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3 influencer marketing case studies to learn from

Case studies , Collect content

Laura Georghiou

Global Customer Advocacy Manager

February 24, 2023

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We’re going to talk through three different influencer marketing case studies because regardless of what you think of influencers and creators, they’re fully embedded into the zeitgeist. Influencer marketing is too lucrative to go away, and brands are taking note. 89% of marketers say the ROI from working with influencers is comparable to, or better, than other marketing channels.

But with so many different types of influencer out there, not to mention the sheer volume of influencers, it can be difficult knowing how to put influencer marketing into practice. The best way to get ahead is by looking at case studies of those who have already achieved influencer marketing success.

According to our influencer research , there’s four types of influencer to work with:

• Subject matters experts are experts in a specific industry or topic
• Celebrities who have become known outside of what they’re famous for
• Social media stars are well-known with large followers, often paid to promote products
• Every day social media users like me and you who post authentic user-generated content

While different influencers have different influence for different audiences, it’s the everyday social media users who have the most sway with audiences. It’s easy to assume that more followers = more sway, but according to the 9,000 global shoppers we asked, that’s not the case.

So then when it comes to getting started with influencer marketing, where do you begin? Because there’s multiple avenues to go down. Let’s take a look at three of the best influencer marketing case studies we’ve seen, for the best strategies for you to emulate.

Top 3 Influencer marketing case studies

The following case studies all use influencer marketing, but all use a different type of influencer and a slightly different strategy. But they all have one thing in common: success.

Have you ever spent a lot of money on a piece of furniture only to stop loving it after a year or two? A lot of customers have. Which is why they turn to companies like Bemz to update their pieces. Bemz is a Scandinavian design company that specializes in creating made to order, high-end covers for IKEA furniture so people can update pieces in their homes to reflect their personal style better.

Over the past year and a half, Bemz has been populating its marketing channels with more visual user-generated content (UGC) to show potential customers what its products look like in real-life homes. A crucial part of Bemz’s strategy is its use of influencers. The brand relies on them to create evergreen content that Bemz continually collects and integrates into marketing programs.

But, the way Bemz partners with influencers is a little different than some of the other brands out there. 

A unique partnership

Bemz mainly works with influencers in its core markets , like Sweden, the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. However, it doesn’t go after the biggest names in interior design like you may think it would. 

Instead, Bemz chooses to work directly with influencers that already have an Ikea product in their homes to make for a more natural collaboration and build trust with customers. Many of the influencers it works with are in the interior design space, but it also goes after those in other sectors like fashion and beauty. 

“We pick influencers on a case-by-case basis depending on what the profile looks like, if we can get content out of it that matches our brand aesthetic, if they have great engagement, or if are really relevant in a certain sector,” said Alexandra Öhrlund, Social Media Manager at Bemz. 

Seeking out influencers who already own Ikea products is a more natural fit for Bemz. The brand ensures that its covers are shown repeatedly when the influencer posts photos of them hanging out at home on the couch, even if it’s not a Bemz sponsored post.  

Capturing the authenticity movement

In some cases, Bemz will work with influencers who don’t match the brand’s aesthetic . For example, the brand doesn’t showcase shabby chic looks or farmhouse interiors on its own site and channels. But they still choose to work with a leader within an influencer’s sector to build brand awareness and trust within that influencer’s community.

“It’s not necessarily something that we then incorporate into our content strategy, but we work with them because they have a great profile. They’re very genuine within their field,” said Öhrlund. 

This strategy works because it taps into the rising authenticity movement. 72% of shoppers now choose products based on a brand’s reputation. Consumers are fatigued by insincere, fake, untrustworthy content and crave authentic UGC from real people — partly why they consider every day social media users the most trustworthy influencer.

Bemz has found that this kind of content resonates much more with its followers. The brand continues to collect this evergreen content and display it on social media, which has seen click-through rates increase by 41%.

You can read the full Bemz influencer marketing case study here to learn more.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, global fashion brand Quiz primarily focused on the in-store experience at its 250 brick-and-mortar locations. However, when stores started to close, Quiz knew it needed to focus more on its social and e-commerce strategies to increase engagement. 

To start, the brand began posting more user-generated content (UGC) images from customers on its social feed, because those types of posts have always had a very high engagement rate for Quiz.

The team also knew that they needed to make these images shoppable to guide interested consumers from the social feed to product pages on Quiz’s site. But they didn’t stop there. 

A micro and macro strategy 

One unique aspect of Quiz’s new social media strategy is its use of micro- and macro-influencers to increase engagement.

• Micro-influencer: Has a social media following between 1,000 and 100,000
• Macro-influencer: Has a social media following over 100,000

For a recent winter party collection, Quiz put together a list of micro- and macro-influencers it wanted to get UGC from for that collection. Then, Quiz shipped those influencers outfits from the new collection, and the influencers took photos of themselves in the clothing and tagged Quiz in the images.

“As soon as the collection is live, we can look through our gallery feed and pull the strongest images into the homepage gallery to showcase different influencers,” said Megan Ashurst, Senior Social Media Executive at Quiz. 

Quiz uses a mix of micro- and macro-influencers to maximize the impact of campaigns. Macro-influencers have a lot of followers, so their posts see a wider reach. But micro-influencers have smaller fanbases, so their followings are typically more loyal and tend to engage more with posts. Instagram’s own research of 8000,000 accounts supports this:

“We tend to find that we do get really valuable content and engagement from smaller influencers as much as we do from the big influencers,” said Ashurst. 

Quiz’s use of influencer content — on its website and social channels — led to a 276% increased time on site, a 23% higher average order value, and a 154% increase in conversion rates, making them one of the great influencer marketing case studies we’ve seen.

You can read it in full here .

There’s only one thing better than an influencer marketing strategy: an Influenster marketing strategy. The Influenster App is a community of over 7.5 million every day creators, eager and willing to create authentic content about your brand.

Actually, they’re already creating this content. You just need to activate the community, which is exactly what British beauty brand Rimmel London did.

Rimmel activated the Influenster community through a hyper-targeted sampling campaign, where samples of products are sent to community members in exchange for honest reviews, product imagery, and social posts.

Because of the ability to choose a highly-specific audience, Rimmel was able to send products to an audience of 18-30 year old beauty enthusiasts in key markets. Recipients were asked to share their thoughts and feedback through reviews and social media posts.

The campaign led to over 1,200 product reviews and 15.7 million impressions on social, driving brand awareness and sales along the buyer journey. Incidentally, the campaign led to a 44% higher sales lift for the featured products.  

Learn more about how the campaign led to increased advocacy, brand awareness, and a 69% higher sales lift for the product categories in which the sampled products compete by reading the full case study here .

Become an influencer marketing case study

Play your cards right and it could be your brand featured here amongst the other successful influencer marketing case studies. We continue to see the rewards our clients have from working with influencers and content creators, so we know it’s the way forward.

Last year, influencer marketing spend jumped from $3.69 billion to $4.14 billion in the U.S alone, according to HubSpot . It’s past time to get started with influencer marketing. But whatever avenue you choose, you’ll first need to know how to reach out to influencers and get a yes in return .

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We’ve got a question for you:

Are you using social media influence to expand the strength and reach of your brand?

If you’re not, you should be.

According to data from Pew Research , “around seven-in-ten Americans ( that’s 225 MILLION people ) use social media to connect with one another” here in the United States. That’s a 1400% usage jump in just over a decade (Pew began tracking usage in 2005)!

And “connect” covers more than just saying hey, how are you ? Connecting is about sharing news, entertainment, and — here’s the part you want to pay attention to — their favorite brands, products, and services.

Photo Credit: Unplash

That means Americans of all shapes, all sizes, all interests, and all ages have some social media presence, and many (more than 40%) are checking in with that presence every day.

With usage statistics like that, your company would be wise to look at social media as THE place for spending on native ads, brand-focused content, and social media influencers.

It’s that last marketing medium — the influencer one — that’s buzzing right now.

To help you better understand how you can deploy social media influencer marketing with tremendous efficacy, we’re going to introduce you to some fascinating case studies. These are studies from brands big and small that are using the power of social media influencers to drive incredibly positive results.

So, whether you’re just getting started or a seasoned pro, our training series can help you as an influencer, manager, or brand to capture and monetize your social media audience.

To illustrate how today’s most significant global brands are leveraging the reach and engagement of the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app, we’ve compiled a list of over 20 Instagram case studies, including each campaign’s creative strategy, examples of how companies created their brand-sponsored content (with and without digital influencers), and the results for each marketing initiative.

Southwest Takes on Bloody Sunday – A Look at Staying Responsive and Engaged

Photo Credit: Media Leaders

“**it” hit the proverbial fan on Sunday, October 11th, 2015, when an unexpected software glitch forced Southwest Airlines to ground more than 800 flights (approximately 25% of its daily traffic ).

As Southwest Airlines ground crews and ticket agents locked eyes with tens of thousands of passengers ranging from annoyed to angry, the company’s nascent “social business” team took to Twitter’s to connect with every single passenger they could find.

Seriously — every one.

By employing the power of the Twittersphere, Southwest side-stepped a brand disaster and made a lot of life-long customers out of an event that would have left less socially engaged airlines reeling.

( Read the full study here. )

Bringing Bonobos’ New Line to Life – A Look at using Instagram’s Influence to Unveil

When Bonobos looked to launch a new line of athletic men’s wear, they didn’t turn to antiquated means of marketing — they turned to social media influencers like stuntman, motorcyclist, and Instagrammer, Riley Harper .

Adored by his 100k+ followers “for his cool West Coast lifestyle and photography,” Riley was the perfect fit for both the brand and the campaign.

( Read the full story here. )

Kimberly-Clark & #HolidayNecessities – A Look at Creating Holiday Relevance

Toilet paper. Kleenex. Paper towels. Diapers. Tampons.

Not really items that scream “buy me!” when it’s time to do the holiday shopping.

But Kimberly-Clark —the massive, multi-national corporation with an array of goods in the personal-care space — didn’t want to miss out on the seasonal flood of consumers to Costco’s, Safeway’s, Walmart’s, and other big-name stores that carry Kimberly-Clark products.

So, the corporation partnered with an influencer marketing agency ( Clever ) to contact “thousands of influencers-moms who love to host during the holidays,” asking them to use their presence on Twitter and Instagram to broadcast the importance of being prepared with #HolidayNecessities.

Meghan Joins the Old Navy – A Look at Tapping Social Media Super-Users

Photo Credit: i.ytimg

When you’ve crossed the threshold of 1-million followers on Instagram, and 2-million followers on YouTube, there can be little doubt about your super-user status.

These individuals have more than massive reach, and they have massive pull over the audiences that follow them.

So, it was no surprise the marketing team at Old Navy asked social media super-user Meghan Rienks to adorn some of their threads and create content ( like this ) capable of promoting the brand on YouTube.

Mini Makes a Micro Move – A Look at Channeling Instagram Micro-Influencers to Win

Making the average consumer pay attention to the release of a new car isn’t easy, even for a brand with as much curbside appeal as MINI.

Knowing this, MINI Australia recruited five Instagram micro-influencers to get behind the wheel of a new MINI Convertible, and showcase the brand, the car, and their adventures while driving with the top-down.

Red Bull’s InstaInspiration – A Look at Creating Searing Identity Influence

Photo Credit: Rohan Chambers

More than any other social media medium, Red Bull is using Instagram to sear its brand identity into the minds of its 7-million+ followers.

The company is capitalizing on the natural thirst for awe, wonder, and sheer amazement to permanently affix its brand with “awesome.”

Part of Red Bull’s Instagram success comes from its ability to piggyback off the success of established social media influencers through regrams.

Wear WEARHAUS This Valentines’ Day – A Look at Making Something Out of Nothing

When you think of Valentine’s Day, you think of brands like FTD, See’s, and Hallmark.

You don’t think of consumer technology brands, like WEARHAUS, purveyors of world-class wireless headphones.

But WEARHAUS didn’t let their unconventional industry niche prevent them from appealing to the wallets of consumers on this otherwise conventional holiday.

WEARHAUS — in conjunction with their influencer marketing agency, Clever — reached out to seven, Instagram-power-using couples to demonstrate the surprisingly romantic appeal of a pair of headphones.

The results? — nearly 100,000 views, and 20,000-plus engagements . Proof that social media can help brands make something out of a whole lot of nothing.

Making McDonald’s Cool – A Look at Seasonal Persuasion Via Facebook and Twitter

Photo Credit: Refinery29

Adding degrees of “cool” to a brand as established (and stigmatized) as McDonald’s requires appealing to audiences in a subdued way.

Tapping into the power of lesser-known social media influencers like Lily Melrose and Sam King was a way for McDonald’s to not only generate a half-million visitors to their mobile website, but it was also a way for them tie their McCafe line of products to chic personalities with favorable appeal amongst younger audiences.

HP Uses Influencers to Prepare for Launch – A Look a Building Hype

Laptops aren’t thought of as young and hip—at least HP laptops aren’t. A fact which the Palo Alto-based corporation was all too aware.

So, before the launch of their new Spectre laptop in Australia, HP enlisted the assistance of various fashion-forward Instagram influencers to “ increase product awareness among a young target market who appreciate stylish design when it comes to technology. ”

For a full week, these influencers posted carefully curated photos of themselves with the product to build launch momentum, reaching more than 900,000 followers, and generating more than 60,000 direct engagements in the process.

Use these fantastic Case Studies to increase your knowledge of social media. You don’t have to go out there and re-invent the wheel. There are incredible companies making big moves already. Moves that you can make your own. Implementing some of the ideas above will make you a more well-rounded Influencer.

Or, you can take parts and pieces of the Case Studies listed above and create your campaigns. Whatever you choose to do, make it your own. Put your spin on it, so your fans and followers will see your personality shining through!

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Earning from what you promote just got easier!

9 Unsuccessful Influencer Case Studies No Brand Should Miss

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Influencer Marketing Case Studies (2024)

Artem Dogtiev | May 1, 2024

Influencer marketing is a branch of digital marketing, its campaigns are essentially endorsements by social media influencers of certain products or services and their introductions to various audiences. In this day and age, the demand for this kind of marketing exists in so many branches of the economy. It gives a level of trust that other kinds of marketing can not match.

In this article, we want to review a number of case studies to demonstrate what marketing objectives can be achieved with influencer marketing, and its potential for app marketers.

Discover the Magic: Unleash Growth with Influencers

We uncover your app’s potential, converting downloads into devoted, engaged users. Let Moburst reveal the secrets behind the trick.

Influencer marketing is deeply personal, it’s about a human touch, a connection between an influencer and people who trust her or his opinion. Influencers need to be creative, artistic, and authentic for an influencer marketing campaign to succeed.

Case Study #1 EA Sports

EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Being one of the oldest and the most well-known on the planet, the Electonic Arts video game company was launched in May 1982. Over the years, the company launched a number of labels such as EA Worldwide Studios, EA All Play, EA Sports, and others. In this case study we’re focusing on how influencer marketing was applied to the promotion of its EA Sports label.

Brent Rivera promo video for the Apex Legends game from EA Sports label

Source: Brent Rivera TikTok video

Influencer Marketing campaign objective

EA Sports marketing team was looking for new channels to reach gamers and boost their new title Apex Legends popularity.

Featured Influencer Marketing Companies

At that moment, the prime channels to reach gamers were Twitch and YouTube but, after considering TikTok as a new channel to try, the decision was made to run an influencer marketing campaign with influencers who are popular with gamers’ culture on TikTok. Such games-related TikTok hashtags view number as 29.5 billion for the #fortnite hashtag spoke clearly – there was a potential to tap a young, tech-savvy audience that will enjoy a new title from the world-famous EA Sports.

The influencer marketing campaign was run with several influencers, including Brent Rivera (see the TikTok video screenshot above), his hilarious video generated 900k likes.

Switching from the world of mobile games to educational apps to learn English, next up is the Cake app.

Case Study #2 Cake app

With the free Cake app, non-English or non-Korean speakers have great English or Korean learning experiences worldwide. The app offers to learn a new language via daily free content to introduce new expressions, wrapped in daily situations to show them in context.

Cake app influencer marketing campaign on YouTube

Source: Carina Fragozo video

By the moment the Cake app team approached an influencer marketing agency, they had been using YouTube as a platform to introduce the app via a series of short videos explaining the app features. The team was looking for help to reach out to people in South America who were looking for apps to learn English.

An influencer marketing agency that was hired by the Cake app team got in touch with five influencers in Latin America to run a 2-week ad campaign to raise awareness of the app and demonstrate the app’s both educational and fun elements. The influencers promoted the app on their YouTube channels, being creative in demonstrating the app’s features and benefits.

The key element of this campaign’s success was that all influencers introduced the app from an educational angle, showing people how they will be able to use the app to learn English efficiently. The total reach for the app was 1.2 million viewers.

Influencer marketing companies buyers guide

Download our Influencer marketing companies buyers guide to learn about the best companies on the market to hire. The guide covers what is influencer marketing, why it’s important, how it works, what exactly influencer marketing companies do, as well as provides a complete list of top influencer marketing companies.

Moving on, jumping from learning languages to short-form video apps launched on the wave of TikTok’s popularity.

Case Study #3 Huddles app

Huddles app, formerly known as Clash app, is a short-form video app that was launched in 2020 on the rise of the short-form format popularity sparked by TikTok. The app was developed by a team of Don Hofmann, the author of the famous Vine app that for a brief period of time got its moment of a glory after being acquired by Twitter in 2012, but later shut down in 2017 because it never managed to click with a big audience of users. Essentially the Clash app it’s Don’s second attempt to create a short-form video hosting service.

Rapper Elijah Daniel’s endorsement of the Clash app

Source: Getty Images

In this case, an influencer marketing campaign aim was to support the app’s launch in 2020. It was the moment when the TikTok app was facing a ban in the US and many TikTok users were considering switching to another app and so the core idea of the ad campaign was to leverage that uncertainty as much as possible.

