The Creator Economy is expanding at an exponential rate, projected to reach an astounding $500 billion by 2027. This rapid growth signals a significant evolution in the landscape of influence - influencers are no longer supplementary to the marketing & comms mix but have become essential components of brand comms, activation, awareness and conversion touch points.
This shift is now affecting most verticals across D2C and B2B, making progressive brands think bigger and bolder. Brands are thinking about short-form, long-form and live streams as ways to engage and excite their target audiences.
In Ogilvy’s recent report: Ogilvy On—2024 Influence Trends You Should Care About, they delve into the transformative influence trends set to shape 2024. This is the fifth year of reports and predictions.
The report highlights several key trends, including:
- Employee Advocacy: Recognizing employees as brand ambassadors and leveraging their networks for brand promotion.
- Sonic Influence: The increasing importance of audio content and auditory experiences in influencing consumer behaviour.
- The Rise of Sport and Sports Personalities: The growing influence of sports figures as role models and brand endorsers.
- Live Streaming: The continued growth and importance of real-time content for engagement and influence.
- Sustainable Influencer Practices: The shift towards more ethical, transparent, and sustainable practices in influencer marketing.
- AI Avatars and Non-Human Channels: The emergence of AI-driven influencers and non-human channels that redefine the boundaries of influence.
At RippleXn.com, we offer social video monitoring solutions for brands and agencies working with influencers and creators on campaigns, and there’s one part of the report in particular that we’d like to highlight.
Employee Advocacy
The genie is out of the bottle on this one. We’ve seen a huge uptick in B2C with consumer-facing staff leveraging employee product expertise and evangelism to engage with their following.
This obviously has a huge potential upside, particularly if a business is geographical, like a retail outlet. On the flip side, the onus is on the company to train, support, and oversee not only business-related posts but all other posts in the context of the social media policy in operation.
For some, keeping tabs on activity is arduous or falls between the departmental gaps of comms, marketing and HR - check out our sister company RiskTorch.com which is designed for HR professionals.
Check out the Ogilvy report
We highly recommend reviewing the webinar held on November 11, 2023, and reading the full report, and don’t forget; if you’re scaling your influencer marketing activities and need to mitigate brand safety risks, talk to us!
