Brands who invest in influencer marketing are moving away from chasing high follower counts. Instead, they're prioritizing long-term engagement and sustainable community growth.

Despite social media’s fleeting nature, mega-influencers often stay on top. Among the 21 most-followed creators on YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok between 2020 and 2025, 16 (76%) remained in the spotlight for at least two years, per a Website Planet study.

• 68% of marketers planned to work with macro-influencers (those with 100K to 500K followers) in 2024, followed by micro-influencers (62%), who have between 5K and 100K followers, according to Linqia.

While these platforms are saturated with brands trying to break through, marketers are learning that viral moments alone don't build lasting value. Instead, successful brands find sustained advocacy builds business results.

“Awareness can be bought with money, but what differentiates an influencer-led brand is a hot

brand that people want to talk about, even when you’re not paying them,” said Oshiya Savur, CMO at beauty incubator Maesa.

Identifying engaged fans

Engagement rate is increasingly valued for marketers as it often leads to conversion. High engagement posts can boost sales by 20% and yield 4.3x higher ROI, according to a Viral Nation report.

"Brands are starting to question what it even means to get a million impressions on a video if those impressions are not coming from an audience that is their target demographic," said Isha Patel, co-founder of Kale, in a “Behind the Numbers” episode. Instead, metrics like engagement rates, saves, and shares reflect purchase intent and consideration, she said.

Marketers are attracted to the creator economy to deliver a personalized message to their core consumer, but chasing disengaged talent occupied with other brand deals doesn’t always deliver on this goal.

"We really don't go after the big influencers or social media celebrities," said Patel. "We go after the everyday person who is naturally creating content, and those moments become a source of inspiration for their community."

Strengthening creator bonds

After finding the right creators, brands must invest in sustaining relationships and collaborative workflows to create lasting value.

• 85% of creators never receive feedback from brands about their content performance, per a 2024 Harris Poll, highlighting a crucial gap in the partnership model.

"Creators are like the canaries in the coal mine," said Jamie Gutfreund, founder of consultancy Creator Vision, emphasizing that creators can provide vital insights into campaign effectiveness. "They are the source for finding out the kinks in the entire process, because their compensation is often affected."

Brands should prioritize consumer retention in influencer marketing, which aligns with community-building and is often the most difficult part in a social space defined by fleeting trends, said Savur.

"The community only really grows when you retain [consumers],” she said. "You can keep doing new user acquisition, but if you don't have loyalty and retention and you're constantly seeing the churn of bringing new users in…that's when brands sometimes run out of money."

70% of creators prefer working on long-term brand campaigns, according to a February 2024 Sprinklr report. This focus on long-term relationships also benefits marketers, said Ivy Everitt, VML’s Connections supervisor of social.

"These relationships not only create sustained value but also integrate creators as true brand advocates, helping everyone grow," she said. "Consumers are also more likely to trust a creator's opinion when they see them using a product or service repeatedly."

This article was prepared with the assistance of generative AI tools to support content organization, summarization, and drafting. All AI-generated contributions have been reviewed, fact-checked, and verified for accuracy and originality by EMARKETER editors. Any recommendations reflect EMARKETER’s research and human judgment.