An influencer marketing agency team that was hired for this task reached 50+ influencers to run an influencer marketing campaign on Twitter and Instagram.

The campaign resulted in more than 20 million impressions on Twitter and Instagram combined, 250k downloads of the app, app’s ranking of #17 on the App Store.

From video-sharing to creating unique visual stories to post on social media apps.

Case Study #4 Instories app

Instories is a mobile app to create reels and visual stories right on a smartphone, using an extensive library of templates, and publish them later on Instagram or TikTok. The app is available on both Android and iOS platforms and supports all TikTok and Instagram video formats.

Influencer promo video for the Instories app

Source: Bold Creators Club

The Instories team hired an influencer marketing agency to run a promotion to increase the app market share in Brazil and introduce the latest update for the app.

The influencer marketing agency that took the task hired 15 influencers who launched ad campaigns on Instagram with reels.

The campaign achieved a high level of engagement, reaching 9.1% on average, which allowed the app to skyrocket to the top positions on the App Store, and secured the app’s high visibility in the target market. Plus to the significant jump in the app’s downloads in Brazil, the influencer marketing agency managed to create awareness among beauty, fashion, and lifestyle bloggers.

Switching the gears, from video-sharing apps to a casual gaming social platform from Prague, Czech Republic.

Case Study #5 Gamee app

The Gamee app is a casual gaming social platform, with lots of game titles, that connects gamers with brands and Web3 projects through play. The platform was launched in 2020 and was later acquired by Animoca Brands.

Gamee casual gaming social platform influencer marketing campaign on Instagram

Source: Starngage

The goal of the influencer marketing campaign was to raise awareness of the game, and significantly increase its user base, casual gamers of age 18-30,  across multiple geographies within a short period of time.

The Gamee marketing team reached out to YouTube and Instagram influencers, and a big part of the campaign’s success was the platform’s ability for gamers to challenge the influencers in the games and hence engage with them directly.

As a result, at the beginning of 2017, the game acquired 500k to 1 million additional installs.

Switching from a casual gaming platform to a multi-player strategy game from the world-famous IGG.

Case Study #6 Lords Mobile: War Kingdom game app

Lords Mobile: War Kingdom is an award-winning multiplayer strategy mobile game that was published by IGG Studio in 2016. The game was praised right from the get-go, it was nominated by the Google Play store’s editors for “Best Competitive Game” and in 2017 it was nominated for the “Best Multiplayer Game” award.

Lords Mobile: War Kingdom App Store listing screenshot

Source: App Store

The objective of this campaign was to reach out to 18-35-year-old UK-based males on both iOS and Android.

The influencer marketing agency’s team reached out to 5 Instagram and YouTube influencers to generate and promote a series of Instagram Stories and YouTube videos and entice people to install the game.

As a result, the game was exposed to 1.5 million viewers, it generated 86k engagements, and brought 12k game installs with an average CPI of 4.08 pounds / install.

Moving from the world of mobile games to saving money on mobile roaming abroad.

Case Study #7 Airalo app

The Airalo app helps smartphone users to avoid high roaming bills, using its world’s first eSIM store.  Using the app, users can purchase temporary mobile data plans to use in a particular country during the trip, the app covers 190+ countries and regions.

The Airalo: eSIM Phone Internet listing screenshot

The campaign objective was to reach out travel community on TikTok and raise awareness about the app. The other, more specific one, was to drive high-quality app installs from 18-35 US-based users.

One of the major trends on TikTok is sharing travel tips and hacks to save money during trips, the team of micro-influencers educated audiences on the app’s benefits, sharing with them relatable international traveling scenarios. It led to a surge of app installs from the right audiences at the right moment.

The campaign resulted in 2.1 million video views, a 12,3% engagement rate, and $.0,23 / install rates.

Final Thoughts

Today influencer marketing is one of the most kinetic digital marketing tools for app marketers to use and achieve a high level of engagement with audiences around the globe. In these 7 case studies, we demonstrated the high potential of this channel across several app categories. All case studies should be considered within the time frames indicated for each and keeping in mind that still – to this day –  influencer marketing performance tracking in many cases isn’t precise and begs for more accuracy.

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Some Killer Influencer Marketing Case Studies

Interested in adding influencer marketing to your campaign? We know a thing or two about working with awesome influencers who know how to get your target audience to pay attention. 

From TikTok users to content creators on Instagram and other popular social platforms, we have dozens of influencer marketing campaign case studies to share and show just how visually exciting and successful our influencer strategies can be. 

Best Influencer Marketing Case Studies of The Last Few Years 

Over the course of a decade-ish in the influencer marketing industry, we have built and managed campaigns across an INSANE (and impressive) range of verticals. 

Whatever kind of influencer campaign you’re looking to run – and even if you have no idea what kind of campaign you want – we can come up with creative concepts, bring in the right influencers, and build a campaign that hits all the important KPIs.

Our client list includes some of the biggest names in any industry – Beauty 💄, Fashion 👗, Construction 🚧, Real Estate 🏠, Toiletries 🚿, Apps 📱, Precious Gems 💎, Ecomm 🖥, Telecom ☎︎, Housewares 🍽, Food 🥑, Nonprofits ❤️, Outdoors 🌳, Weddings 👰🏽, Fertility 👶🏾, Parenting 👨‍👩‍👧, Haircare 💇🏼‍♀️, Automotive 🚙, Environment 🌍, Health 🏃🏾‍♂️… you name it.

Here are some of our favorite influencer marketing case study examples:

Influencer marketing played a key role in Lenox’s big rebranding push

Engagements

St Pierre Bakery

We enlisted influencers who we knew could create drool-worthy pics and video content.

The Honest Company

We found 30 influencers that fit their brand story and generated content that looked like Honest produced it themselves.

We got 1,493,630 ORGANIC video views! (Is there a taking-a-bow emoji we can use here?)

Due to product requirements, we targeted influencers with niche photography skills and the content literally lit up Instagram.

Video Views

A complex campaign that yielded a Bachelor-style live show (which our account managers fully produced).

Famous Footwear (Pandemic Shopping)

We highlighted in-store shopping during a pandemic so that people could see how safely they could shop.

This campaign was designed to capture the beauty, the thrill, and quirks of a group of 37 outdoor adventure influencers.

Popular Business Directory (Black-Owned Businesses)

The campaign, slated to kick off during Black History Month, positioned our client in helping Black-owned businesses.

These campaigns celebrated strong,confident women that shared personal stories sparked genuine conversations across social channels.

Sweet Defeat

We had influencers do the “Sweet Defeat Challenge” – the reactions on influencers’ faces alone convinced audiences that this product works.

We rolled out a campaign to generate excitement and awareness around the brand’s summer and holiday releases and the 2018 tour.

American Standard

This campaign set out to show what a difference American Standard can make in your often-neglected bathroom.

Earthjustice

We raised awareness about the importance of intersectionality within the environmental justice movement.

Potential Reach

Essense of Australia

We found influencers for this campaign that were diverse in just about every way – race, body shape, personal style, and lifestyle.

Impressions

Feit Electric

For this campaign, we worked with home decor, lifestyle, and DIY influencers to create brand awareness and drive traffic to Feit’s landing pages.

Greenvelope

We found 8 outstanding fiancés to share their stories and nudge other betrothed followers toward considering Greenvelope for their wedding.

The Smile Generation

We generated brand awareness and hype about the Smile Generation services, while driving families to use their remaining benefits before the end of 2019

RefrigiWear

We found 24 US influencers to post on Instagram and their blogs, showcasing RefrigiWear as THE brand to keep workers warm while doing their jobs

We launched a year-long brand ambassadorship program to promote five different strollers set to launch throughout the year.

Our campaigns showcased the product creatively to different audiences – and they agreed on one thing: what their favorite body care brand is!

Susan G. Komen

We’ve run four campaigns for Susan G. Komen, to keep both their mission and breast cancer survivors top-of-mind.

Famous Footwear (Global)

This case study highlights 6 campaigns that we really enjoyed amongst the dozens that we’ve run for them.

Influencers

Influencing The Curve

The Shelf team created the #InfluencingTheCurve campaign to build an army of influencers committed to spreading the truth

Total Reach

And with these successes, we hope we were able to convince you that The Shelf is the influencer marketing agency to partner with!

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• Case studies

Does Influencer Marketing Really Work? These 10 Case Studies Shout: YES!

We can be all talk for a month, but no theory compares to the inspirational drive that a good example can bring. Today’s 10 influencer marketing case studies are going to reveal the practical side of a social media campaign and how it reaches the sweet spot of virality.

1. Encapsulate Brand Culture in One Inspirational Trademark

Nike has remained true to its essence since 1988. Shout: Just Do It! and your train of thoughts takes a short turn to hard training, sculpting your body through sweat, accomplishment, Nike, champion, active lifestyle.

Nike transported its trademark to modern times, without spilling any bit of its meaning, in the form of a hashtag: #justdoit. The official Instagram account tells stories of its fitness ambassadors. Each post reveals one insight that has shaped characters into progressive athletes.

In their turn, users and influencers create content organically inspired by Nike’s perennial invitation to movement. The sports brand activates micro-influencers mostly, even those with as few as 10k followers. Being part of Nike’s community of sports leaders incentivizes content creators to accept rewards other than financial.

2. Win the Spotlight in the Competitive Luxury Landscape alongside Influencers

DSW is a small discount shoe brand with a big dream: to be as sparkly and empowering as any of its high-end competitors. Therefore, the retailer skipped traditional marketing and unlocked the influence of content creators. 

However, it’s not just about shoes. The winning tweak was for DSW to elevate the fascination for footwear with the ubiquitous desire for traveling. As such, the brand reached out to influencers active mostly on the adventurous side of Instagram. 

By partnering with big accounts complementary to its industry, DSW tapped into unconventional sources of new leads. Back in the third quarter of 2018, the 17.2% increased revenue stood proof for the success influencers produced for DSW. So far, our influencer marketing case studies underline the power of influencers of converting leads into customers.

3. Ask the Community (Not Your Intuition) What They Want You to Create

Prices for all budgets, innovative designs, flamboyant apparel – that’s how H&M intended to revigorate its image when it launched the Nyden collection in 2018. However, instead of predicting trends, the fast-fashion retailer is asking their community for style ideas.

Under the #HMxME hashtag, H&M devised a whole new production strategy. This keyword alone generated more than 286,000 posts, an impressive number that indicates a campaign success. 

The innovative H&M plan goes like this. First, influencers receive prototypes that they are allowed to show in their Stories. For each post, they ask their audience to answer polls regarding looks, colors, features, and details. 

Afterward, H&M gets feedback from each influencer, rounding up clear guidelines on how to improve their new designs. By using influencers for data collection, H&M rests assured that every piece they create has already a fan base ready to spread the buzz and generate a shopping spree.

On the downside, this level of transparency allows any prying eyes to see what audiences love and replicate their looks. On the other hand, H&M is known for its fast-paced factories. This enables H&M to always be the first to launch a new collection.

4. Unleash the Entire Product Awesomeness

Renowned brand Hugo Boss made waves when it launched a challenge around its Boss perfume featuring Marvel star, Chris Hemsworth. The video concept was anything but ordinary.

Viewers witnessed how Chris plunged into the ocean waves on a surfboard. All this time, the dashing actor was wearing a smart black suit. At the end of the clip, Hugo passed the challenge to all men with a desire to do great things in style.

Eventually, this adrenaline-pumping commercial started a #SuitChallenge movement which resulted in hundreds of resourceful images. Shortly after, Instagram saw a slew of out-of-the-box visuals. Men started wearing suits but on tennis or basketball fields, in the wilderness, on paddleboards, doing parkour, and in other uncomfortably perfect backgrounds. 

Usually, an expensive suit and the salty ocean water don’t work together. However, the Boss influencer marketing campaign managed to pull this off in the most original way and inspired men for greatness. 

5. Steal a Ferarri-Level Macro-Influencer for Your Ambassador Program

Automotive market Autotrader dreamt big so the company looked for a macro-influencer. Doug DeMuro is the number one influencer in the automotive industry. He’s funny, entertaining, but he never neglects core details that make up the character of a car. 

In the past, the reviewer shook hands on some amazing partnerships with the likes of Porsche and Ferarri. However, Autotrader managed to add the Doug empire to its portfolio of brand ambassadors.

Their partnership covered waves of content on multiple-channels: website, Instagram, blog, YouTube, etc. The company even assigned a new Autotrader page to Doug called Oversteer . All in all, our influencer marketing case studies show us that one macro-influencer with a high compatibility score can raise more awareness than any ad.

6. Give Influencers Free Rein to Make Your Startup Worldwide Known

If you have heard so far about drones and their enchanting aerial captures, it is all thanks to DJI. Chinese brand entered the mainstream by taking full advantage of influencer campaigns.

With each new product launch, DJI collaborated with new influencers with a fresh vision on life. So far, the strategy was to equip creators with DJI only video tech. Concept, location, details were all up to account owners to decide. 

Consequently, the brand unlocked an endless source of unique visuals. Each entry proves that DJI drones and cameras have amazing features to record ambitious productions.

7. Humanize Products through the Innocent Eyes of a Famous Pet

One of our 10 influencer marketing case studies brings to our attention the impact the presence of a dog can create for a brand. Mercedez Benz skipped Instagram and collaborated instead with YouTube canine celebrity, Loki.

Together with his master, Loki starts an adventure in Colorado. They take to the secluded streets hidden under a Christmassy layer of snow on a Mercedez Benz. Thanks to the immersive 360° format, viewers feel like they are part of the experience.

The video charm springs from the story narrated in the background, uplifting song, mesmerizing view, and the happiness of the furry friend. In contrast to traditional ads and commercials, the advertised product runs silently in the background. There hovers just a hint to its quality, and what we see is a fulfilling moment in the life of two best friends.

8. Reinventing the Mattress One Snooze at a Time

Casper was the first mattress company to bring some fresh air into this old-fashioned industry. Instead of store distributors, the brand mails mattresses in a box. Instead of traditional ads and stiff CTAs, Casper worked with influencers on growing awareness.

First of all, the new approach to advertising included a curated list of young influencers of hip taste. Their requirements for YouTube and Instagram content were limited to authenticity and transparency. 

Secondly, Casper gave influencers more power by creating customized coupons for them. This way, creators receive one more resource to energize loyalty levels across their communities. On top of that, this is a seamless way to promote a product and naturally bring it to their audiences’ attention.

Through these reviewers outside the mainstream, Casper managed to raise brand awareness and strengthen its position as to veteran competitors. In a span of two years, Casper was ranking higher than other established names in the industry.

9. Influencer Campaigns Work Their Magic for B2B Too

Our influencer marketing case studies reveal a fertile environment for B2B promotion as well. Software company SAP develops solutions solely for enterprises. However, this didn’t stop this brand from managing a strong presence on social media.

Unlike B2C practices, their list of influencers contains only top names in decision-making positions. Consequently, their influencer marketing consists of executives, CEOs, and even academics and consultants.

SAP visioned an organic method to make its software solutions visible to a wide professional audience. Their idea focused on invitations for specialists and experts to industry events. Once there, influencers populated their content plans with live Facebook streaming, interviews, and YouTube talks.

In its turn, SAP was able to repurpose influencer-generated content for its own Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. Eventually, the B2B corporation kept in touch with enough specialists to build its own program with SAP Technology Ambassadors.

10. Your Brand Cares

To begin with, BoxedWater based its entire business on an eco-friendly concept that links the brand to altruistic traits. Drinkable water, a completely recyclable package, and raw materials taken from certified forests are key ingredients that can spark a sustainable movement.

By positioning themselves as environmental activists, BoxedWater speaks directly to the two generations that care: Millennials and Generation Z . Moreover, the brand keeps true to its philanthropic efforts at all times.

After a campaign of repopulating forests, BoxedWater continues in this direction with a #NoPlasticPledge. In a word, the company challenged users to 30 days of no plastic usage. To encourage them to stay on track at all times, the company sent a free kit to any new entry consisting of stickers, a T-shirt, a tote bag, and a pledge bracelet. 

These type of humanitarian projects on social media usually boosts visibility. On top of that, they create quality customers as they tend to stay loyal to those brands that display authenticity and social engagement.

All in all, our 10 influencer marketing case studies reveal how flexible marketers can be on social channels to drive results. Personalized coupons, an inspirational trademark, one extremely niche macro-influencer, and ambassador programs are just a few of the strategies brands can enact organically to attract new leads.

Let us know in the comments what campaign example applies to your business the most! How would you improve it?

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Social media influencer marketing: foundations, trends, and ways forward

• Open access
• Published: 25 June 2023

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• Yatish Joshi 1 ,
• Weng Marc Lim   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7196-1923 2 , 3 , 6 ,
• Khyati Jagani 4 &
• Satish Kumar 4 , 5  

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The increasing use and effectiveness of social media influencers in marketing have intrigued both academic scholars and industry professionals. To shed light on the foundations and trends of this contemporary phenomenon, this study undertakes a systematic literature review using a bibliometric-content analysis to map the extant literature where consumer behavior, social media, and influencer marketing are intertwined. Using 214 articles published in journals indexed by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS), and Web of Science (WOS) from 2008 to 2021, this study unpacks the articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs (antecedents, moderators, mediators, and consequences) in extant research on social media influencer marketing. Noteworthily, the review highlighted that the major research streams in social media influencer marketing research involve parasocial interactions and relationships, sponsorship, authenticity, and engagement and influence. The review also revealed the prominent role of audience-, brand-, comparative-, content-, influencer-, social-, and technology-related factors in influencing how consumers react to social media influencer marketing. The insights derived from this one-stop, state-of-the-art review can help social media influencers and marketing scholars and professionals to recognize key characteristics and trends of social media influencer marketing, and thus, drive new research and social media marketing practices where social media influencers are employed and leveraged upon for marketing activities.

