It is no secret that social media had an incredibly fast evolution in the last decade—so much so we can only speculate how far the next few years will take us. Today, social content plays a fundamental role in the consumer journey. While new platforms and features are introduced seemingly every day, marketers must strive to be at the forefront of social media trends and make the most of the emerging technological possibilities like their brands depend on it—because they do.

A new white paper from IMA, our influencer activation team, seeks to guide brands through the next era of social media: shoppable content. Titled Influencers and Shoppable Content: the Future of Social Media, the report covers the habits that COVID-19 changed forever and how they’ve impacted the seamless fusion of content and commerce across platforms. It also provides a clear outlook on the role influencers play in virtual shopping and the era of everywhere commerce.

The Future of Shopping is Social

The paper starts by setting the scene with statistics on the current state of online shopping, and its acceleration during the pandemic. In a matter of months, skeptic consumers who were previously reluctant to adopt online shopping habits were suddenly “filling up their digital carts,” and by April 2020, online retail orders had grown 146% worldwide.

According to IMA, brands that tap into this new consumer behavior have the opportunity to “establish a robust social presence and take advantage of third-party ecommerce platforms.” But online shopping is no longer channel-specific. Both social and ecommerce platforms are already adding features that will revolutionize how consumers spend their time online and make purchases—allowing users to shop directly from social media channels and blurring the lines between content and commerce. Our BrandLab partnership with Mercado Libre (LATAM’s ecommerce giant) and L’Oréal Paris serves as a clear example: we developed an ideal “digital destination” for beauty enthusiasts with video tutorials led by recognizable influencers, which help differentiate the brand and its products while providing an improved user experience for shoppers.

Amazon is placing its bets on shoppable livestreaming through Amazon Live, too. The platform allows sellers to promote their products through their own livestreams with a smart addition: a carousel where shoppers can browse and seamlessly purchase featured items. Similarly, Instagram promises to amplify its influence in the shopping process with the “checkout” feature, which is swiftly “transforming the platform into an immersive storefront for people to explore and purchase” without leaving the app, according to the report.

Everywhere commerce will continue to rise in prominence and competitiveness, and platforms are also likely to incorporate AR and AI to increase customer confidence—enabling them to try before they buy. This will open a gateway to new entertaining shopping experiences that build user engagement as consumers share these virtualized experiences on their social media accounts.

From Awareness To Conversion, Influencers Conquer The Funnel

Of course, influencers will be key to brands as they envision how to show up in a revolutionized social media ecosystem. As deft content creators, natural conversation-starters and production powerhouses, influencers will become ever-more important for any brand’s social strategy—a must-have in any marketing mix.

As new, improved ecommerce functionalities are introduced, influencers are often early adopters who perfect delivering relevant content at speed. And they are the most proficient at doing so, too, finding meaningful ways that resonate with their audiences and enable seamless implementations that raise both awareness and conversions. Tapping into communities with a human touch, influencer-generated content is more likely to be perceived as authentic by the audience—especially within niche communities, where engagement levels tend to be higher. According to the white paper, 63% of consumers aged 18-34 years old say they trust what influencers say about brands much more than what brands say about themselves in their advertising. 

This authenticity that influencers bring to the table can help define brands’ success in a shoppable social ecosystem as long as the balance is right. “It’s important to keep in mind though that in order to maintain the genuine relationships between influencers and brands, these ecommerce features should be used in a meaningful way that resonates with audiences,” says Maddie Raedts, IMA Founder and Global Head of Social, Fashion  & Luxury at Media.Monks. “Don’t merely add shoppability to each post that features products, as it can come across very spammy and have the opposite effect.”

From livestreams with purchase options to Instagram posts with shoppable tags, influencer marketing will conquer the funnel from top to bottom—not only inspiring audiences but also driving direct, more measurable conversions. In addition to being at the forefront of social shopping, influencers are the enablers and catalysts of this evolution. For those who want to learn more about how shoppable content is revolutionizing customer behavior across platforms, Influencers and Shoppable Content: the Future of Social Media provides invaluable insights, and it’s available for download below. Discover the next generation of online shopping.

