stats
Influencers can either be “big”, “moderate” or “small” in regard to their following i.e., macro-influencers, micro-influencers, or nano influencers.
10. There are nearly 1 million macro influencers on social media
Mid-tier influencers and Macro influencers have the biggest following and range from traditional celebrities to regular individuals who have built their following up over the years. Macro influencers have 50,000 – 1,000,000 million followers. There are approximately one million macro influencers on social media today.
11. Micro influencers can earn at least $40,000 per year on average
Micro-influencers are those with 10,000 – 50,000 followers. These kinds of influencers focus on specific niches or passion topics, giving them influence in their field. Micro-influencer statistics show there are approximately 47 million micro-influencers today, who can earn $40,000 – $100,000 per year on average.
12. Nano influencers have the highest average engagement rate at 3.69%
Nano influencers include everyone with 1,000 to 10,000 followers. While nano influencers have the least number of followers, they offer the most engagement(average engagement rate is 3.69%). Nano influencers are perfect for highly targeted campaigns since they have established a loyal and active community highly likely to follow their recommendations. There are over a billion nano influencers today, most of whom work with brands for the least pay.
Influencer Marketing Target Audience Age, Gender, and Race-based Insights
Influence marketing demographics are best examined by looking at specific social media platforms.
13. YouTube influencer marketing customer demographic stats
YouTube influencer marketing is best for targeting a teenage audience since 70% of teenage audiences of YouTube (subscribers) state they relate more to YouTube creators than traditional celebrities.
14. Facebook influencer marketing customer demographic stats
Facebook influencer marketing is perfect for individuals aged between 25 and 34 as this is the largest age group. However, the platform has a high usage among persons below 44. Most Instagram users (approximately 31%) fall within the 18-to-24-year age bracket. What’s more, 57% are male, while 43% are female.
15. TikTok influencer marketing customer demographic stats
TikTok has the youngest age group. In the U.S., for instance, 25% of all TikTok users are aged 10 to 19 years. Approximately 70% of all TikTok users are between ages 10 and 39. What’s more, there are more female than male TikTok users at 57% vs 43%.
16. Instagram influencer marketing customer demographic stats
Instagram is also popular among young audiences. 31% of users are between ages 18 and 24 years. There’s also an almost equal gender distribution among Instagram users at 51% vs 49% male and female users, respectively.
17. Black influencers earn less than white counterparts
In regards to gender and racial disparities between influencers across all platforms, research indicates that black influencers earn 35% less than their white counterparts. The same study indicates a racial pay gap of 29% between influencers who qualify as minorities in the U.S. (i.e., indigenous, black, and people of color) when compared to their white counterparts.
Instagram Influencer Marketing Statistics
Instagram is one of the most popular influencer platforms in America as of 2022. More and more marketers are considering to use Instagram for influencer marketing campaigns.
18. The global Instagram influencer industry generates more than $15 billion in annual revenue
Marketers and brands find Instagram influencers to promote their products and services. That demand is pushing the Instagram influencer industry to new heights, which is expected to grow from 15.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2022 to nearly 28 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.
It estimated that there are 37 million to 83 million Instagram influencers
Internet Celebrity Economy attracts many people and it makes earning money online easier for ordinary person. Though Instagram has over 500 million daily active user accounts, the research indicated that only 37 million to 83 million of users on Instagram have more than 1000 followers and can be considered as influencers.
19. The average cost per sponsored Instagram post varies
The cost of hiring influencers varies based on the type of influencer being used. Nano influencers are obviously the least expensive at $25 to $200 per post. Micro-influencers follow closely at $200 to $1,000 dollars per post. Macro influencers are the most expensive at $1,000 or more per post.
20. Instagram is the most popular platform for influencer marketing
Research stated that Instagram is rated the most popular influencer marketing platform currently in the U.S. with 72% of all marketers in America agreeing to using the platform for campaigns currently. By January 2022, 79% + of all marketers worldwide used Instagram as their main influencer marketing platform to promote products.
21. Zara was the most mentioned brands on Instagram worldwide in the first half of 2022
Social media like Instagram plays a huge role in how users and shoppers find fashion brand. Marketers usually use social media marketing strategies to promote their latest trends. Zara, mentioned in over 15 thousand of posts and with over 142 million likes on Instagram, was the leading brand that was the most talked.
22. More than 22 percent of the Instagram influencers focused on the lifestyle and beauty topics
Lifestyle and beauty contents are the most popular category type of content among Instagram influencers globally. 13.8% influencers belong to the lifestyle category, making it the most popular among global Instagram influencers. And there was about 8.56% Instagram influencers created and shared fashion/beauty topics on the platform.
YouTube Influencer Marketing Statistics
Youtube influencer marketing reached a market size of billions of U.S. dollars. As a popular video platform, YouTube has more than 2.6 billion monthly active users all around the world. Marketers should never miss out this social media platform and let’s see some important YouTube influencer statistics below.
