It seems that the forecast for trending influencer marketing uptick in 2023 may be fiction more than fact. We’ve reported that it may be trending upaward this upcoming year through our research, but with economic uncertainty on the rise, that may not be true at all. Everyone in the U.S. has been more cautious with their spending habits and has increased their scrutiny over “influencer authenticity.” This became a recent reality when a popular creator was accused of wearing fake eyelashes to promote L’Oréal mascara. Our favorite part of this scandal is that it has been coined “Mascaragate.” We love a good pun… When influencers are paid for their reviews by certain brands, it raises questions over the authenticity of their reviews and promotions. Rightfully so! We find it hard trust anyone who was paid by a company to give me a review on a product or service. Would they tell me if the product sucked? Probably not. Influencer marketing worked in the past because their reviews were true to their opinions without any influence from particular companies. Therefore, something that created trust at the birth of the influencer was their negative reviews on any given products/services. This is actually the concept of de-influencer. De-influencer is defined as the act of telling followers what not to buy. This could be a way to bring trust back into the brand to audience gap but there are still issues here. Even if an influencer says use this and not that, are they being paid by the brand who they’re telling people to use? Gen Z’s trust in influencer marketing has been waning quite a bit since the end of 2022. There is a heightened need for authenticity.
While we don’t have all the answers, but we do think that investing in micro-influencers and regular people is where this road will lead. Found content is going to be that pot of gold at the end of the metaphorical rainbow. Investing in real people to connect authentically with people is where it’s at. It makes sense. Brands collaborating with micro-influencers whose audiences’ see as more trustworthy is another solution to this connection problem. It’s time to start fixing the trust issues with good content and transparency!
