Influencer marketing experienced a prosperous year in 2019, where its average cost of placing a sponsor rose from $134 in 2014 to a whopping $1650 now. However, it has been reported that influencer marketing may very well have hit its peak as retailers begin to scrutinize returns and “influencer fatigue” sets in. According to InfluencerDB, the percentage of influencer followers have dropped aswell as the number of likes on a post in the past year. Regulators and social media platforms are seeking to crack down on influencers who are purchasing likes, followers and artificially boosting their engagement statistics.
J&P comments
It’s unethical that some influencers feel the need to purchase likes and followers to appear “successful” to their audience. When in reality, the only person that they’re fooling is themselves since no one is going to buy their clients products when the majority of their audience is fake. Influencers are possibly going to struggle to push their client’s products and services once Instagram removes the number of likes from Instagram posts since it will make it harder to gauge the popularity of posts.