23. The average price per sponsored YouTube video can be thousands of dollars
The cost for the sponsored video from different YouTubers can vary wildly when considering their subscriber amount and the category. It’s reported that a sponsored video with 500,000 to 1,000,000 views can be priced from 1,105 U.S. dollars to 16,234 U.S. dollars.
24. The most subscribed beauty content creator has over 16 million subscribers
Beauty and makeup Brands prefer video contents to promote their products, making the Youtube is one of the most popular social media platform for fashion topics. Sandra Cires Art is the most subscribed beauty content creator with over 16 million subscribers on the Youtube channel.
25. YouTube Music channels ranked first based on monthly views, followed by children’s content
Gaming, music, and dance are the most popular types of content on YouTube, which accounted for 30% of all the popular YouTubers account on the platform. With a approximately six billion channel views, Wiz Khalifa’s Music was the most viewed YouTube channels to go viral, followed by the Wow Kidz, a children’s content creator with over five billion video views in a month.
26. YouTube influencers with 100k-1M subscribers have the highest average influencer engagement rate
The engagement rates is a very important metric when you find and hire the influencers to promote your brands or services. The higher engagement rate a sponsored video has, the better result you will get. The research from Influencer Marketing Hub stated that Youtube influencers with 100k-1M subscribers have the best engagement rates of 4.142%, while Youtubers with 1K to 5k subscribers have the lowest average engagement rate at 2.045%.
TikTok Influencer Marketing Statistics
Now let’s see some essential stats and facts about TikTok influencer marketing:
27. There are over 106 thousand TikTok influencers around the world
Everyone can be a influencer on TikTok if he/she create contents for real. It’s not difficult to monetize if your channels have 1K followers. More and more people are committed to their Tiktok account and become influencers. Globally the platform has over 106 thousand TikTok Influencers and the number increases by years.
28. More than a half of TikTok influencers have 1,000 to 5,000 followers worldwide
It’s not easy to get 1000 followers on TikTok and becomming an influencer needs much efforts. It’s reported that nano influencers with 1k-5k followers made up the largest group, accounting for 50.51%. And nearly 30% of the TikTok influencers have 5K to 20K followers, which is the second largest group by number of followers.
29. Charlie D’Amelio is the highest-paid TikTok stars
Influencers on TikTok can earn millions of dollars by advertising for brands. Charli D’Amelio, with more than 150M followers on TikTik, had an annual earning of approximately 17.5 million U.S. dollars, which is the highest-earning TikTok creator worldwide.
30. About a half of all marketers use TikTok as the influencer marketing platform
TikTok is the fastest-growing influencer marketing platform today, with 45% of all marketers using it in the U.S. in 2022. The usage among marketers is expected to grow to over 50%.
31. Almost 37% of marketers would consider to increase the usage of TikTok advertising
TikTok has become one of the most popular marketing platform for the recent years. Social media marketers use TikTik to promote their business. 37% of the marketers state that they are planning to increase their usage of TikTok in the future.
Facebook Influencer Marketing Statistics
Facebook has about 3 billion monthly active users and it would be a great platform for influencer marketing to brands. Here are some Facebook stats marketer should know.
32. 60% of video views on Facebook are from influencers’ content
The good videos on Facebook can go viral and get billions of views and shares. The research indicates that most of the views come from influencers’ videos, accounting for 60 percent. Only 10% of the views make by the brand and aggregator content.
33. Average engagement rate of Influencers’ posts on Facebook is 0.2%
Compared to other social media platforms like Youtube, the average engagement rate on Facebook is lower. The average engagement rate of the Facebook posts is 0.06%. For those posts created by the influencers, the average engagement rate is higher, accounting for 0.2%.
34. Facebook is used by 52% of all marketers in America as of 2022
Marketers work with influencers on Facebook. In fact, Facebook is the second most popular influencer marketing platform used by 52% of marketers. However, the number of share may drop down in the nearly future because of the soaring TikTok usage.
Influencer Marketing FAQs
Who are the key players in influencer marketing, and what are their roles?
Anyone and everyone can become an influencer today. As shown in the above influencer marketing facts, all types of influencers, regardless of size of following, have a say in the industry. In fact, those with a smaller following have a better engagement. While influencers with millions of followers get paid the most, they are only reserved for big brands with huge marketing budgets. Medium to small brands view smaller influencers as the key players.
How effective is influencer marketing?
Very! Considering the above influencer marketing effectiveness statistics show that 60% of all marketers in the U.S. will increase their influencer marketing budgets, and the ROI of influencer marketing is up to 11x more than traditional marketing, the effectiveness of influencer marketing can’t be overemphasized.
How long before you see results from influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing results are almost instant. It takes seconds for an influencer’s audience/followers to see a post and take the necessary action. However, it takes months to come up with effective influencer marketing campaigns (create and test content as well as run and optimize promotions).