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The future of social media in marketing

Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda

Online influencer marketing

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

Social media influencers are increasingly popular and affecting consumers’ attitudes, perceptions, preferences, choices, and decisions. Social media influencers are regular everyday people who have created an online presence from the grassroots level through their social media channel or page and, in the process, have created an extensive network of followers (Bastrygina and Lim [ 10 ]. In that sense, social media influencers are different than traditional celebrities or public figures, who rely on their existing careers (e.g., actors, singers, politicians) to become popular and exert influence [ 88 ].

Influencers first appeared in the early 2000s, and have since progressed from a home-based hobby to a lucrative full-time career. Influencer marketing has become so attractive that with the growing industry, there is an ever-growing set of social media users that aim to become an influencer. Influencers are now capitalizing on their popularity and visibility to further their career in mainstream media such as the film and television industry [ 1 ]. The segmentation of influencers is on the number of followers they have, whereby influencers can be classified as micro-, meso- and macro-influencers [ 44 ]. According to Lou and Yan [ 88 ], posts by influencers have two essential purposes from a marketing perspective: the first purpose is to increase the purchase intention of their followers, and the second purpose is to enhance their followers’ attractiveness and product knowledge. Influencers often curate posts with information and testimonials about the features of the product that they are promoting, which results in increased information value and product knowledge. In the process, they leverage and relay their attractiveness and aesthetic value through the use of sex appeal and posing [ 104 ].

Social media influencers have been defined by many scholars in numerous ways. Freberg et al. [ 44 ] characterized social media influencers as a new type of independent third-party endorser who shapes audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media. Abidin [ 1 ] construed social media influencers as a form of microcelebrities who document their everyday lives from the trivial and mundane to the exciting snippets of the exclusive opportunities in their line of work, thereby shaping public opinion through the conscientious calibration of persona on social media. De Veirman et al. [ 28 ] defined social media influencers as people who built a large network of followers and are regarded as trusted tastemakers in one or several niches. Ge and Gretzel [ 45 ] denoted social media influencers as individuals who are in a consumer’s social graph and has a direct impact on the behavior of that consumer. More recently, Dhanesh and Duthler [ 30 ] described social media influencers as people who, through personal branding, build and maintain relationships with their followers on social media, and have the ability to inform, entertain, and influence their followers’ thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. When these definitions are taken collectively and espoused through a marketing lens, social media influencers are essentially people who develop and maintain a personal brand and a following on social media through posts that intertwin their personality and lifestyle with the products (e.g., goods, services, ideas, places, people) that they promote, which can influence the way their followers behave (e.g., attitudes, perceptions, preferences, choices, decisions), positively (e.g., purchase) or negatively (e.g., do not purchase) .

Social media influencers, as digital opinion leaders, participate in self-presentation on social media. They form an identity by creating an online image using a rich multimodal narrative of their everyday personal lives and using it to attract a large number of followers [ 59 ]. Most critical to their success is the influencer-follower relationship [ 1 ], which future follower behavior (e.g., interaction, purchase intention) is dependent upon [ 13 ], [ 37 ], [ 126 ]. Indeed, social media influencers are often perceived to be credible, personal, and easily relatable given their organic rise to fame [ 28 ], [ 31 ], [ 104 ].

In collaborations between brands and social media influencers, the role of a social media influencer is to act as a brand ambassador by designing sponsored content for the brand to convey and enhance its brand image and brand name [ 104 ], and to drive brand engagement and brand loyalty [ 72 ]. Such content is often curated by social media influencers, as independent third-party endorsers, by sharing their experiences and lives in relation to the brand through pictures, texts, stories, hashtags, and check-ins, among others [ 28 ]. Indeed, social media influencers are highly sought after by brands because they have established credibility with their followers as a result of their expertise, which allow them to exert influence on the decision-making of their followers [ 60 ]. Moreover, influencer marketing through social media can provide opportunities to influencers and their followers to contribute to the co-creation of the brand’s image on social media [ 88 ].

With the growing importance of influencer marketing and the popularity of social media influencers, various brands have started promoting their products with the help of social media influencers in an attempt to influence consumers to behave in desired ways (e.g., forming positive brand attitudes and encourage product brand purchases) [ 104 ]. However, consumer behavior is highly complex [ 81 ], and increasing inconsistency has been noted in the effectiveness of this medium [ 124 ]. Thus, it is essential to understand the factors (i.e., antecedents) underpinning consumer decision making (i.e., consequences or decisions) toward brands promoted by social media influencers, including the factors (i.e., mediators and moderators) responsible for the inconsistency in consumer responses. In this regard, attempts to consolidate extant knowledge in the field is arguably relevant to address the extant gap and needs of marketing scholars and professionals interested in social media influencer marketing.

In recognition of the growing influence of social media influencers and influencer marketing in consumer decision making, this study aims to provide a one-stop, state-of-the-art overview of the articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs (antecedents, moderators, mediators, and consequences) relating to social media influencer marketing using a systematic review of articles in the area from 2008 to 2021. Though a recent review on social media influencers was conducted by Vrontis et al. [ 124 ], the present review remains warranted because the existing review only considered a small sample of 68 articles published in journals indexed in the Chartered Association of Business Schools Academic Journal Guide, and thus, cannot holistically encapsulate the state of the field. Indeed, the insights and the integrative framework resulting from their review was relatively lean, which can be attributed to the sample limitations that the authors had imposed for their review. The same can be said about another recent review by Bastrygina and Lim [ 10 ], which considered only 45 articles in Scopus that narrowly focused only on the consumer engagement aspect of social media influencers. To overcome these limitations , the present review will consider a more inclusive search and inclusion criteria while upholding to the highest standards of academic quality by relying on a broader range of indexing sources. The motivation of the present review is also in line with the call by Lim et al. [ 86 ] and Paul et al. [ 98 ] for new reviews that address the shortcoming of existing reviews in order to redirect research in the area onto a clearer and more refined path for progress. In addition, the present review adopts a bibliometric-content analysis to consolidate current findings, uncover emerging trends and extant gaps, and curate a future agenda for social media influencer marketing. Noteworthily, the rigorous multi-method review technique (i.e., the combination of a bibliometric analysis and a content analysis) adopted for the present review is in line with the recommendation of Lim et al. [ 86 ] to facilitate a deeper dive into the literature, and thus, enabling the curation of a richer depiction of the nomological network characterizing the field [ 94 ], in this case, the field of social media influencer marketing. In doing so, this study contributes to answering the following research questions (RQs):

RQ1. What is the publication trend of social media influencer marketing research, and which are the key articles?

RQ2. Where is research on social media influencer marketing published?

RQ3. How has social media influencer marketing research been conducted?

RQ4. What are the theories that can be used to inform social media influencer marketing research?

RQ5. What are the major themes of social media influencer marketing research?

RQ6. What are the constructs (i.e., antecedents, mediators, moderators, and consequences) employed in social media influencer marketing research?

RQ7. Where should social media influencer marketing be heading towards in the future?

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next section provides an account of the methodology used in the research, followed by the findings and conclusions of the study in subsequent sections.

2 Methodology

This study conducts a multi-method systematic literature review on social media influencer marketing using a bibliometric-content analysis in line with the recommendation of Lim et al. [ 86 ] and recent systematic literature reviews (e.g., Kumar et al. [ 64 ]. The assembling, arranging, and assessing techniques stipulated in the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews ( SPAR-4-SLR ) protocol by Paul et al. [ 98 ] to carry out a systematic literature review are also adopted and explained in the next sections.

2.1 Assembling

Assembling relates to the identification (i.e., review domain, research questions, source type, and source quality) and acquisition (i.e., search mechanism and material acquisition, search period, search keywords) of articles for review. In terms of identification , the review domain relates to social media influencer marketing, but within the subject areas of business management, social sciences, hospitality, tourism, and economics due to their immediate relevance to the review domain, and thus, articles in other subject areas such as computer science, engineering, medical, and mathematics, which are peripheral to the review domain, were not considered. Next, the research questions underpinning the review pertain to the articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs in the field and were presented in the introduction section. Only journals were considered as part of source type as they are the main sources of academic literature that have been rigorously peer reviewed Nord & Nord, [ 96 ]. The source quality was inclusive yet high quality, whereby articles published in journals indexed in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS), and Web of Science (WOS) were included. In terms of acquisition , the search mechanism and material acquisition relied on the WOS database, which is connected to myriad publishers such as Emerald, Sage, Springer, Taylor and Francis, and Wiley. The search period starts from 2008 and ends in 2021. The year 2008 was selected as the starting year because it was the year that the concept of influencer was first introduced by Kiss and Bichler [ 63 ], and thus, a review staring from 2008 can provide a more accurate and relevant account of the extant literature on influencer marketing, particularly from the lenses of consumers and social media influencers. The end year 2021 was selected because it is the most recent full year at the time of search—a practice in line with Lim et al. [ 83 ]. The search keywords—i.e., “consumer behavio*” (truncation technique), “social media,” “influencer,” and “marketing”—were curated through brainstorming and endorsed by disciplinary experts in marketing and methodological experts in review studies. In total, 320 articles were returned from the search, but 17 articles were removed as they were related to engineering, mathematics, and medicine, which resulted in only 303 articles that were retrieved for the arranging stage.

2.2 Arranging

Arranging relates to the organization (i.e., organizing codes) and purification (i.e., exclusion and inclusion criteria) of articles returned from the search. In terms of organization , the content of articles was coded based on the key focus of each research question: journal title, method, theory, and construct (antecedent, mediator, moderator, consequence). The bibliometric details of the articles were also retrieved and organized accordingly in this stage. In terms of purification , 89 articles were eliminated as they were not published in journals indexed by ABDC and CABS, with the rest of the 214 articles included for review.

2.3 Assessing

Assessing relates to the evaluation (i.e., analysis method, agenda proposal method) and reporting (i.e., reporting conventions, limitations, and sources of support) of articles under review. In terms of evaluation , a bibliometric analysis and a content analysis were conducted.

For the bibliometric analysis, the Bibliometrix package in R studio software [ 4 ] was used to conduct (1) a performance analysis to reveal the publication trend as well as the key articles and journals (RQ1 and RQ2), and (2) a science mapping to uncover the major themes in the field (RQ5) in line with the bibliometric guidelines by Donthu et al. [ 32 ]. With regards to science mapping, a triangulation technique was adopted in line with the recommendation of Lim et al. [ 86 ] using:

co-citation using PageRank , wherein the major themes are revealed through the clustering of articles that are most cited by highly-cited articles,

bibliographic coupling , wherein the major themes are revealed through the clustering of articles that cite similar references, and

keyword co-occurrence , wherein the major themes are revealed through the clustering of author specified keywords that commonly appear together [ 32 ], [ 64 ].

For the content analysis, the within-study and between-study literature analysis method by Ngai [ 95 ] was adopted (RQ3, RQ4, and RQ6). The within-study literature analysis evaluates the entire content of the article (e.g., theoretical foundation, methodology, constructs), whereas the between-study literature analysis consolidates, compares, and contrasts information between two or more articles. The future research agenda proposal method is predicated on the expert evaluation of a trend analysis by the authors (RQ7). In terms of reporting , the conventions for the outcomes reported include figures, tables, and words, whereas the limitations and sources of support are acknowledged at the end.

The findings of the review are organized based on the research questions (RQs) of the study: articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs.

3.1 Articles

The first research question (RQ1) deals with the publication trend and key articles of social media influencer marketing research.

Figure  1 indicates that research on social media influencer marketing began to flourish 10 years (i.e., 2018 onwards) after the concept of was introduced in 2008 [ 63 ]. This implies that interest in social media influencer marketing is fairly recent (i.e., within the last five years at the time of analysis), wherein its stratospheric growth appears to have coincided with that of highly interactive and visual content-focused social media such as Instagram (e.g., Instagram Stories feature launched in December 2017) [ 17 ] and TikTok (e.g., international launch in September 2017) [ 129 ]. The growth of triple-digit publications observed in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic is especially noteworthy as it signals the importance of social media influencer marketing in the new normal and reaffirms past observations of an acceleration in technology adoption [ 77 ], [ 79 ].

Publication trend of social media influencer marketing research

Table 1 presents the top articles on social media influencer marketing. The most cited article is De Veirman et al.’s [ 28 ] (464 citations), which focused on social media influencer marketing using Instagram and revealed the impact of the number of followers and product divergence on brand attitudes among the followers of social media influencers. The burgeoning interest on Instagram as seen through this most cited article despite its recency corroborates the earlier observation on the stratospheric growth in research interest on highly interactive and visual content-focused social media. The top-cited articles in recent years demonstrate increasing research interest in comparative studies (e.g., celebrity versus social media influencer endorsements, [ 104 ],Instagram versus YouTube; [ 108 ], as well as review studies (e.g., Hudders et al., [ 48 ], [ 124 ], albeit the latter being limited (e.g., small review corpus, niche review focus) and thus reaffirming the necessity and value of the present review.

3.2 Journals

The second research question (RQ2) deals with the outlets that publish social media influencer marketing research and the source type chosen according to the recommendation of Paul et al. [ 98 ] is journals on the basis of academic quality and rigor. In total, the 214 articles in the review corpus were published in 87 journal titles indexed in ABDC, CABS, and WOS. Out of the 87 journal titles, 80 (37.38%) articles are published by the top 10 journals with the most articles on social media influencer marketing, with Journal of Business Research , International Journal of Advertising , and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services emerging as the top three journals in terms of numbers of articles published in the area (Table 2 ).

3.3 Methods

The third research question (RQ3) focuses on the methods that can inform social media influencer marketing research and were identified and coded manually using the within-study technique and consolidated to portray the outcome of a between-study literature analysis suggested by Ngai [ 95 ]. In total, seven categories of methods were employed in 214 articles on social media influencer marketing research (Table 3 ). As a category, quantitative methods in the form of surveys were most prevalent ( n  = 64), followed by qualitative methods ( n  = 52), with individual interviews being the most popular method ( n  = 19). Experimental ( n  = 38) and machine learning ( n  = 33) methods were noteworthy too. Non-empirical methods ( n  = 19) such as conceptual ( n  = 9) and review ( n  = 10) methods were less prominent. Similarly, mix methods ( n  = 8) were the least popular. As a whole, the review indicates that extant research on social media influencer marketing were mostly empirical in nature albeit in silos (i.e., single rather than mixed methods).

3.4 Theories

The fourth research question (RQ4) pertains to the theories that can inform social media influencer marketing research and were identified, coded, and reported using the same Ngai [ 95 ] informed within- and between-study literature analysis as reported for the methods in the preceding section. In total, 46 different theories employed in 94 (43.93%) articles on social media influencer marketing research were revealed (Table 4 ). Persuasion knowledge theory emerged as the most popular theory with eight articles, whereas social learning theory, social comparison theory, social cognitive theory, social exchange theory, social identity theory, social influence theory, source credibility theory, reactance theory, theory of para-social interaction, theory of planned behavior, and uses and gratifications theory were among the other popular theories ( n  ≥ 3). The broad range of theories indicate that social media influencer marketing is an area of research with multi-faceted aspects worthy of exploration and investigation. The sociological theories manifested in the most ways—namely Bourdieu’s theory, Graph theory, network theory, observational learning theory, optimal distinctiveness theory, social cognitive theory, social comparison theory, social exchange theory, social identity theory, social influence theory, social learning theory, structural hole theory, system justification theory, and theory of para-social interaction—whereas media theories were not far behind—namely advertising literacy theory, media dependency theory, megaphone effect theory, source credibility theory, transfer theory, two-step flow theory, uses and gratifications theory, and visual framing theory. The manifestation of theories that infused “media” and “sociology” together , such as social media influencer value model and social-mediated crisis communication theory, were observed as well. Psychological theories , such as associative learning theory, attachment theory, attribution theory, consistency theory, construal level theory, dissonance theory, dual process theory, elaboration likelihood model, halo effect theory, reactance theory, similarity-attraction model, theory of planned behavior, and theory of reasoned action, and marketing theories , such as Doppelganger effect theory, human brand theory, relationship management theory, and source effect theory, were also noteworthy. Management theories , such as charismatic and transformational leadership theory and resource dependency theory, were also observed. Interestingly, only one economic (i.e., cost-signaling theory) and one technology (i.e., technology acceptance model) theory were observed, which may indicate that the economic and technology aspects are underexplored as compared to the media, psychological, management, marketing, and social aspects of social media influencer marketing.

The fifth research question (RQ5) involves the mapping of extant research on social media influencer marketing. To do so, three science mapping techniques that rely on different sources of bibliographic data were relied upon—namely (1) a co-citation analysis using PageRank to identify clusters of articles that are most cited by highly-cited articles, (2) a bibliographic coupling to locate clusters of articles that share common references, and (3) a keyword co-occurrence analysis to uncover clusters of author specified keywords that commonly co-appear [ 32 ], [ 65 ].

3.5.1 Foundational themes (or foundational knowledge)

The foundational themes and the top articles for each foundational theme in social media influencer marketing research are depicted in Table 5 . In essence, foundational themes exemplify the perspectives that a field’s research relies upon, and thus, these themes may encompass articles inside and outside that field [ 32 ]. In the case of social media influencer marketing, four foundational themes were revealed by the co-citation analysis using PageRank. Noteworthily, the PageRank scores indicate article prestige, wherein a higher score indicates that the article is cited more by highly-cited articles in the field, whereas the betweenness and closeness centrality scores reflect the article’s relevance across and within themes, wherein a higher score indicates greater relevance across and within themes, respectively [ 32 ].

