Endemic influencer marketing: The beginning or the end?

Well-known as one of the largest global international finance hubs, Hong Kong is one of the most virtually connected regions with active social media usage in the world. Instagram has a infiltration rate of 86% in Hong Kong, while 77% of HongKongers are using YouTube, and 58% of them are using Facebook.

Consumers in Hong Kong are now turning towards social media not only to research for products or services but also to explore them. A report conducted by Hootsuite in 2021 has found that 87% of the people they interviewed spent at least two hours on social media daily, with 46% of them surprisingly spending more than five hours a day browsing through their social media platforms. Not only this, 30% of them show interest in social contents that provide reviews. 

It is no surprise to see that the influencer marketing spending in Hong Kong records over $500 million a year even during the Covid-19 pandemic. During this time, brands were driving top-of-mind awareness aggressively through influencer marketing, as consumers can’t go out.

But what now with influencer marketing?

Even though the spending on influencer marketing is increasing, many brands and customers are starting to feel that social media has become a depot for advertising and sponsored posts, social media users are reluctant to see lack of authenticity in influencers’ contents.

Out of all the reasons why followers are moving away from influencer, the growing demand for authentic and meaningful engagement is the most significant. People are numb to all the generic cookie-cutter posts showing influencers posing with the mask, boutique clothing, or even appetite-suppressing lollipops. Instead, social media users are looking for real, authentic, non-staged content to engage with.

Then, there’s the problem of fake influencers with bought engagement and even followers on platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Influencers face huge incentives to boost their numbers when it comes to followers, likes, and comments, and this has given rise to issues with bots, paid follows, and other shortcuts. It is found that some influencers have up to 70% of fake followers, it is a total budget waste to the marketers.

Re-engineer your influencer marketing strategy now to uplift sale

Although viewers are starting to move away from influencers, the spending on influencer marketing is increasing. A reason for this adverse effect is said to be the rise in purchasing power of the tech-savvy generation, it is inevitable that brands must understand influencer marketing to reach their potential customers. 

Not sure how to start? Just contact Spread-it to find out the best influencers marketing channel for your brand.

Spread-it is the largest influencer platform in Hong Kong with over 30,000 micro-influencers and 8,000 of KOLs connections, and is the gold winner of “Best Influencer Marketing Platform” in 2022. With our unique technology and experiences, we can gather data from API, helping brands to find the most suitable and authentic influencers possible from different social media platforms in Hong Kong and China. We help brands from campaign design, influencer matching to management. Contact us today to learn how influencer marketing may boost your sales!

This article is sponsored by Spread-it.