Brief:

• Almost all (93%) influencer campaigns use Facebook-owned Instagram, about twice the share of Google's YouTube and Facebook's main social network, according to a study by CreatorIQ shared with Mobile Marketer. CreatorIQ studied 6,000 campaigns for 2,000 brands and 75,000 influencers.
• The use of Instagram Stories in influencer campaigns grew 60% in the last quarter, while the use of Facebook and Twitter in marketing campaigns declined by 20% and 10%, respectively. The average follower network of Instagram creators in influencer campaigns has halved to 500,000 this year from 1 million in 2016, and creator authentication requirements have grown 60% in the past six months alone.
• Most influencers (80%) use Instagram as their primary network, but more than 40% reported that the social platforms and types of content they're asked to post on for holiday collaborations has changed, according to a separate survey by influencer marketing platform Mavrck shared with Mobile Marketer. Nearly a quarter (22%) of influencers said that brands are requesting Instagram Stories, while 20% received more requests for Pinterest-related content this year compared to 2017.

Insight:

Creator IQ and Mavrck's separate studies of influencer marketing trends confirm the strength of Instagram and the growing popularity of its Stories feature in social media campaigns. Influencer marketing on Instagram jumped 198% in 2017 and appears likely to keep growing as creators flock to the platform — the most popular among young users — over Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.

These campaigns on Instagram have proven to be successful tools for marketers. Paid influencer efforts on Instagram were considered very effective or somewhat effective at boosting new-customer traffic among 90% of web retailers surveyed by e-commerce platform Shopify. This data signals that influencer marketing on Instagram is about as effective as paid ads on Facebook and paid search ads.

The finding that influencer follower count has halved since 2016 aligns with research by Fullscreen and Shareablee that found that mid-tier creators are seen as more engaging and trustworthy than both celebrities or microinfluencers. The falling follower counts could also be related to platforms' crackdown on bots and fraudulent activity, as well as brands' push for authentication of influencer followings. This could indicate that marketers are more likely to work with creators whose audience size has been authenticated and isn't artificially inflated by fake followers or bots.

While Instagram is by far the preferred social network among influencers, Pinterest is gaining interest among brands during the holiday shopping season. Apart from the increases in Pinterest-related holiday content, the image-pinning platform has ramped up shopping capabilities for its ads and partnered with retailers like Macy's, Lowe's and Kohl's.