The first foundational theme depicts the foundations and models for social media influencer marketing . The articles in this foundational theme signify the key characteristics of concepts associated to social media influencer marketing, such as the concept of engagement [ 49 ], “Instafamous” [ 55 ], influencer marketing [ 88 ], and social media influencers [ 44 ], including the difference between traditional celebrities and contemporary social media influencers [ 104 ].

The second foundational theme denotes the influence and impact perspectives for social media influencer marketing . The articles in this foundational theme represent a collection of insights in relation to influence and impact. For example, the most prestigious article under this theme examines the impact of the number of followers of Instagram influencers and the divergence of the products promoted by these influencers on the brand attitudes of their followers [ 28 ]. Other examples of influence and impact outcomes include attitudes and behavioral intentions [ 37 ], engagement [ 120 ], perceptions Lee & Watkins, [ 67 ], and purchase decisions [ 31 ].

The third foundational theme highlights the importance of endorsement and resonance perspectives for social media influencer marketing . The articles in this theme, which are widely cited by highly cited articles on social media influencer marketing, emphasize the importance of endorsement and resonance literature in grounding the reasons for and outcome of social media influencer marketing. This can be seen by the prominence of celebrity endorsement (e.g., [ 34 ], Mccracken, [ 93 ], Silvera & Austad, [ 107 ]) and congruence (e.g., Till & Busler, [ 116 ]; [[ 128 ]] literature that make up the most prestigious articles under this theme.

The fourth foundational theme relates to the profiling and measurement perspectives for social media influencer marketing research . This theme signifies and reaffirms the value of personal characteristics (e.g., personalities, profiles; [ 31 ], Ferchaud et al., [ 40 ]), measurement scales (e.g., expertise trustworthiness and attractiveness; Ohanian, [ 97 ]), and evaluation methods (e.g., structural models; Fornell & Larcker, [ 43 ]) in guiding and informing social media influencer marketing research, and thus, they form a considerable part of the knowledge relied upon by research in the field.

3.5.2 Major themes (or major research streams)

The major themes build upon the foundational themes to curate new knowledge and understanding on social media influencer marketing [ 32 ]. To uncover the major themes, a keyword co-occurrence analysis was initially conducted to gain a sense of the nomological network for the major themes [ 94 ], followed by a bibliographic coupling to gain an in-depth understanding of the content under each major theme in the field [ 32 ].

The keyword co-occurrence analysis indicates that four major themes characterize the knowledge curated by extant research focusing specifically on social media influencer marketing (Fig.  2 and Table 6 ), which is triangulated by the six major themes revealed through bibliographic coupling, in which four bibliographic coupling clusters corresponds to two keyword clusters (Table 7 ). The key peculiarities of these themes are presented as follows.

Nomological network of research streams in social media influencer marketing research

Parasocial interactions and relationships in social media influencer marketing . This major theme is most prominent (eight keywords) and relatively recent (2020.1429–2020.7499). This theme highlights the importance of the “credibility” ( n  = 6), “persuasion knowledge” ( n  = 7), and “source credibility” ( n  = 7) of social media influencers as essential “persuasion” ( n  = 5) factors that influence the “parasocial interactions” ( n  = 8) and “parasocial relationships” ( n  = 12) in social media influencer marketing. Most research in this area is conducted in the context of “Instagram” ( n  = 27), wherein “purchase intention” ( n  = 13) is a common outcome expected and examined. Noteworthily, extant research concentrating on influencing parasocial interactions have highlighted the importance of self-influencer congruence (Shan et al., [ 105 ]; [ 128 ] and the value of message value [ 88 ] and credibility [ 108 ], including the moderating role of audience comments [ 102 ], in fostering consumer trust and purchase intention toward branded content [ 88 ], [ 102 ], Shan et al., [ 105 ], [ 108 ], [ 128 ], whereas those focusing on developing and managing parasocial relationships emphasized the importance of being entrepreneurial (Fink et al., [ 41 ]) and personal branding (Ki et al., [ 61 ]) in the pursuit of becoming famous and garnering brand equity and loyalty among followers [ 18 ], [ 55 ], [ 57 ].

Sponsorship in social media influencer marketing . This major theme is fairly prominent (six keywords) and recent (2019.8–2021). This theme highlights the importance of “sponsorship disclosure” ( n  = 6) in “celebrity endorsement” ( n  = 5) and among “social media influencers” ( n  = 60) engaged for “native advertising” ( n  = 7) in “influencer marketing” ( n  = 63), with “YouTube” ( n  = 9) featuring prominently in this space. Noteworthily, extant research on this theme is divided into two notable streams, wherein the first stream sheds light on the commercialization and value of social media influencer marketing (Britt et al., [ 16 ]; Harrigan et al., [ 47 ]; Hudders et al., [ 48 ]; [ 124 ],), which highlights the importance of the second stream pertaining to the impact of disclosure (i.e., macro, micro—e.g., declaring sponsorship to establish and reaffirm the credibility of social media influencers and the brands they represent) on the behavioral responses of social media followers [ 13 ], [ 30 ], [ 58 ], [ 104 ], [ 110 ].

Authenticity of marketing and public relations in social media influencer marketing . This major theme is fairly prominent (five keywords) but with a longer history (2017.4286–2021) than the other major themes. This theme highlights the continuing importance of “authenticity” ( n  = 7) in the “marketing” ( n  = 5) and “public relations” ( n  = 7) endeavors of “influencers” ( n  = 29) on “social media” ( n  = 56). Thus, it is no surprise that extant research in this theme have focused on traditional marketing concepts such as advertorial campaigns [ 1 ], personal branding [ 59 ], rhetoric [ 45 ], strategic communication [ 33 ], and self-presentation [ 6 ].

Engagement and influence in social media influencer marketing . This major theme is fairly prominent (five keywords) and recent (2019.4–2020.6). This theme encapsulates “social media marketing” ( n  = 16) research that concentrates on the “social influence” ( n  = 5) of “opinion leadership” ( n  = 5) and the equivalent outcome of “brand engagement” ( n  = 5), with “Twitter” ( n  = 7) featuring prominently in this space. Noteworthily, the prominent studies under this theme concentrate on the power of social networks of social media influencers, including examining the influence of the number of followers [ 28 ], measuring the influence of customer networks [ 63 ] and social media influencers [ 5 ], and the value of opinion leaders [ 87 ] and sponsored campaigns [ 49 ] across these networks.

Taken collectively, these themes, which were triangulated across two bibliographic sources of data (i.e., keywords and references) and analytical techniques (i.e., keyword co-occurrence analysis and bibliographic coupling), suggests that social media influencer marketing has tremendous commercial value, which justify the sponsorship that brands are willing to provide to social media influencers in return for marketing and public relation campaigns for their brands and products. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the power of social media influencers resides in their authenticity, which is a crucial reason as to why social media influencers are followed and relied upon by their followers. The management of parasocial interactions and relationships are also highly important as they are essential to foster desired engagement among followers and influence their behaviors in ways desired by social media influencers and the brands that they represent. The next section provides a deeper dive into the mechanisms (constructs) that transpire in social media influencer marketing.

3.6 Constructs

The sixth research question (RQ6) involves the unpacking of constructs that relevantly explain consumer behavior toward social media influencer marketing, which were revealed through the same within- and between-study literature analysis as reported in the methods and theories sections previously [ 95 ]. The constructs (Fig.  3 ) were arranged according to testable categories in the form of antecedents (Table 8 ), mediators (Table 9 ), moderators (Table 10 ), and consequences (Table 11 ), with each category having sub-categories that encapsulate relevant constructs that fall under the theme of that sub-category. The thematic naming of sub-categories are mostly self-explanatory (i.e., audience-, brand-, content-, influencer-, social-, and technology-related), with only one sub-category being uncommon yet sensible due to the unique nature of the context under study—that is, the comparative-related sub-category, which captures the essence of constructs where comparison exist between two or more sub-categories (e.g., influencer-follower relationship is a construct that accounts for the comparison transcending the audience- and influencer-related sub-categories, whereas product-endorser fit is a construct that reflects the comparison between the brand- and influencer-related sub-categories).

Consumer behavior toward social media influencer marketing

In terms of antecedents , four sub-categories emerged, namely comparative-, content-, influencer-, and social-related antecedents (Table 8 ). The comparative-related antecedents (six counts) comprise of influencer-follower relationship (two counts) and perceived similarity (four counts). The content-related antecedents (36 counts) consist of authenticity (four counts), disclosure (14 counts), informativeness (nine counts), message construal (one count), perceived quality (two counts), perceived quantity (two counts), perceived originality (one count), and post credibility (three counts). The influencer-related antecedents (34 counts) consist of engagement and interaction (two counts), influencer attractiveness (10 counts), influencer credibility (six counts), influencer expertise (nine counts), influencer likeability (one count), perceived trustworthiness (five counts), and perceived uniqueness (one count). The social-related antecedent (four count) contains parasocial relationship (four count) only. In total, 18 antecedents emerged across four sub-categories. Content-related antecedents appear to be the most researched (36 counts), followed by influencer-related antecedents (34 counts), with few studies examining comparative- (six counts) and social- (four count) related antecedents. Disclosure (14 counts) is the antecedent that has been studied the most, followed by influencer attractiveness with 10 counts. As a whole, there is good breadth and depth for antecedents as a category, but is mixed for its sub-categories.

In terms of mediators , seven sub-categories were revealed, namely audience-, brand-, comparative-, content-, influencer-, social-, and technology-related mediators (Table 9 ). The audience-related mediators (13 counts) comprise of attachment (one count), attitude (five counts), interest (one count), psychological ownership (one count), and trust (five counts). The brand-related mediators (eight counts) consist of brand recognition (five counts), product attractiveness (one count), and sponsorship transparency (two counts). The comparative-related mediator (four counts) contains self-influencer connection (four counts) only. The content-related mediators (seven counts) encapsulate disclosure (two counts), message appeal (one count), message credibility (one count), message process involvement (one count), and source credibility (two counts). The influencer-related mediators (15 counts) encompass engagement and interaction (two counts), expertise (two counts), influencer credibility (five counts), opinion knowledge leadership (five counts), and perceived popularity (one count). The social-related mediators (three counts) include electronic word of mouth (one count) and parasocial interaction (two counts). The technology-related mediators (two counts) incorporate perceived ease of use (one count) and perceived usefulness (one count). In total, 22 mediators were revealed across seven sub-categories. Influencer- and audience-related mediators appear to be the most researched with 15 and 13 counts respectively, followed by brand- (eight counts) and content- (seven counts) related mediators. Attitude, brand recognition, influencer credibility, opinion leadership knowledge, and trust are the mediators studied the most with five counts each. Overall, there is reasonable breadth and depth for mediators as a category, but is mixed for its sub-categories.

In terms of moderators , six sub-categories were unpacked, namely audience-, brand-, comparative-, content-, influencer-, and social-related moderators (Table 10 ). The audience-related moderators (10 counts) comprise of advertisement literacy (one count), audience engagement (two counts), domains of interest (one count), envy identification (one count), interaction propensity (one count), purchase intention (one count), self-discrepancy (two counts), and social identification with social commerce (one count). The brand-related moderator (one count) consists of brand attitude (one count) only. The comparative-related moderators (three counts) contain perceived closeness (one count), perceived fit (one count), and product-endorser fit (one count). The content-related moderators (nine counts) encapsulate audience comments (one count), disclosure (one count), download volume (one count), message process involvement (one count), message valence (one count), number of hashtags (one count), online ratings (one count), structural assurance (one count), and visionary insights (one count). The influencer-related moderators (four counts) encompass influencer socio-economic status (one count), number of followers (one count), perceived self-serving motive (one count), and type of influencer (one count). The social-related moderators (two counts) include parasocial relationship (one count) and parental mediation (one count). In total, 27 moderators were unpacked across six sub-categories. Audience-related moderators (10 counts) appear to be the most researched, followed by content-related moderators (nine counts). All moderators had only one count except audience engagement and self-discrepancy, which have two counts, and thus indicating its breadth but not depth.

In terms of consequences , three sub-categories were unveiled, namely brand-, influencer-, and social-related consequences (Table 11 ). The brand-related consequences (73 counts) comprise of brand attitude (17 counts), brand awareness (one count), brand involvement (two counts), brand purchase or patronage (46 counts), brand recall (two counts), and brand trust (five counts). The influencer-related consequences (19 counts) consist of engagement and interaction (11 counts), following influencer (five counts), and influence (three counts). The social-related consequences (12 counts) contain recommendation and referral propensity (nine counts) and social sharing (three counts). In total, 11 consequences were unveiled across three sub-categories. Brand-related consequences (73 counts) appear to be the most researched, followed by influencer- (19 counts) and social- (12 counts) related consequences. Brand purchase or patronage (46 counts) represent the most studied consequence, followed by brand attitude (17 counts) and engagement and interaction (11 counts). Taken collectively, the consequences unveiled indicate its depth but not breadth.

4 Trend analysis and future research directions

Agendas for future research are a hallmark of systematic literature reviews [ 84 ]. While there are many approaches to develop future research agendas, the present study adopts an approach that the authors found to be most objective and pragmatic—that is, a trend analysis from thematic and topical perspectives. The suggestions for future research based on the analysis from these perspectives are presented in the next sections.

4.1 Thematic perspective

The thematic perspective comprises a trend analysis of bibliographic clusters representing the major themes of social media influencer marketing research. The choice of focusing on bibliographic clusters as opposed to keyword clusters was a deliberate decision taken in light of the finer-grained research streams in the former (six clusters) over the latter (four clusters), as well as the availability of the alternative perspective (i.e., the topical perspective) that will use keywords to shed light on the topical trend in the field.

The productivity of the six major themes (research streams) in social media influencer marketing research has generally improved in recent years, particularly in 2021, with the exception of research on parasocial relationships in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 6), which experience a slight decline (i.e., seven in 2020 to six in 2021). Though closely-related research on parasocial interactions has proliferated (Cluster 5), the difference between the two research streams and their relatively lower number of studies as compared to other research streams suggest that new research in both streams is very much required. Similarly, the research stream on disclosures (Cluster 4) is highly important, yet it remains relatively low as compared to its more popular counterpart, that is, the research stream on commercialization and value of social media influencer marketing (Cluster 3), both of which are important research streams to the larger umbrella research stream on sponsorship revealed by the keyword co-occurrence analysis. While the research streams on authenticity (Cluster 2) and engagement and influence (Cluster 1) in social media influencer marketing are highly popular, further research remains necessary in light of the evolving changes in the social media landscape. Notwithstanding the productivity of the research streams, several promising avenues avail for advancing knowledge across all research streams.

In terms of engagement and influence in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 1), the emergence of augmented, virtual, and mixed realities, including the metaverse, signals the need for new research that unpacks the opportunities for engagement in these new social avenues along with the effectiveness of these avenues as compared to existing avenues for social media influencer marketing. In addition, the nature of engagement will benefit from finer-grained examination to account for the differences between its varied cognitive, affective, and behavioral manifestations [ 80 ], [ 85 ], which remains underexplored in social media influencer marketing.

In terms of authenticity in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 2), the key markers of authenticity and the strategies to communicate and strengthen a sense of authenticity are potential avenues to enrich understanding of this area. Noteworthily, future research on authenticity will need to go beyond traditional measures (e.g., scales; Ohanian, [ 97 ]) and engage in purposeful exploration to uncover the attributes and actions that if available and taken will enhance followers’ perceptions of the authenticity of social media influencers. In this regard, future qualitative and experimental research in this research stream is encouraged, wherein the former will lead to the discovery of new authenticity markers that the latter can test for cause and effect. Such research should lead to meaningful extensions on the understanding of authenticity that goes beyond treating the concept as a singular construct in the field.

In terms of commercialization and value of social media influencer marketing (Cluster 3), the potential of non-economic returns of social media influencer marketing could be explored in future research. With the advent of corporate social responsibility and environmental social governance (Lim et al., [ 83 ], it is imperative that the expectations and evaluations of returns goes beyond those that are economic in nature (e.g., sales) [ 78 ]. The advocacy and support of socio-environmental causes (e.g., hashtags of actions and statements) could be explored, which can be subsequently useful to develop sustainability ratings beneficial for illustrating the impact of both social media influencers and the brands that they represent.

In terms of disclosure in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 4), future research could explore the different ways in which explicit and implicit disclosures could be curated and signaled by social media influencers to their followers. Such research should be potentially useful as not all social media platforms provide options of explicit labels (e.g., sponsor ad) to social media users, especially when such social media posts are not paid to extend its reach and thus relies on social media users themselves to self-disclose. Moreover, the effectiveness of these forms of disclosure, including their combination, have not been adequately studied and thus should be worthwhile exploring. The negative connotation that may be attached to such disclosures should also be addressed in ways that make such disclosures an asset rather than a liability.

In terms of parasocial interactions in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 5), the multitude ways in which parasocial interactions could be curated represent a potentially fruitful avenue for future exploration. At present, the general focus has been on the influence of social media influencer credibility and the congruence of such interactions to follower expectations and perceptions [ 108 ]. In this regard, future research is encouraged to explore the different ways in which parasocial interactions could be curated, and in the midst of doing so, theorizing the entry points and sustaining factors that make such interactions parasocial between social media influencers and their followers. Given the complex nature of parasocial interactions, future research in this space could benefit from employing neuroscientific tools (e.g., eye tracker, wearable biosensors, [ 73 ], [ 74 ] to gain nuanced insights into biological responses that can be used to supplement self-reported responses in order to better ascertain the parasocial nature of interactions among social media influencers and their followers.

In terms of parasocial relationships in social media influencer marketing (Cluster 6), deeper insights on what makes parasocial relationships gratifying and lasting should be developed in future research. Such research should provide a better understanding on the constitution of parasocial relationships and how social media influencers can foster and maintain them over time. Nevertheless, errors or mistakes are bound to happen (e.g., slip of inappropriate word, unintentional non-disclosure of sponsorship). Thus, the repair and recovery of negatively-affected parasocial relationships among social media influencers and their followers could also be given scholarly attention in future research.