It’s widely understood that social media has fundamentally changed our culture—so rapidly, and in so many ways, that it can be difficult to gauge. For example, many still struggle to understand the role that social media plays in the lives of young people, an important segment of the market that enjoys increased purchasing power and exemplifies a radical shift in consumer values.

A new white paper from IMA, our brand activation and influencer engagement team, seeks to demystify Gen Z’s impact on culture, and provides key learnings on how today’s brands can retain relevance and build impact amidst shifting cultural values. Titled Anticipating Culture & Changing Behavior, the white paper lays out what separates Gen Z from those that came before it, and how influencers are key to reaching these community-obsessed consumers.

Surveying Today’s Social Landscape

Anticipating Culture & Changing Behavior opens with a look at the current state of culture and how it is shaped online. A key change that’s emerged in the past few years is that influencers have stepped in to replace brands as the intermediaries of culture, “bringing innovations from the margins of society into the mass market.”

How, or why, have influencers risen to take on this role? IMA’s describes a phenomenon called “crowdculture” to describe the new ways that younger consumers—most notably, Gen Z—are reshaping the way we gather together, build identities and discover or engage with brands.

Crowdcultures operates in two different ways. First, they include subcultures built around passions and hobbies. Second, they include “art worlds,” or the “loose network of overlapping subcultures held together by a belief in art,” according to IMA. The former includes niche interests, while the latter addresses the fact that individuals in such communities inspire and compete with one another, fueling an exchange in ideas and content that is amplified on social media. It’s within these new environments and networks that brands must learn to engage with audiences authentically.

Understanding Gen Z

If anyone is embedded within crowdcultures, it’s Gen Z—and forward-thinking, future-proofed brands across industries are eager to understand this unconventional consumer base that has largely eschewed labels. But IMA has one useful name for them, which gets at the heart of what they care about: they’re “the truth generation.”

With digital fluency and the ability to research products and brands, Gen Z is always in the pursuit of the truth. This includes expressing their own individual truths or connecting with those of others—such as experimenting with different identities.

Communication and dialogue are key for this type of exploration. “Gen Z’ers are always in search for authenticity since they believe it generates greater freedom of expression and greater openness to understanding different kinds of people,” reads the white paper. “They value connecting to different truths,” whether it be investigating diversity, environmental sustainability or more.

IMA’s work in casting and producing influencer-driven content illustrates this well. Working with audio equipment brand Marshall, they partnered with influencers to develop content for the brand’s Guided by Music social content series—a digital city guide through the lens of music and rock and roll—IMA developed a multi-tier influencer strategy for both reach and engagement. Giving influencers like musician Charlie Barker and professional skateboarder Boo Johnson creative freedom to produce content (backed by the help of professional assistance), Marshall was able to develop a full-year framework for authentic content.

Where to Begin Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

To evolve your digital strategy to accommodate these cultural shifts, first understand that influencers today are not just popular users, but innovators in their own right. They embody a new set of shared values and have risen through the ranks as leaders in their own respective art worlds and subcultures. Challenge yourself to extend your view outside of the conventional influencer “image” and recognize that they are authorities whose insight and opinions are trusted by today’s consumers.

Second, understand that consumers want to engage with other people—not faceless brands. “What’s happening now is that brands are facing a structural problem, not a creative one,” notes IMA’s paper. “They have the budget and the creativity to go above and beyond, however, they fail to arouse consumers’ interest and attention because they do not immerse themselves in their culture, their community, and their ideologies.” In a drive to become more customer-obsessed and assistive in their audience’s lives, brands would do well to explore how influencers can fit into their marketing mix to build relevance.

Driving online conversation and bolstered by increased purchasing power, Gen Z has fundamentally changed our culture. Brands that refuse to acknowledge shifts in younger consumers’ values and how they affect engagement with brands risk falling behind into obsolescence. For those that need guidance for integrating influencers into their marketing mix, Anticipating Culture & Changing Behavior is a great starting resource.

Get cultured in crowdculture.

In early February, Nike CEO John Donahoe discussed with CNBC Nike’s efforts to become more sustainable. “The consumer increasingly cares about sustainability,” he told CNBC in an interview. “It matters to Nike and to consumers. … [Consumers] are looking to companies like Nike to lead.”

