Here’s Why You’re (Probably) Wasting Money on Influencer Marketing

Opinion: Influencer content is extremely underutilized

Influencer marketing has all of the signs of a classic bubble. Companies spent an estimated $570 million on sponsored Instagram posts alone last year. That’s serious money being thrown around to influencers for brand promotion. Unfortunately, most of that money is going to waste.

Why? It’s simple: Influencer content is extremely underutilized.

We analyzed thousands of branded influencer posts and found that while influencers may have a large number of followers, the typical Facebook post only reaches about 3 percent to 8 percent of that audience, with Instagram being only slightly higher, at 8 percent to 18 percent.

Because so much content is being published on these platforms, the algorithms behind Facebook and Instagram filter out much of the content that isn’t directly relevant to the user—which may include the posts you spent a lot of money on.

The

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