Taken collectively, these suggestions for future research should enrich research across all research streams in social media influencer marketing. The next section builds on the insights from this section and takes a closer look on topical trends in the field (Fig. 4 ).

Productivity trend of major themes in social media influencer marketing research. Note: Cluster 1 = Engagement and influence in social media influencer marketing. Cluster 2 = Authenticity in social media influencer marketing. Cluster 3 = Commercialization and value of social media influencer marketing. Cluster 4 = Disclosure in social media influencer marketing. Cluster 5 = Parasocial interactions in social media influencer marketing. Cluster 6 = Parasocial relationships in social media influencer marketing

4.2 Topical perspective

The productivity of topical research in social media influencer marketing has evolved over the years (Fig.  5 ). Noteworthily, the extant literature on social media influencer marketing has been largely predicated on “communication management”, “centrality”, and “viral marketing” up to 2018. Newer research has nonetheless made a stronger and more explicit connection to “influencer marketing” and “social media”, with “Instagram” emerging as the most prominent social media in the field. The transmission of “eWOM” or “electronic word-of-mouth” and how this translates into “parasocial interaction” or “immersion” between “social media influencers” and “followers” has taken center stage alongside “online marketing” and “social media marketing” considerations such as “advertising”, “brands”, “brand awareness”, and “purchase intention” from a “neoliberalism” perspective.

Productivity trend of major topics in social media influencer marketing research

Notwithstanding the trending topics in social media influencer marketing revealed by the trend analysis, it is clear that new research focusing on new phenomena is very much required. For example, new social media platforms such as Clubhouse and TikTok have been extremely popular platforms for social media influencers in recent years, and thus, future research should also consider exploring social platforms other than Instagram. Furthermore, the proliferation of augmented and virtual realities remains underexplored for social media influencer marketing. The rebranding of Facebook to Meta is a signal of the future rise of the metaverse . New research in this direction focusing on new-age technologies for social media influencer marketing should provide new knowledge-advancing and practice-relevant insights into contemporary trends and realities that remain underrepresented in the literature. Similarly, the diversity and evolution of social media followers also deserve further attention in light of accelerated technology adoption by societies worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the new normal [ 77 ], as well as the changing nature of generational cohorts in the society [ 79 ].

5 Conclusion

The importance of consumerism for business survival and growth albeit in a more authentic, meaningful, and sustainable way [ 76 ] along with the increasing use of digital media such as social media [ 82 ] have led to the proliferation of social media influencer marketing and its burgeoning interest among academics and professionals [ 10 ], [ 124 ]. This was evident in the present study, wherein the consumer behavior perspective of social media influencer marketing took center stage. Using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol as a guide, a bibliometric-content analysis as a multi-method review technique, and a collection of 214 articles published in 87 journals indexed in ABDC, CABS, and WOS as relevant documents for review, this study provides, to date, the most comprehensive one-stop state-of-the-art overview of social media influencer marketing. Through this review, this study provides several key takeaways for theory and practice and additional noteworthy suggestions for future research.

5.1 Theoretical contributions and implications

From a theoretical perspective, this study provides two major takeaways for academics.

First, the review indicates that most articles on social media influencer marketing published in journals indexed in ABDC, CABS, and WOS were not guided by an established theory, as only 94 (43.93%) out of the 214 articles reviewed were informed by theories (e.g., persuasion knowledge theory, social learning theory, source credibility theory, theory of planned behavior). This implies that most articles relied on prior literature only to explain their study’s theoretical foundation, which may be attributed to a lack of awareness on the possible theories that may be relevant to their study. In fact, a similar review on the topic albeit with a relatively smaller sample of articles (i.e., 68 articles only) due to protocol limitations (i.e., CABS-indexed journals only) had acknowledged the issue but unfortunately failed to deliver a collection of theories informed by prior research [ 124 ]. In this vein, this study hopes to address this issue as it has revealed 46 different theories that were employed in prior social media influencer marketing research, which can be used to ground future research in the area. Furthermore, the list of theories can be used to justify the novelty of future research where a new theory is applied. In addition, future studies can take inspiration from the manifestation of theories emerging from multiple theoretical perspectives, such as the social influencer value model and the social-mediated crisis communication theory informed by the media and sociological theoretical perspectives, to develop new theories in the field, which may be challenging but certainly possible [ 81 ]. Alternatively, future studies can consider theoretical integration by using two or more theories in a single investigation, which can reveal richer insights on the phenomenon (e.g., which theoretical perspective is more prominent or which factors from which theoretical perspective yield strong impacts and therefore warrant investment prioritization).

Second, the review shows that social media influencer marketing research does not have to be limited to a simple direct antecedent-consequence relationship or the multiply of such relationships. Instead, research in the area can benefit from testing the mediating and moderating effects of various factors to enrich the insights derived from their study. Interestingly, the review reveals that antecedents can also play the role of mediators (e.g., engagement and interaction) and moderators (e.g., parasocial relationship) and vice versa, which implies that the conditions in research design setup are fundamental to the conclusions made about the consequences of social media influencer marketing [ 75 ], which can take the form of consumer responses to the brand (e.g., brand purchase or patronage), the influencer (e.g., following influencer), and the community (e.g., recommendation, social sharing). In total, seven categories in the form of audience-, brand-, comparative-, content-, influencer-, social-, and technology-related factors that could manifest as antecedents, mediators, and moderators were revealed. Noteworthily, the comparative-related factors such as perceived closeness, perceived fit, perceived similarity, self-influencer connection, and product-endorser fit transcended across multiple categories (e.g., audience and influencer, brand and influencer), which indicate the promise of social media influencer marketing as a research context suitable for the development of new factors to describe consumer behavior of a comparative nature. Indeed, comparative-related factors is, to the best knowledge of the authors, a new categorization that has not been revealed by prior systematic literature reviews, and thus, represent a key contribution to the literature that should be noted in future research and reviews. Moreover, the mapping of constructs in Fig.  3 and their counts in Tables 8 , 9 , 10 , and 11 provide useful starting points to identify the extant gaps in prior research (e.g., brand-related factors remain underexplored as moderators, comparative-related factors remain underexplored as mediators) and to inform the direction of future research accordingly. Finally, the constructs and their associated categories revealed can also be compared and contrasted in future investigations to delineate the difference in impact between constructs of different categories, and when paired with appropriate theories, can provide stronger grounds for managerial recommendations to brands and influencers interested to leverage off the benefits of social media influencer marketing to attract and persuade desired consumer behavior.

5.2 Managerial contributions and implications

From a managerial perspective, this study provides two major takeaways for brands and influencers.

First, the review indicates that brands indirectly influence consumers through influencers—that is to say, the strategy of brands engaging in influencer marketing on social media places influencers at the forefront, with brands taking a backseat in that strategy. This was evident from the literature review, where brand-related antecedents were absent; instead, the influence of brands manifests in the form of mediators (e.g., brand recognition, product attractiveness, sponsorship transparency) and moderators (e.g., brand attitude). In that sense, it is important that brands identify and engage with influencers strategically, particularly those who are perceived to be attractive, credible, engaging and interactive, experts, a good fit for their products, likeable, opinion leaders, popular, trustworthy, unique, and without overly self-serving motives in order to encourage desired consumer behavior toward their brands (e.g., brand purchase and patronage, brand trust), as revealed by the review herein.

Second, the review reveals that social media influencers directly influence consumer behavior toward the brands they promote (e.g., brand attitude, brand awareness, brand involvement, brand recall, brand trust), the influencers themselves (e.g., follower, influence), and the social media community at large (e.g., recommendation, social sharing). In particular, the content that influencers curate on social media can affect how consumers respond to these stakeholders. The review indicates that such content should be authentic, credible, informative, original, and transparent (disclosure). The message appeal and message process involvement are also important mediators to strengthen the influencer’s ability to encourage desired consumer behavior among their followers (e.g., positive audience, brand, influencer, and social behavior), whereas audience comments, assurance, hashtags, insights, and volume of posts can moderate or nullify the potential desired impact that influencers could elicit from their followers on social media. Indeed, the importance of electronic word of mouth, parasocial interaction, and perceptions of closeness and fit have also been highlighted through the review. Importantly, when promoting to kids and youth, it is essential that influencers consider what parents would think about their posts, as parental mediation was observed to occur in the review.

5.3 Review limitations and future review directions

From a review perspective, this study acknowledges three major limitations that can inform the curation of future reviews.

First, the systematic literature review herein does not capture article performance (i.e., citations) because it was mainly interested in unpacking the articles, journals, theories, methods, and content (themes, constructs) underpinning existing research on social media influencer marketing, and it kept in mind the space limitation of the journal. Notwithstanding the comprehensive and rigorous insights revealed using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, future reviews may wish to pursue an impact analysis, which can lead to rich insights pertaining to article performance (e.g., difference in citations [e.g., total citations, average citations per year, h -index, g -index] between papers with and without theory, using empirical and non-empirical methods, or across different methods and thematic categories).

Second, the systematic literature review herein encapsulates only a qualitative evaluation of the constructs in existing social media influencer marketing research. To build on the insights herein, future reviews may wish to pursue a meta-analytical review, where a meta-analysis involving the antecedents, mediators, moderators, and consequences revealed in Tables 8 , 9 , 10 , and 11 in this review (in the short run) or unveiled in future reviews (in the long run) is performed. Such an endeavor should also provide finer-grained insights on conflicting findings and provide a resolution to such findings in the same study.

Third, the systematic literature review herein focuses only on the consumer behavior perspective of social media influencer marketing, which is mainly due to the maturity of research from this perspective [ 98 ], as seen through the number of articles available for review (i.e., 214 articles) under a rigorous protocol (i.e., the SPAR-4-SLR protocol). Moving forward, future reviews may wish to pursue a systematic review of social media influencer marketing from the business and industrial perspective, wherein the impact of influencer marketing on social media for business and industrial brands in general and across different industries are reviewed and reported.

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Yatish Joshi

School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia

Weng Marc Lim

Faculty of Business, Design and Arts, Swinburne University of Technology, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

Flame University, Pune, Maharashtra, India

Khyati Jagani & Satish Kumar

Indian Institute of Management Nagpur, Nagpur, India

Satish Kumar

Sunway Business School, Sunway University, Sunway City, Selangor, Malaysia

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This paper uses the SPAR-4-SLR protocol as a guide, a collection of 214 articles published in 87 journals indexed in ABDC, CABS, and WOS as relevant documents, and a bibliometric-content analysis to curate an enriching one-stop, state-of-the-art review on the articles, journals, methods, theories, themes, and constructs (antecedents, moderators, mediators, and consequences) in extant research on social media influencer marketing.

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Joshi, Y., Lim, W.M., Jagani, K. et al. Social media influencer marketing: foundations, trends, and ways forward. Electron Commer Res (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-023-09719-z

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Buy Instagram followers cheap

Mastering Instagram: List Of 9 Instagram Influencer Marketing Strategies With Case Studies

In the dynamic world of social media marketing, Instagram stands out as a powerhouse platform for businesses seeking to reach and engage their target audience. Leveraging influencer marketing on Instagram has proven to be a game-changer, allowing brands to tap into the influence of individuals with substantial followings. In this article, we’ll delve into 9 effective Instagram influencer marketing strategies backed by real case studies, providing insights and inspiration for your marketing endeavors.

1. Micro-Influencers for Niche Appeal: Micro-influencers, with a smaller but highly engaged audience, can yield impressive results for niche brands. For instance, fitness brand Gymshark partnered with micro-influence rs, resulting in authentic content that resonated deeply with fitness enthusiasts.

2. Authentic Storytelling with User-Generated Content: Encouraging influencers to share user-generated content adds a touch of authenticity. Airbnb’s #AirbnbPets campaign saw influencers sharing their experiences with Airbnb accommodations, showcasing real stories that resonated with their followers.

3. Influencer Takeovers: Allowing influencers to take over your brand’s Instagram account for a day injects freshness and diversity into your content. Sephora’s takeover by beauty influencer Huda Kattan resulted in increased engagement and a broader reach.

4. Take your company to the limits in 3 yearss: Influencers providing in-depth reviews and tutorials featuring your products can drive purchasing decisions. Daniel Wellington , a watch brand, partnered with influencers who shared styled photos and how-to videos, leading to a surge in brand engagement.

5. Collaborative Giveaways: Teaming up with influencers for collaborative giveaways can rapidly expand your reach. Fashion brand ASOS collaborated with influencers for a giveaway, resulting in increased followers and brand exposure.

6. Behind-the-Scenes Insights: Offering followers a glimpse behind the scenes with influencers fosters a sense of connection. Mercedes-Benz collaborated with influencers to provide sneak peeks into their car manufacturing process, enhancing brand transparency.

7. Influencer-Generated Content Libraries: Creating an inventory of influencer-generated content can provide a stream of authentic content for your brand. Lululemon engaged influencers to create content that could be used across their platforms, ensuring a consistent visual theme.

8. Interactive Quizzes and Challenges: Incorporating interactive elements like quizzes and challenges with influencers can engage users in fun and creative ways. National Geographic used influencers to promote their #WanderlustContest, encouraging users to share their travel stories.

9. Influencer-Hosted Webinars and Workshops: Leveraging influencers’ expertise for educational webinars or workshops is another favorite Instagram influencer marketing strategies, and can position your brand as a thought leader. Adobe teamed up with influencers to host design workshops, attracting a targeted audience of aspiring creatives.

Case Studies Showcase Success:

• How Gymshark Built a Billion Dollar Empire Through Influencer Marketing: Source – Collabstr
• How to Create a User-Generated Content Campaign For Your Brand: Source – Influencer Marketing Hub
• How Video Marketing Shaped Sephora’s $37.2 Billion Success: Source – Wipster.io
• How Daniel Wellington Sold 1 Million Watches or $228M in Just 3 Years: Source – Mayple
• ASOS Fashion Brand Collaborating with Micro Influencers in 2023: Source – Blog Daisie
• Mercedes-Benz’s Behind-the-Scenes Collaboration: Source – Social Media Today
• Lululemon’s Content Library Initiative: Source – Tribe Dynamics
• National Geographic’s Interactive Challenge: Source – Webfx
• Adobe’s Influencer-Hosted Workshops: Source – Adobe

Incorporating these Instagram influencer marketing strategies into your approach can amplify your brand’s presence, engage your audience, and drive tangible results. Successful case studies underscore the effectiveness of these strategies, serving as inspiration for your unique campaigns. As you embark on your influencer marketing journey, remember that authenticity, alignment with your brand values, and meaningful engagement remain the cornerstones of a successful partnership. With these Instagram marketing strategies and case studies as your guide, you’re well-equipped to harness the potential of Instagram marketing for your business’s growth and success.

Additional Local Sources:

• 15 Must Have Free Instagram Marketing Tools To Boost Your Engagement
• 18 Must-Have Apps for Social Media Influencers

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Top 3 Social Media Case Studies to Inspire You in 2024

Discover three successful social media case studies from top brands and learn how to create one. Benefit from their strategies and mistakes to ensure the success of your next campaign.

Social media is every marketer’s safe haven for branding and marketing.

And why not?

More than 50% of the population is active on social media, and more are signing up with every passing second.

In a recent poll by HubSpot, 79% of the respondents have made a purchase after seeing a paid advertisement on social media .

This isn’t just a happenstance.

It’s the constant efforts that these brands put behind their dynamic presence on social media, that counts.

But how do they captivate their customers’ attention for this long despite the budding competitors?

Well, that’s something that we’ll reveal in this blog.

We shall assess 3 different social media case studies by top brands who are best in their niches. Their game is simple yet effective.

How effective? Let’s take a look.

Social Media Case Study 1: Starbucks

Starbucks and social media are a match made in heaven. Being one of the sensational brands online, they are stirring the social media world with their strong presence.

They brew the right content to elevate the experiences of their coffee lovers. But how do they nail marketing with perfection every single time? Let’s find out.

Starbucks in Numbers

Starbucks mastered the advertising transition from offline fame to online undertaking. They use each social media with a varied goal to target pitch-perfect reach. Drawing in more customers than ever before, they strike the right balance in content across multiple platforms.

Key Takeaways

Though not every company has a Starbucks budget to promote and spend lavishly on social media marketing, here are some quick takeaways that will undoubtedly help.

1. Chasing Trends

Be it any event, brands must take the advantage to showcase their viewpoints and opinions. Successful brands like Starbucks jump into the bandwagon and leave no stone unturned to make their voice count in the trending list.

Here’s one such social media campaign example from Starbucks.

Starbucks is a firm believer in LGBTQ+ rights. When the pride wave surged, Starbucks came forward and reinstated its belief through the #ExtraShotOfPride campaign.

Starbucks joined hands with the Born This Way Foundation to raise $250K to support the LGBTQ+ community. Throughout the social media campaign, they shared quotes and stories of various Starbucks employees cherishing the pride spirit.

2. Less is More

Social media is not about quantity but quality. Starbucks follows the “less is more” principle to maintain the quality standards, even in the caption. Spamming followers’ feeds with constant posting is a big no-no. Starbucks shares 5-6 posts per week on Instagram and 3-4 weekly posts on Facebook .

Creative and crisp! That’s what defines a Starbucks caption. This post with 111+k likes is no exception. Nothing is better than a minimalist post with a strong caption.

3. User Generated Content is the King

Ditch the worry of creating content every day when you can make use of user generated content. Starbucks makes sure to retweet or post its loyal customers’ content. User generated content postings starkly improve brand credibility.

Look at this Facebook post made out of customers’ tweets. The new Oatmilk drink got the appreciation shower by some, and Starbucks couldn’t resist but share it with others. It saved them efforts on content brainstorming, plus they got free PR.