The feeling that one must evolve in accordance with consumers’ shifting values and needs is a familiar one for brands and their CMOs, who have adopted a greater sense of purpose in how they position themselves within the world. And brand purpose is increasingly important to today’s consumers: according to data from eMarketer, 59% of US consumers are more loyal toward brands that support the causes they care about. But despite this, 61% of consumers believe that too many brands use these issues as marketing ploys for their own gain, according to the same survey.

As brands strive to share their values and tell their stories, influencers serve as an excellent way to do so more authentically in a way that resonates with today’s consumers—making them an important factor within any marketing mix that aims to forge a genuine connection with consumers.  Given their relevance to niche audiences and participation in close social communities, partnering with influencers gives brands the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and take a more active part within cultures that stand for something and drive change—here’s how.

Enhanced Storytelling Capabilities

Content creators know their audience better than anyone else. They’ve established deep relationships with followers and viewers by creating a regular stream of quality, relatable content; it’s precisely this content and closeness to the audience that has gained them a following in the first place.

This skill is invaluable to brands that seek to make themselves more relatable, though it’s important that brands understand what kind of content consumers gravitate toward. First, brands shouldn’t focus all their attention on follower counts and likes—both of which Instagram is experimenting with getting rid of, and do little to measure exactly how influential any user on the platform is.

But don’t despair; this doesn’t mean influencer marketing is a free-for-all with little attribution or no way to vet effective partners. In fact, data from our influencer activation team IMA notes that quality is the true benchmark of value: what matters more than the number of viewers an influencer brings to your content is how many of those viewers will engage, seek out and explore your brand. Looking beyond hard numbers and toward quality and engagement also enables more genuine and authentic content.

Irresistible Shoppable Content

Shoppable content is gaining steam with consumers. Last year, US social referral share of total traffic to ecommerce sites grew from 3.1% in 2016 to 9.1% in 2019, according to data from Adobe, and has become the fastest-growing driver of referrals. With Gen Z’s increased interest in shopping on social channels like Instagram, influencers present an excellent opportunity for brands to support this trend by generating shoppable or inspirational content that resonates with consumers.

What’s influencing influencer marketing?

In fact, trust in influencers is strong: another eMarketer survey states that 25% of US/UK children and teens aged 6-16 cite them as leading influences on purchasing decisions, sandwiched between friends (28%) and family members (21%). Despite this, it’s critical brands don’t treat influencers as another media buy; they’re creative partners through and through, and should be treated as such.

“When you find influencers who match your brand perfectly, you should trust that they know their following best. So when you are tapping into their community, you’ll have a stronger outcome by giving them the creative freedom to create credible content linking to your brand,” says Emilie Tabor,  Founder & CMO of IMA. “Of course, we always brief the influencer closely and the content is always approved by the brand before it goes live.”

Greater Focus on Customer Obsession

Finally, influencer partnerships enable your brand to become more customer obsessed with relative ease. What is a customer-obsessed brand? Customer obsession takes a handful for forms: “Forrester sees three common expressions of customer obsession—‘Count on us’ (reliability), ‘At your service’ (service), and ‘On your side’ (advocacy)—depending on a company’s strengths and what its customers value,” writes Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Shar VanBoskirk in the report, “How To Build Your Company’s Customer Obsession Strategy.”

Influencers fit this model by building a close relationship with audiences based on their needs—for example, a beauty content creator who helps viewers understand which cosmetics are best for them, and how to apply them. Community advocacy and authority as a knowledgeable resource are two key influencer attributes at work here.

MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar notes that “Differentiated creative combines an understanding of culture with heavy-lifting business impact that drives real bottom line value.” In achieving this, influencers must be knowledgeable about their audiences; selecting the best influencer to reach your target audience requires you understand them and their needs, too.

This means a good place to begin your influencer marketing efforts is investing in social listening and market insights. “In selecting influencers for clients, we dig deep into all data: analytics, social listening, engagement, sentiment, quality of content and overall brand match,” says Tabor. “Who are their followers? Where are they based? Age groups, interests? Have they worked with competitors? There’s so much more beyond the surface.”

The points above points illustrate a handful of ways that influencers can help brands stay ahead of the game in social media marketing. Serving as knowledge experts, inspirational figures and talent, influencers offer several benefits to the brands that partner with them and are key to enhancing and strengthening the relationships they have with consumers.