4. Building Rapport

Building rapport with the audience is an unsaid rule to brand fame. Social media has now taken the onus of dispensing quality service by aiding brands in prompting faster replies .

Starbucks is always on its toe to respond to customers actively solving concerns, expressing gratitude, or reposting. That kind of proactive service definitely deserves love and adoration.

5. Loads of campaigns

Starbucks is known for its innovative social media campaigns. Be it a new product launch or any festivity around the corner, Starbucks always turns up with a rewarding campaign.

In this social media campaign example, Starbucks introduced #RedCupContest with prizes worth $4500 during Christmas of 2016. A new entry came every 14 seconds.

The grand total of entries was a whopping 40,000 in just two days. Indeed Starbucks knows how to get the most out of the festive fever.

6. Content mix

Last but not least, the content mix of Starbucks is inspiring. They create tailored content for every platform.

The official youtube channel of Starbucks comprises content in varied hues. From recipes to even series, Starbucks is the ultimate pioneer of experimenting.

Even on Instagram, they use all the features like Guides, Reels, and IGTV without affecting their eye-popping feed. Starbucks also follows the design consistency for its aesthetic content mix.

Starbucks has proved time and again to be a customer-centric brand with their unrelenting efforts.

Social Media Case Study 2: Ogilvy & Mather

Ogilvy & Mather needs no introduction. Founded by David Ogilvy, the ‘Father of Advertising’ in 1948, the agency continues the legacy of revolutionizing marketing long before the advent of social media.

The iconic agency helps several Fortune 500 companies and more make a massive impact on their audiences worldwide.

Ogilvy & Mather knows its game too well and never fails to astonish. Not just high-profile clients, Ogilvy nails its marketing with perfection every single time.

Keep on reading.

Ogilvy & Mather in Numbers

They use social media to target pitch-perfect reach. Drawing in more hype than ever before, they know how to strike the right balance and bring out emotions with their heart-warming campaigns.

Not every company has David Ogilvy’s legacy or even affluent clients to boast of, but here are some quick takeaways that will undoubtedly help you become a pro marketer.

1. Integrating Values

Ogilvy stands apart from the crowd, creating trends. They leave no stone unturned to communicate values.

Proud Whopper is one such social media campaign by Ogilvy that was an instant hit on the internet. People were offered whoppers in rainbow-colored wrappers, with a note that said, “Everyone’s the same on the inside.” This was to reinstate the importance of LGTQ+ rights.

The campaign got 1.1 billion impressions, $21 million of earned media, 450,000 blog mentions, 7 million views, and became the #1 trending topic on Facebook and Twitter.

Ogilvy made a remarkable #Tbt video to honor this momentous event showcasing their supremacy in creating impactful campaigns.

2. Quality over Quantity

Ogilvy believes in the “ Quality supremacy ” to maintain their high standards, even in post captions.

Arbitrary posting isn’t a part of their agenda. They share 5-7 posts on Instagram and Facebook weekly.

Direct and very precise. That’s what defines an Ogilvy caption. This post is no exception. They have exhibited the success of their client work by describing the motive behind the campaign and sharing the ad they created for raising awareness.

3. Adding Credibility

Won awards? It’s time to boast! Because that’s the most authentic way of establishing trust among your clients. It bears proof of your excellence.

Look at this pinned Twitter post. Ogilvy won the Global Network of the Year by the very prestigious London International Awards. It also earned Regional Network of the year for Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe.

What better than this to give its audience an idea about Ogilvy’s roaring success and undoubted potential?

4. Being Innovative

Building rapport with the audience is an unsaid rule to brand fame. And that’s why you need to tell stories. Social media has become an indispensable medium to spread your stories far and wide.

Ogilvy shares its historical tale of existence and how it has adapted to the challenges of the changing world. The team extensively talks about their adaptation to the latest trends to stay on top always.

5. Brainstorming Uniqueness

Being unique is what propels you on social media. People are always looking for brands that do something different from the herd. So your task each day is undeniably brainstorming unique content.

KFC wanted more of its customers to use its app. Well, Ogilvy and KFC decided to hide a secret menu in the app, which was a mass invitation for the download without being salesy at all. Results? Downloads up by 111% at launch!

6. Inspire Your Peeps

Inspiration is everywhere. But how do you channelize and mold it as per your brand guidelines? The renowned brands move their audience, filling them with a sense of realization. Who doesn’t seek validation? We all need quotes and inspiration to live by.

Ogilvy has dedicated its entire Pinterest profile to inspiration. The profile has numerous insightful infographics that encourage you to pursue marketing when your spirits run low. And that’s how it brings out the very essence of being the marketing leader: by inspiring its followers.

Got some good ideas for your branding? We have created templates and tools to help you execute them hassle-free. Tread on further and download the Trending Hashtag Kit for 2024 to get into action.

Social Media Case Study 3: PewDiePie

YouTube king with 111 Million subscribers on PewDiePie Channel, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, has defied all norms. One of the most prolific content creators of the decade, Felix was on the list of World’s 100 Most Influential People by Time Magazine in 2016.

Needless to say, he is still relevant to this day and has a massive following on social media. Not just for branding, the Swedish YouTuber leveraged social media to give himself a new identity and opened doors to fame and a successful career.

What was the cause of this extraordinary trajectory?

Let’s find out.

PewDiePie in Numbers

PewDiePie likes to keep his social media raw and unfiltered. That’s why subscribers love to have a glimpse of his everyday life and follow him on other social media platforms as well. Here’s a quick snapshot of that.

Felix took the early bird advantage and started creating content when it wasn’t even popular practice. We can’t go back in time, but we can definitely learn a lot from his social media success.

1. Start Now

If you are still skeptical about making the first move, then don’t. Stop waiting and experiment. It’s better late than never.

Social media is in favor of those who start early because then you create surplus content to hold your audience . You quench their thirst for more quality content.

PewDiePie started creating videos in 2011 and live-streamed his gaming sessions with commentaries. It was something new and completely original. Ever since, he has continued to make thousands of videos that entertain his audience.

2. Gather Your Tribe

Being a content creator, PewDiePie knows his act of engaging his audience very well. He strives to build lasting connections and encourages two-way communication. As a result, his followers like to jump onto his exciting challenges.

Felix treasures his gaming community. He frequently asks his followers to take screenshots and turn them into funny memes . He gives them tasks to keep them engaged and amused .

3. Collaboration and Fundraising

Once you reach the stage and gain popularity, people want to see more of you with their favorite personalities. That’s what Felix does.

He collaborates with multiple YouTubers and brands and puts out exclusive content for his followers. He also goes for multiple fundraising campaigns to support vital causes and social wellbeing.

Here’s one such social media campaign example. PewDiePie supported the CRY foundation and raised $239000 in just one day to bring a positive impact for children in India. He thanked all for their contribution and taking active participation towards a noble cause.

4. Keep it Real

Felix likes to keep his content fluff-free. You get to witness raw emotions from an unfiltered life. This instantly appeals to the audience and makes the posts more relatable .

Apart from that, he also uses storytelling techniques to narrate his experiences, adding a very personalized touch to each of the videos.

Here’s a video of Felix where he and Ken from CinnamonToastKen discuss what can be possibly done with a million dollars around the world. The topic is quite intriguing.

More than 3.8M people have watched it and 216K of them liked it as well, proving that you need not always sweat to create complex content. Even the simplest ones can make the cut.

How to Write a Social Media Marketing Case Study

Many small businesses struggle when it comes to social media marketing. But guess what? Small businesses can slay the competition with a powerful tool: the social media case study.

These social media case studies are success stories that prove your hustle is paying off. Here’s how to weave a case study that showcases your small business wins:

Building Your Brag Book

• Pick Your Perfect Project:  Did a specific social media campaign drive a surge in sales? Highlight a product launch that went viral. Choose a project with impressive results you can showcase.
• DIY Interview:  Don’t have a fancy marketing team? No worries! Record yourself talking about your challenges, goals, and the strategies that made a difference.
• Data Dive:  Track down social media analytics! Look for growth in followers, website traffic driven by social media, or engagement metrics that show your efforts are working.

Now that you have all the ingredients, it’s time to cook a brilliant case study

Crafting Your Case Study

• Headline Hunt:  Grab attention with a clear and concise headline. Mention your business name and a key achievement (e.g., “From 100 to 10,000 Followers: How We Grew Our Bakery’s Social Buzz”).
• Subheading Scoop:  Briefly summarize your success story in a subheading, piquing the reader’s interest and highlighting key takeaways.
• The Business Struggle:  Be honest about the challenges you faced before tackling social media. This will build trust and allow other small businesses to connect.
• DIY Social Strategies:  Share the social media tactics you used, such as engaging content formats, community-building strategies, or influencer collaborations.
• Numbers Don’t Lie:  Integrate data and visuals to support your story. Include charts showcasing follower growth or screenshots of top-performing posts.
• Simple & Straightforward:  Use clear, concise language that’s easy to understand. Bullet points and short paragraphs make your case study digestible and showcase your professionalism.

Remember: Your social media case study is a chance to celebrate your achievements and build businesses. So, tell your story with pride, showcase your data-driven results, and watch your brand recognition soar

Social media campaigns are winning hearts on every platform. However, their success rates largely depend on your year-round presence. That’s why being consistent really does the trick.

We’re sure you must have learned a few things from the above-mentioned social media case studies .

To excel further at your social media marketing, use our FREE Trending Hashtag Kit and fill your calendar with everyday content ideas.

On downloading, you get 3000+ hashtags based on each day’s theme or occasion. You also get editable design templates for hassle-free social media posting.

What are you waiting for? Download now.

Frequently Asked Questions

🌟 How do I start a social media campaign idea?

Here’s how you can start a social media campaign:

• Finalize your campaign goals
• Brainstorm personas
• Pick a social media channel
• Research your competitors and audience
• Finalize an idea that’s in trend
• Promote the campaign
• Start the campaign
• Track the performance

🌟 What are the different types of social media campaigns?

Different types of social media campaigns are:

• Influencer Campaigns
• Hashtag Challenges

🌟 Why is social media campaign important?

Social media campaigns have various benefits:

• Boost traffic
• Better Conversions
• Cost-effective Marketing
• Lead Generation
• PR & Branding
• Loyal Followers

🌟 What are some of the best social media campaign tools?

Some of the best social media campaign tools are:

• SocialPilot

🌟 What are the top social media sites?

The top social media sites are:

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How To Create An Influencer Case Study

Brand Partnerships

HOW TO CREATE AN INFLUENCER CASE STUDY

When it comes to landing brand partnerships, having a solid “case study” is one of the best things you can do to stand out  from the crowd. Essentially, an influencer case study is your secret weapon in convincing the brand you are  pitching  to work with, to choose you over someone else. The great thing about a case study is it doesn’t matter how many followers you have…it matters how effective you are at getting your followers to take action.

Here at Sidewalker Daily, we work with brands on their influencer marketing initiatives and have insight into what they are looking for when it comes to selecting influencers for partnerships and campaigns. While everyone in this industry focuses a lot on  media kits , one of the most important documents for a brand to see during the evaluation and  negotiation process is an influencer or blogger’s case study. We also work with creators and influencers to create their pitching materials and work with brands.

And a case study can be even more valuable than a media kit because it gives the brand insight into what an influencer can possibly do for their brand in terms of reaching internal goals and objectives. Trust us when we say that having a case study on hand will put you one step ahead of everyone else.

So let’s go over how to get started ASAP so you’ll be ready to impress potential brand parters and clients!

What Is An Influencer Case Study?

In the blogger and influencer world, a case study is a document that describes a previous project, campaign or partnership you were involved in and has a recap of the results. A case study basically has all the relevant information any brand partner would need to know in determining your effectiveness in promoting their brand, product and/or service.

A case study is essentially a collection of evidence to prove your value and show the brand that you’re not all talk…you actually can produce results. Whether it’s your ability to drive clicks to a website or help them get targeted engagement, a case study is a concrete example to illustrate what you were able to do for another brand or company during a past partnership.

What’s The Difference Between a Case Study and a Media Kit?

A  media kit  is a document or presentation that contains important information about your business or brand that is used to promote yourself or  pitch  to potential clients and brand partners. A media kit includes important topics such as an “about you” section, the stats and demographics of your audience, an overview of the services you offer, and even examples of the types of partners you worked with in the past to establish credibility.

On the other hand, an  influencer case study  is a document which includes all the important components of a past partnership or campaign. It dives deep into one project to demonstrate your capabilities and how you were successful at achieving what was asked of you – almost like a piece of evidence to show the brand you are pitching to. For example, “I was able to do X,Y,Z for this brand and help them achieve their specific goals and objectives, so it’s proof that I will most likely be able to do what you’re asking of me too.”

A case study can be an independent, stand alone document or it can be included in your media kit. It really depends on how long you want your media kit to be and also if you will be creating an evergreen media kit or have the ability to customize it depending on the type of brand you are pitching to.

Why Is A Case Study So Important?

Since brands are getting wiser, (and  influencer marketing studies  have exposed all the tricks of the trade when it comes to influencers and bloggers), companies now want to see some proof that you are what you say you are. Since giveaways boost followers, engagement pods boost comments and you can buy likes by the thousand, brands want to know that what you’re selling (your influence) is the real thing.

In the travel influencer industry, brands, tourism boards and hotels LOVE case studies because it makes them feel confident that if they hire you for a campaign, that you’ll be able to deliver. Since brands are so focused on ROI (return on investment) this is the best way they can ensure that they’ll be able to make the partnership worthwhile.

When you’re communicating or  negotiating  with a PR or brand rep about a partnership, they most likely won’t be at the top of the food chain. That means they will have to report to their boss or client (and the rest of the team) about the success of the partnership or campaign and working with you. So if anything doesn’t go according to plan, they’ll at least have the evidence they need (your case study) to justify their decision to work with you. Brand reps are looking for  influencer marketing ROI case studies  that convey concrete results to ensure they are not being taken advantage of by anyone who is not truthful about their following or audience in their  media kit .

Also, keep in mind that a lot of important information about your influence and strength of your following is not public knowledge…only you have the keys to that information. For example, your story views, swipe ups, click through links on the website URL you promote, blog traffic, and conversion rates are something only you (and a past brand partner) would know, so having a solid case study is a great way to demonstrate how you can drive people take action.

Yes, someone can see you posted a picture on  Instagram and mentioned it was an #ad or “paid partnership,” but a well put together case study demonstrates all the behind the scenes results that are not only impressive but can really make a brand feel confident in their decision to work with you

What Type of Case Study Should You Send?

If you’re a seasoned influencer and have numerous past brand partnerships that were successful, you may want to consider creating a few different case studies in various  niches,  so you can cater to who you’re  pitching  to. For example, if you’re pitching to a hotel, you should provide them with a case study that is an example of a past hotel partnership you did. If you’re pitching to a brand that wants you to promote their product and help them drive sales, then provide them with a case study of a past partnership that you were able to do just that.

Just remember not all  influencer marketing campaign case studies  are created equal. The more the case study is relatable to the brand partner and their goals and objectives of the partnership, the better chance you’ll have at landing the deal.

What Information Do You Need To Put In Your Case Study?

Depending on the past partnership you will be highlighting in your  influencer case study , you will need to include information about two main areas. The first is an overview of the partnership – what were the goals and objectives of the campaign and what did the brand hire you to do specifically. The second section you’ll need to cover is the results of the campaign- were you able to achieve what you promised, did you over deliver, was the campaign a success?

Here are some things you should consider including:

• Date of Campaign 
• Name and Logo of the Brand Partner
• Objectives of the Partnership or Campaign 
• Deliverables You Were Asked to Create and/or Produce For the Partnership
• Results You Were Able to Produce For the Brand 
• Testimonial from the Brand

Essentially you need to walk someone through the highlights of the campaign or partnership from start to finish so they can understand the background and goals of the project and also understand what you were able to achieve.  And i f you over-delivered on a campaign, make sure you state that in your case study. For example, if the required deliverables were X, and you produced Y, make a note of this to your case study.

And if you’re creating an  Instagram influencer case study, m ake sure to include all analytics of the campaign (impressions, story views, site traffic, image saves etc) and include screenshots too!

It’s also really important to remember to add up the total engagements or impressions of the entire campaign, rather than defining them per post. It is way more powerful to show the entire project as a whole, then in multiple smaller parts. For example, if you produced 4 Instagram posts that got over 20,000 likes per post, you would say the campaign was “4 posts that received over 80,000 likes” instead of saying “4 posts with an average of 20,000 likes.” The first version feels more powerful, right?! 

Not Sure What Your Influence Is…Test It!

If you’re a  micro-influencer  just starting out or even a seasoned influencer that hasn’t really refined your influence just yet, before trying to  earn money  through partnerships…we suggest  testing your influence ! Yes, brand partnerships create amazing case studies but if you’re not there just yet, you can take matters into your own hands. Whether teaming up with a smaller brand or even buying a product and hosting your own giveaway, there are tons of creative solutions to get the information you need for your case study.

We know how important it is to be able to  test your influence  out stress free so we’ve partnered with our friends at A.M. Club for you to do just that. It’s a great way to create a  micro influencer case study  and show brands that even though your numbers may be small, they’re mighty! Learn more  here . 

How To Create A Case Study: Tools You Can Use To Get Started.

Once you’ve gathered all the information, screenshots and images for your case study, the next step is putting it all together. It’s important to make sure your case study is  branded  and looks good visually, especially since everything you provide to the potential partner is a reflection of your brand and capabilities as a creator.

There are tons of tools out there you can use to create your case study but here are some of our favorites:

Canva : Canva is a free graphic design tool that has tons of pre-made layouts and templates that you can use to create your case study.

Google Slides : Google Slides is a free tool to create presentation decks and you can easily create a case study to be able to send to potential brands.

Inexpensive Templates : You can purchase inexpensive templates on sites like Etsy or Creative Market to create your case study.

Tip: No matter how you create your influencer case study…don’t forget to send it as a PDF and definitely have someone you trust look it over for typos and grammar errors.

When Do You Send A Case Study?

The right time to send a case study depends on when the brand or company shows interest in working with you. If you include a case study in your  media kit , that’s totally fine but it’s important to understand the goals or objectives of the partnership you’re considering before sending your case study.

That’s to ensure your case study includes all the relevant information the brand would want to see. Depending on how strong your case study is, it also can help you during the  negotiation  process and help you get a higher  rate  for the partnership. Just a few things to keep in mind. :)

The Influencer Case Study: Tying It All Together!

So you have all the pieces but are not sure how to present the information in your  influencer case study ? We get that sometimes it’s difficult to tie it all together so we offer  one-on-one sessions  to guide you every step of the way. From figuring out all the relevant information to include in your case study, to helping you turn it into the perfect graphic, we can support you from A to Z.

And the great thing is, once you have your case study completed, you’re all set and don’t have to do any updates like you do with your media kit!

Again, we can’t stress enough how valuable case studies are for your success in this industry, so if you don’t have one just yet we suggest you get started ASAP. Case studies aren’t only about Instagram – you can create them for any social platform in which you have influence. Even vloggers create  YouTube influencer case studies  to use when pitching to brands.

And if you already have a great case study for one type of partnership, we suggest you start working on others so you can have a suite of case studies that can be tailored to each type of potential brand partner, hotel or destination you are pitching to.

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Sidewalker Daily is a team of industry experts on both sides of the Influencer Industry. We work with Influencers, Creators, Bloggers and Digital Entrepreneurs through private coaching and online courses to help them make money and build successful businesses. We also work with brands to design their influencer campaigns and develop their social media strategy. Our unique position in the Influencer and Creator Industry allows us to provide valuable insight you won't find anywhere else!

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15 B2B Influencer Marketing Case Studies

Reading Time: 21 Minutes

GRIN also recommends this free guide:

Influencer Marketing Best Practices

Do you think that influencer marketing is meant only for B2C businesses? While 49% of B2B businesses are still experimenting with influencer marketing, the effectiveness of B2B influencer marketing is undeniable. Influencer marketing programs have been known to generate 11 times higher ROI than other forms of marketing.

Maturity of B2B IM Programs

Integrated program: 4%

Ongoing program: 11%

Campaign-driven: 36%

Experimenting: 49%

One of the best influencers that any B2B business can possibly leverage is their CEO. However, with 60% of CEOs having no social media presence, influencer marketing is difficult to accomplish.

The good news is that influencers can help such businesses overcome this problem. B2B influencer marketing campaigns can help B2B businesses reach customers they might not have found otherwise.

B2B influencer marketing has several other benefits compared to traditional marketing:

• Influencers drive greater visibility and credibility for B2B companies. With many B2B companies craving credible recognition, influencer marketing is a powerful means of accomplishing such goals. Because influencers bring their genuine opinions and expertise to the table.
• Influencers are powerful storytellers . And they can share their stories in a way that resonates with their target audiences. If you can get influencers to create powerful stories around your brand, you already have a winning strategy.
• And of course, apart from credibility and visibility, influencers can also drive conversions

To demonstrate the power of B2B influencer marketing, here are 15 incredible case studies for you to check out.

1. LinkedIn

With over 500 million professionals, including 61 million influencers and 40 million decision makers, LinkedIn is the largest professional network today. Commonly referred to as the dark horse of social media platforms, LinkedIn connects businesses with professionals.

Their platform can help recruiters attract and engage with talent and can also help businesses attract customers. But how are B2B brands using the voice of influencers to grow and expand their reach?

Here’s an example.

They’ve created a handy 48-page resource called, “ The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn ” in collaboration with B2B influencers. These influencers are various experts in the fields of social media marketing and digital marketing.

Every chapter in this guide ends with an “Ask the Expert” section that contains insightful Q&As with these influencers.

Apart from these 10 experts who’ve shared their insights, LinkedIn also mentions 25 social media experts that readers need to know.

How Does Influencer Marketing Benefit LinkedIn?

• The authentic voice of an expert adds credibility to the guide. When they share their personal experiences of using LinkedIn and how it has helped them, it encourages more people to leverage LinkedIn too.
• When these influencers share this content on their networks, it helps LinkedIn with greater visibility and to reach new audiences.

SAP is a market leader in enterprise application software with thousands of corporate customers who benefit from their solutions. So how are they leveraging influencer marketing?

SAP influencers are top corporate executives and industry experts. SAP is known to invite its influencers to events which helps them increase social engagement and brand awareness.

In one of their recent events in Germany, SAP invited five influencers to talk about topics like machine learning, data analytics, and IoT. The results of having influencers at the event? The event was uptrending in Germany for two days. And these influencers drove 50% of all of the social media mentions about this event.

For another event in Florida, SAP collaborated with 11 influencers. The influencers reached 80,000-100,000 people online via live video streaming. The influencers went live and answered questions from people who could not attend the event. And, later SAP reused that content on their blog and social media profiles.

3. TopRank Marketing

TopRank Marketing is a digital marketing agency with expertise in content marketing, social media marketing, and influencer marketing. Their blog is deemed to be one of the most influential blogs and is very popular.

So how did TopRank Marketing leverage influencer marketing? To promote their Content Marketing World conference , TopRank brought together 40 influencers in marketing. These influencers shared insightful advice that aspiring content marketers need to know.

The content was curated into ebooks, slides, and blog posts to be distributed at scale.

Using an “Alice in Wonderland” theme, they created a content marketing wonderland. This conference turned out to be immensely successful.

The biggest benefit of leveraging influencers for the event was that Content Marketing World was greatly applauded. In terms of numbers, the campaign generated 217,000 ebook views and 145,000 SlideShare views.

4. American Express

American Express is one of the top companies that invest heavily in their marketing – both B2C and B2B marketing. So when it comes to influencer marketing, you know they won’t be far behind in joining the bandwagon.

AmEx has implemented numerous influencer marketing campaigns for acquiring both corporate clients as well as consumers. So how are they leveraging influencer marketing? Here’s an example.

American Express collaborated with influential bloggers Grace Bonney and Emily Henderson to reach out to small businesses. The campaign was called “ Love My Store .” The objective was to let customers know that even small businesses accept credit cards. And of course, to promote American Express too.

The campaign resulted in the distribution of 400,000 Amex decals and earned 5 million impressions.

#AmexAmbassador is another popular influencer marketing campaign run by American Express. In this campaign, influencers help them attract executives and businesses for their premium services.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Natasha Oakley (@tashoakley)

From partnering with celebrities to micro-influencers , AmEx has left no stone unturned in influencer marketing.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Black Tomato (@blacktomatotravel)

5. Microsoft

When creativity and intelligence meet, miracles happen. And that’s the best way I can summarize Microsoft’s influencer marketing campaign.

Microsoft partnered with National Geographic ’s photography influencers. The campaign’s purpose was to motivate women to participate in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). It was launched on International Women’s Day 2017.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by National Geographic Travel (@natgeotravel)

They called it the #MakeWhatsNext campaign and partnered with National Geographic and 30 women scientists and adventurers.

The partnership with the influencers was not just for a single post. These influencers also provided free workshops to interested women in collaboration with Microsoft.

The results of this campaign? Microsoft’s influencer campaign reached 91 million people and earned 3.5 million likes on the same day. The results were amazing and clearly demonstrated the power of influencer partnering.

6. Video Fruit

Video Fruit provides tools and coaching to grow your email lists. Being a startup, they are obviously on the lookout for new customers. But do you know how Video Fruit was able to increase traffic to their website? By leveraging the power of B2B influencer marketing.

Video Fruit’s founder, Bryan Harris, thought about writing a guest post on an influential site. And so, he wrote a guest post on Noah Kagan’s blog, OkDork .

This guest post exposed him to audiences that he wouldn’t have reached on his own. Their comments on the post were something like this.

Not only that. Video Fruit used to receive an average of 285 visitors to their site per day before Bryan wrote this post. On the same day of publishing the guest post, they received 1086 visitors.

And not just visitors. Within two days, 215 people subscribed to his site. So, you can imagine how effective this guest post turned out to be.

The lesson to be learned here? The right influencer can give you incredible results from influencer marketing.

IBM has always been an innovator in its field. And they’ve continued being so in their B2B influencer marketing as well. IBM is one of the pioneers in leveraging employees as influencers in its marketing campaigns.

Employees are obviously the ones who know the products of a business best. While some employees are actively engaged in creating these products, others are engaged in selling them. So if you can get them to talk about your products on social media, imagine how many people you can influence.

IBM enables their employees to promote their products on social media by providing them the content for posting.

Program Director, Digital and Social at IBM, Amber Armstrong , spoke about how they encourage custom tweets from employees at the SXSW event.

8. Salesforce

We’ve seen how IBM has leveraged employee advocacy in its B2B influencer marketing program. However, another market leader, Salesforce , shows us how the CEO is the finest influencer a company can leverage.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is welcomed by Lynne and Marc @Benioff following the @Salesforce announcement of an investment that will create thousands of jobs in Canada. pic.twitter.com/onpI9yEqy3 — CanadianPM (@CanadianPM) February 8, 2018

Marc Benioff, the CEO and founder of Salesforce, is a well-known personality in his niche. Naturally, his words mean quite a lot. He also has more than 970K followers on Twitter.

You won’t just find him promoting Salesforce on Twitter. Instead, he also shares his views on equality and leadership. His popularity, expertise, and influence levels have made him the most valuable influencer for Salesforce .

What can we learn from this example? If a CEO is able to make his presence felt on social media, there’s nothing like it. This can be a powerful B2B influencer marketing strategy that can help your company grow by leaps and bounds.

If you’ve been searching on Google about SEO, content, or social media-related topics, you must have stumbled upon HubSpot . A software company that helps businesses with their marketing and sales, they’re quite well-known for their content too.

Now, you may not have noticed but HubSpot has been leveraging influencer marketing for ages. They’ve partnered with various influencers in sales and marketing niches. These influencers contribute to HubSpot’s blog and talk about their experiences and expertise.

Because they are experts in their fields, their content is valuable and insightful for readers.

And in turn, these influencers benefit from the huge HubSpot’s huge readership.

How does partnering with micro-influencers help HubSpot?

• When influencers share these posts with their networks, HubSpot can reach a wider audience and potential customers.
• Influencers bring in fresh content that helps Hubspot continue to engage its audiences.
• And of course, they add more credibility to the HubSpot blog.

We’ve spoken about employees being leveraged as influencers. But what about customers? Can they be influencers too? Absolutely. Your customers, too, can be greatly influential because they’ve experienced your products or services first-hand. So, their reviews are not only credible but essential for potential customers.

So, how did Okta leverage its customers for influencer marketing? They got their customers to speak about their experiences using Okta’s products. The CIO of 20th Century Fox , for example, spoke about their success story.

He spoke about the benefits of using Okta and how it has reduced the workload from days to minutes. And how they could integrate all the features for their employees seamlessly.

Okta also shared success stories from clients like Adob e and News Corp. These stories included statistics, figures, and real examples of how Okta has helped them. These testimonials were also converted into blog posts and shared on Okta’s social channels.

So what does this teach us? Leveraging customers for influencer marketing can be great for your business. The benefits of customer advocacy are:

• Testimonials from customers boost your credibility, so your prospects are ready to invest their money in your products.
• Having customers as your influencers is way more cost-effective than hiring industry influencers.
• And if your customers are industry leaders, sharing their success stories is bound to get you more conversions.

11. InspireBeats

InspireBeats helps startups as well as bigger companies with lead generation. They provide outbound email services to their clients.

InspireBeats wanted to use influencer marketing to drive more leads to their site and increase conversions. They had a simple goal–to create ten guest blogs, ten podcasts, and ten blog features with influencers every month. They found bloggers in their niche and connected with them for this campaign.

By bringing influencers to their podcasts and blog posts, they delivered greater value through authentic content. They targeted podcasts that worked well. For example, the ones with more than 3000 listeners on each episode.

So how did B2B influencer marketing benefit InspireBeats? It increased the number of leads to their website substantially. Apart from that, influencers helped them build credibility among industry leaders. InspireBeats earned B2B leads worth $12 million with their marketing efforts.

We’ve always known PwC as one of the big four auditing firms providing services to corporations across the globe. However, very few people were aware of the role they’ve been playing in the Oscars.

So for the Oscars in 2016, PwC incorporated influencer marketing in one of the coolest ways possible. Their objective was to create brand awareness about their association with the Academy Awards. And to engage with millennials.

How did they do it? Their influencer was a briefcase . Yes, quite literally. They used an actual briefcase that carried the Oscar ballot nominations. The briefcase was promoted like a celebrity on social media by PwC.

The results of the campaign?

• 700 Snapchat story views in the first two weeks
• 126K Instagram impressions and 406 Instagram mentions
• 12.3M Twitter impressions

Given the potential of millennials as a customer segment, most B2B businesses are trying to get closer to them. HP , too, had this objective in mind. And so they leveraged influencer marketing for this purpose with a series of influencer videos .

How did they do it? HP partnered with Olympic medalist and influencer Samantha Peszek . They partnered with an influencer marketing agency, Collectively, to create the video. And the video showed Samantha using the HP Spectre x360 notebook while practicing her gymnastic routine.

They also partnered with New York City Ballet dancer Sara Mearns and D.J. LCAW to promote the HP x2 detachable PC.

So what were the benefits of this influencer marketing campaign? HP’s influencer campaign had an engagement rate seven times higher than the average influencer campaign. They also benefited from numerous shares on social media.

One of the best things that HP did with its influencer marketing campaign was to treat its influencers as partners. They also focused on storytelling in their videos to make them more appealing to millennials.

Cisco is a market leader in B2B communications and networking technology. They took an innovative approach to influencer marketing and created the Cisco Champions program .

This program gave IT professionals a chance to talk about their expertise and showcase their knowledge of Cisco products. Cisco did quite a lot to build this community of advocates. Here are some of them:

They started #CiscoChat on Twitter.

Bring the power of the IT network to the #IoT edge. See the latest Cisco IoT portfolio additions connecting industrial & operational assets & environments at scale. Experts will be taking your questions live as we discuss how to Unite Your Edge. #CiscoChat https://t.co/CETpBDkV0x — Cisco IoT (@CiscoIoT) June 29, 2021

• Cisco Champions were featured in Cisco’s blog posts.
• They started an unplugged video series with the Champions.
• These influencers were also featured in Cisco’s weekly podcasts
• Influencers were given exclusive access to Cisco’s products.
• Cisco Champions were also invited to exclusive events.

So what were the results of this influencer marketing campaign? Cisco received over 8000 social media mentions and 55,000 tweets about its brand. The blog posts also received more than 44,000 hits.

The Cisco Champions program turned out to be a huge success. Even today, it continues to develop as a community of expert professionals.

Aegora is a professional marketplace for finding jobs and talent. Their founders were freelancers who were aware of the drawbacks of traditional freelance marketplaces. As part of their influencer marketing program, they reached out to entrepreneurs, freelancers, and marketers who were also aware of this.

Their idea was to get these influencers to join their first adopter group, try the product, and share their honest reviews. They approached anyone having knowledge in this field who shared their vision.

The results of Aegora’s influencer marketing campaign? In about 90 days, Aegora received 50 0 sign-ups for their program. Some of the early adopters became their key influencers who helped them to promote their products further.

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot that you can learn from these 15 amazing B2B influencer marketing examples. What’s most noticeable is that every company has a different way of implementing influencer marketing. There are no set rules or industry standards. So you can be any creative as you want to be.

B2B influencer marketing is more about creating continual engagement through content. The focus is on generating value that will build long-term relationships with your audiences.

I hope these examples will help you get some ideas for implementing influencer marketing for your B2B company. However, ensure you avoid the common influencer marketing mistakes while you’re at it.

B2B influencer marketing focuses more on building valuable community, content, and relationships. And it is gaining more popularity with time. We’re not far from the time when businesses might entirely replace traditional marketing with influencer marketing .

Updated: June 2023

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5 outstanding social media marketing case studies

Do you read social media marketing case studies for inspiration? It’s always a good idea to benchmark against your competitors or pinch ideas from them, but it’s also worth looking at success stories from the biggest brands out there. You might not have their budget, but you can always gain inspiration from their campaigns.

Here are five of the best brands on social and what I think you can learn from them:

1.Mercedes Benz – Repeated, successful social media marketing campaigns

Mercedes Benz seem to win every time with their social media campaigns.  The one that stands out to me was back in 2013 when they created what I still believe to be one of the best Instagram marketing campaigns to date. Mercedes wanted to reach out to the younger audience so they hired five top Instagram photographers to each take the wheel of a new Mercedes CLA. Whoever got the most likes got to keep the car – so they all really worked at it!

By the end of the campaign, Mercedes has received:

• 87,000,000 organic Instagram impressions
• 2,000,000 Instagram likes
• 150 new marketing assets (stunning photos)

What lessons can you learn from this? Could you put your followers up for a challenge and make it into a competition or campaign?

• Can you do a competition that gets people trying out your product first?
• Think about your target audience. What is a prize they would value?
• Like Mercedes you could recruit bloggers/influencers via social media and get them blogging about your service or product. Whoever receives the most engagement wins .

2. Dove – Connecting with their target audience

Is it just me or do all the Dove marketing campaigns make you cry? If you’ve seen their Real Beauty sketches campaign, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Dove’s goal is to make women feel good about themselves. They know their target market and create content that tells a story that women can relate to.

Today I am… pic.twitter.com/VoAf2wRdwa — Dove UK & Ireland (@DoveUK) February 19, 2016

Dove did some research and found that 80 percent of women came across negative chatter on social media. Dove’s goal was to change that and make social media a more positive experience. As a result, Dove teamed up with Twitter and built a tool to launch the #SpeakBeautiful Effect, that breaks down which body- related words people use the most and when negative chatter appears during the day.

According to Dove, women were inspired by their message.

• #SpeakBeautiful was used more than 168,000 times
• Drove 800 million social media impressions of the campaign

Dove know their audience. Knowing your audience is the only way you will engage with them. The best way for this is creating personas. Knowing what life stage they are in, if they’re employed, what their interests are etc. will certainly help you when creating content. Then think about linking your audience to your brand values in order to create something just as successful as Dove’s campaign.

3. Nutella – Incredible content that makes you salivate

Each post makes you want to eat Nutella. There are a lot of people (including me) who take photos of their food before they eat it. Nutella does the same and it works. Nutella isn’t afraid to be fun and creative with different ingredients. Nutella is just a chocolate spread yet they manage to have fun with it. Do you, or could you, have a bit more fun with your brand?

Here are some ideas for having fun with your brand:

• Are you on different social media channels? If you’re B2B you might not think that Instagram is for you, but it can be a great way to demonstrate your brand values by telling a story. Fedex is a great example of this, showing images of their trucks always on the move. This tells a story that they are always delivering and that is the key message we take away.
• Key influencers/bloggers can be a great way to  different types of content and to see how they have fun with your brand (if this is new to you, read our post on the rise of the social media influencer ).
• Instead of posting behind-the-scenes photos at your head office, can you encourage your followers to share their experiences with your brand? Maybe host an event or go out and meet them.

Take your #breakfast bread pudding to the next level with #Nutella ! 😉 pic.twitter.com/k0ko5Nm9iX — Nutella (@NutellaGlobal) May 5, 2016

4. Oreo – Smart content planning and timely delivery

Oreo is another brand that is known for their creative social media marketing. They must have a big design team to produce their content, but it works! They are consistent with their branding and manage to catch onto real time events. We all remember when the lights went out at the Super Bowl and during the half hour blackout Oreo tweeted out:

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC — OREO Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

This was retweeted over 15,000 times.  Are you thinking outside the box about your brand? Plan ahead for events coming up that you might be able to jump on to.

Do you plan your social media content out? If you’re in B2B and don’t currently create content read here for some B2B content marketing tips to help you get started, or check out our B2B marketing strategy tips ebook for 2021.

It’s always a good idea to prepare content ahead of time. If you can schedule content on a monthly basis – perfect, but if not bi-weekly is great. That way you can check what events are coming up and plan content around them. This gives you time for any ad hoc creative to be done, such as jumping on real-time events like the Oreo blackout example above.

5. Airbnb – Stunning imagery and UGC

What might look like a visual travel blog,  Airbnb ’ s content attracts fans with their visually compelling posts. On Instagram, they post user-generated photos from its hosts and guests. The content embraces their new campaign of ‘Don’t just go there, Live there’ which is captured through real photography. Each post receives high engagement, between 3,000 and 14,000 Instagram likes.

This is a great example of thinking slightly outside the box. Airbnb is all about accommodation. They don’t just post images of the inside of people’s homes. Seeing the culture and images of places all over the world comes with the experience of where you stay and that’s what connects with people. Think about your brand: are you just posting about the product/ service itself? Why not tell your followers a story instead?

Thanks for reading. I hope by reading these five social media marketing case studies it has spiked some inspiration! If you need any help with your social media advertising , influencer marketing , or other aspects of your social media strategy, feel free to contact us .

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Case studies of micro-influencer campaigns we’ve loved

During the last years, we’ve run over 5,000 influencer campaigns all over the Baltics, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands – mostly working with micro-influencers as they have higher engagement and stronger bonds with their followers. Here are some micro-influencer case studies that might inspire you!

Lumene – micro-influencer case study in Finland

In the spring of 2021, Lumene worked with local micro-influencers to support the launch of a new product line in Finland.

Influencers were asked to create a certain amount of content for the campaign: a regular feed post or a carousel post, as well as 2 stories where Lumene hoped the products would be the main focus. Each influencer was rewarded with a product package worth 120€.

The campaign was extremely popular on Promoty: more than 100 influencers from all over Finland applied to the campaign. Eventually, 88 influencers were selected, all fans of the Lumene brand. Selected influencers were asked to share a feed post and 2 stories – 264 pieces of content in total! As a reward, they received a package full of Lumene products. Here are the campaign results:

🤍  Campaign reached 156 048 people 🤍  The posts received 21 551 likes 🤍  The posts were saved 3031 times

It means that over 3000 people are planning to return to the post – probably when they’ll go shopping! In addition to running the campaign on Promoty, Lumene used our help with influencer management: our Finnish Country Manager Miisa Hälinen worked hands-on with the campaign to get the best results out of it. Successfully, we’d say!

I especially recommend managing your campaigns through Promoty – it’s a smart service that saves the customer’s time. It’s also great to be able to track campaign statistics in real time.

Saara Ritvos

PR and Communication Manager

Launching Maltesers in Estonia – an influencer campaign filled with surprises  🎈

Together with Havas agency, we engaged micro-influencers to support the launch of Maltesers chocolate in Estonia.

With a twist: instead of boring PR packages, we sent influencers a box filled with chocolate and a red helium balloon that slid out when the box was opened. In order to convey the emotion better, influencers were asked to film a video of them opening the package and share their reaction in Stories.

The logistics of the campaign required quite some effort for coordination – due to warm weather at the time, we had to deliver the packages to all 35 creators in one day – but the results were so worth it!

The posts by 35 creators reached more than 130,000 people  and collected nearly 13,000 likes. Moreover, the campaign stood out so strongly that there were even parody videos out made of it!

Maltesers x Kelly Saarepera ( @kellysaarepera )

Paulig – working with influencers to get beautiful visuals

Creating visuals is one of the superpowers of influencers: as they create content daily, they know exactly which visuals work on Instagram. That’s why Paulig decided to work with micro-influencers: to get unique and eye-catching visuals for their own social media channels. Successfully!

Inspired by that kind of influencer collaborations, we created a Content-Only campaign type on Promoty. It’s a campaign type where influencers create branded photos and videos but do not share them on their social media. In addition to providing brands with trendy visuals, this campaign type also allows influencers to create beautiful content without sharing too much promotional content on their social media.

Circle K – the superfan influencer marketing case study

The mission of Promoty is to create meaningful connections between brands and influencers. We believe that this is the secret sauce of influencer marketing : when a brand finds influencers who are their fans, authentic and effective collaboration posts are born.

This is exactly what Circle K has been doing: in their campaign briefs, they usually mention that they are looking for influencers who are fans of Circle K. As a result, they always get authentic collaboration posts with influencers telling how much they love coffee from Circle K!

Last summer, they ran an influencer campaign to draw attention to their iced coffees. In addition to feed posts, influencers showed the process of making iced coffee in their Stories.

Before posting, influencers upload their content to Promoty for pre-approval

Solaris – the most creative Black Friday campaign

One of the most creative Black Friday campaigns we’ve had is “Solaris is black” by a shopping centre Solaris in Tallinn, Estonia.

During the Black Friday weekend, restaurants in Solaris offered black food and stores brought out their black products – and of course, the campaign was supported with influencer marketing. In total, 13 posts reached 246 606 people, received 7392 likes and 150 comments with a cost per engagement of only 0,12€.

Due to the high competition, Black Friday is one of the most difficult times to stand out with marketing – and Solaris nailed it perfectly!

Vallila Interior – working with influencers to get UGC

The Finnish home furnishing brand Vallila Interior used Promoty to expand their customer base. Being well-known in Finland, they took advantage of the internationality of Promoty and targeted influencers from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.

In order to introduce the new collection, they organized a giveaway in collaboration with influencers. To participate in the giveaway, people had to comment whether they had heard about Vallila before. Most of the participants hadn’t – but based on the good feedback that the posts received, it seems that the giveaways worked well to raise brand awareness!

Moreover, we just can’t get over the beautiful campaign photos! The brand’s representative also confirmed on social media that she would warmly recommend Promoty as an influencer marketing partner: “The visuals are really amazing!”

Halva – micro influencer case study

When launching a new product line, Finnish candy brand Halva worked with 99 local micro-influencers with a goal to maximize the brand’s visibility and get more followers for their Instagram page.

Halva’s influencer marketing case study is a great example of using influencer marketing for Instagram growth: similar to the previous campaign, each influencer got a selection of their favourite products to throw a giveaway. To participate, their followers had to follow both the influencer and the brand – therefore, both got new followers.

In total, the campaign reached 380 000+ people and the brand got 6852 new followers on Instagram – in a small market like Finland, those numbers are pretty impressive! The campaign budget was 1014€ which means that in total, Halva paid less than 0,15€ per each new follower!

Influencer marketing case study: Halva’s Kingis Product Launch

* cpe – cost per engagement, feeling inspired start your own influencer marketing campaign here 👇🏼.

Promoty is an influencer management platform that helps you manage all your (potential) influencers in one place. Additionally, you find creators whose audience matches your target group and see detailed profile analytics for each influencer.

This way, you can find exactly the right influencers for your brand – and build meaningful relationships with them 🤍

Get detailed profile analytics for every influencer.

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Research/Study Research/Study

STUDY: Tradwife influencers are quietly spreading far-right conspiracy theories

A Media Matters analysis found interacting with tradwife videos on TikTok led to a deluge of conspiratorial content

Written by Olivia Little

Research contributions from Carly Evans , Chloe Simon & Audrey McCabe

Published 05/01/24 10:55 AM EDT

TikTok’s “For You” page recommendation algorithm propels users who interact with “tradwife” content — which promotes “traditional values” and rigid gender roles — down far-right conspiracy theory rabbit holes.

Media Matters coded and analyzed 327 recommended videos after exclusively interacting with tradwife content and documented what happened. We found TikTok’s recommendation algorithm rapidly populated our FYP with conspiracy theory content and fearmongering, which made up nearly one-third of all videos served to the FYP.

Jump to section

Key findings, discussion of research findings, methodology.

In recent years, the “tradwife” movement has shifted from far-right internet subculture to mainstream social media trend, becoming particularly popular among young people. Not every popular homemaking creator is a “tradwife,” though; tradwife influencers specifically preach the gospel of rigid gender roles and biblical submissiveness, glamorizing a 1950s housewife aesthetic while calling for some variation of a “return to tradition.”

To be considered a “tradwife influencer” according to our criteria, a creator had to have a minimum of 20,000 followers, self-identify as a “tradwife,” explicitly promote traditional gender roles, and primarily dedicate their account to promoting homemaking and “traditional values.” Media Matters identified 7 accounts that fulfilled this criteria, then “liked” and watched each account’s 10 most recent videos.

After we interacted with tradwife content, TikTok’s recommendation algorithm began flooding our FYP with right-wing conspiracy theory content.

Our FYP also began displaying medical misinformation and anti-government content, specifically fearmongering about the need to prepare for an impending “civil war.”

Of the 327 videos served to the “For You” page in Media Matters’ analysis, 100 (or 30.6%) contained conspiracy theories or apocalyptic fearmongering.

Citation Molly Butler / Media Matters

To those unfamiliar with the tradwife influencer ecosystem, these may be unexpected or confusing results.

Why would interacting with tradwife content, which is often filled with beautiful imagery of gardening and baking, funnel a user down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole?

Well, we discovered that many popular “tradwife” creators are quietly couching far-right conspiracy theories between videos of bread baking and milkmaid dresses.

Nearly every tradwife influencer we identified pushed baseless right-wing conspiracy theories and right-wing talking points, often focusing on a general distrust of the government and modern medicine. These messages were positioned between soft visuals of baking, gardening, and modest fashion.

Tradwife influencer Jasmine Dinis typifies this phenomenon. In one TikTok video , we see Dinis drinking coffee on her porch with overlaid text reading, “Being a real rebel in 2024 is….” Several baking and gardening clips follow under more superimposed text that answers, “Taking sovereignty over your own health & food sources and not relying on the government for either.”

Dinis has uploaded a number of videos with similar messaging, using hashtags such as “#conspiracy,” “#rawmilk,” and “#offgrid."

Her account on X (formerly Twitter) is more overtly extreme, with posts suggesting that the sun does not cause skin cancer, defending Andrew Tate (a self-proclaimed misogynist on trial in Romania for human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal group to sexually exploit women) and blaming his arrest on “the matrix,” and describing a worldwide pride festival as “full of mentally ill people and groomers.”

A social media landing page linked to Dinis’ TikTok directs users to PragerU Kids — an offshoot of right-wing propaganda organization PragerU .

Another tradwife influencer, “Gwen the Milkmaid,” follows a similar video formula, posting imagery of prairie dresses, bows, and baking overlaid with text pushing conspiracy theories and right-wing talking points.

In one recent video, Gwen prepares homemade pasta with overlaid text reading, “Trad-wives have been getting a lot of hate recently… And is it really a surprise? The elites have been working for decades to destroy femininity, masculinity, healthy marriages, and families.”

She captioned the video with a lengthy elaboration of this claim, asserting that these so-called “elites” use “the same playbook with trad-wives, as they do with every other truth that can’t be discredited,” which includes using “the media to spread lies.”

“Everything the trad-wife movement stands for goes against the establishment elite’s agenda,” Gwen wrote. It’s a movement “that knows how much our children need us, instead of letting them be manipulated by culture and government schools.”

She concluded the video caption by writing, “Just my latest conspiracy theory. What do you think about this?”

Right-wing media have also embraced one of TikTok’s most popular tradwife influencers, Estee Williams, who has appeared on Fox News, OAN, and The Daily Wire to lament about the “attack on traditional values."

Williams used her since-nuked Twitter account to spread anti-trans bigotry, opposition to sending women to college at 18, and disturbing messages like “any wife who denies her husband intimacy is acting against her marriage.”

Notably, Williams’ sister is Rudy Giuliani’s former spokesperson and, according to her X bio , Turning Point USA ambassador Christianné Allen. TPUSA hosts a Young Women’s Leadership Summit that pushes high school and college-age girls to give up their career ambitions and instead become mothers and wives.

Our research findings suggest that interacting with tradwife content can catapult users down potentially dangerous conspiracy theory rabbit holes. TikTok’s recommendation algorithm radicalized our research account at a rapid pace, almost entirely saturating our “For You” page with conspiracy theory content within an afternoon.

Of the 327 videos assessed,100 or (30.6%) contained conspiracy theories, which ranged from seemingly innocent speculation about UFO sightings to extremist claims about elites eating children . 

Some of the most notable and repeated conspiracy theories fed to our account’s FYP included:

• The earth is flat.

• The U.S. government is going to institute martial law.

• Obama is the Antichrist.

• There is a demonic agenda behind household products.
• Video file myvtt : myvtt escaped : +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
• There is going to be a civil war.
• We are living in a matrix.

Other significant findings within the 327 videos included 19 videos featuring extremist right-wing media figures, 13 anti-government videos, and 7 videos peddling medical misinformation.

Media Matters created a new TikTok account and engaged exclusively with tradwife content from tradwife influencers.

To be considered a tradwife influencer, a creator had to meet the following criteria: 

• Their account must primarily be dedicated to promoting homemaking and explicitly promote “traditional values,” such as traditional gender roles, modesty, or biblical submissiveness.
• They must have a minimum of 20,000 followers.
• They must self-identify as a “traditional wife”/“tradwife” somewhere on their account (in videos, video descriptions, profile bio) OR use similar language with the same implication.

We identified and followed 7 tradwife accounts, watching and “liking” each account’s 10 most recent videos.

We then navigated to our “For You” page and began scrolling, eventually requesting a record of the account's watch history. From that data, we evaluated all 327 videos served to the account's “For You” page (not counting the 10 videos we initially watched from each of the 7 tradwife accounts in order to train the algorithm).

We then sorted each video into one of 12 categories: conspiracy theory/apocalyptic fearmongering, far-right figures/talking points, anti-government, homesteading, medical misinformation, misogynistic content, racism/white supremacy, Christian nationalism, general tradwife content, “other" TikTok videos, sponsored content, and “video unavailable.” A majority of three researchers had to agree on a code after a blind review, choosing the category that fit best.

We defined “conspiracy theory and apocalyptic fearmongering” posts as those that claim the existence of a secret manipulation of events, people, or situations by powerful forces; or that oppose mainstream agreement among experts qualified to evaluate the claim’s accuracy;  or claim that we are nearing “end times” or “rapture.”

We defined “homesteading” posts as those that promote self-sufficiency in the form of agriculture, clothing, craft work, and food preservation. Homesteading videos often spotlight the purchase of land to grow food and raise animals.

We defined “general tradwife” posts as posts that promote traditional gender roles/traditional values/biblical submissiveness, “return to tradition” videos — particularly those glamorizing the 1950s housewife aesthetic — or those that include any variation of “trad,” ”traditional,” or “tradwife” in the video description, username/display name, or video.

We defined “medical misinformation” posts as those that spread medical information or advice counter to mainstream agreement among medical professionals. These posts often spread false information about vaccines, the pharmaceutical industry, or modern medicine.

We defined “anti-government” posts as those that promote distrust in the government — for example, those that encourage audiences to prepare for vague future existential crises either carried out by the government or resulting from government action.

We defined “extremist right-wing media figures” posts as those that contain video or audio from prominent far-right media figures such as Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, Steven Crowder, Paul Nicholas Miller, and Nick Fuentes.”

We defined “racist/white supremacist” posts as those that attack, degrade, or mock a particular race or ethnic group or support white supremacy by using white supremacist talking points such as “white pride” or “white lives matter.”

We defined “sponsored” posts as any video that is fed directly to the FYP by TikTok and is labeled as sponsored content.

We defined “video unavailable” posts as those that became unavailable some time after we viewed them on the FYP.

We defined “other” posts as any that did not fall into any of the aforementioned categories. (105 videos were coded as “Other.”)