Lower receptivity to advertising on social could indicate a deficiency of trust. According to a January 2021 YouGov survey that asked which advertising types are deemed trustworthy, US adults were least likely to cite social media advertising. Just 19% said they find ads on social media either very or somewhat trustworthy. Consumers in other global markets had higher levels of trust.

eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver, junior analyst Blake Droesch and vice president of content studio at Insider Intelligence Paul Verna discuss polarization on Facebook, whether kids spend more time on TikTok or YouTube, how much people trust influencers, Facebook trying to make TV social, out-of-home advertising in Q1, podcast ad skipping, pyramids where they shouldn't be and more.

Trust is paramount: “The risks of live content are high,” said Nicholas Vincent DiSanto, vice president of influencer platform Activate by Impact. “So, you must choose an influencer you trust. That's really the fundamental first component, and it influences all the subsequent decision-making.”.

Younger generations are more likely to buy products based on influencer recommendations, as well as consider them reliable. However, these demographics still see influencers as less trustworthy than other sources.

Many consumers don’t think politics and influencers should mix. In a CivicScience survey from February 2020, around the time of then-presidential candidate and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s meme drop, just 14% of US internet users strongly or somewhat supported political campaigns working with influencers. There’s also an issue of trust.

Influencer marketing remains both fascinating and frustrating for marketers. In this report, 16 creators share how they work with brands and how they view their role in the path to purchase.

The explosion in vertical video is creating both opportunities and challenges for the Story format. Stories are evolving quickly on Instagram and remain a top venue for influencer activations. But Twitter’s decision to kill off Fleets shows they aren’t popular on all platforms.

For our new report “Influencer Marketing and the Path to Purchase,” we spoke with a number of social media influencers to find out what brand partnerships look like from their perspective. They shared insights on what creative collaboration looks like, how to engage their followers, and what they do to measure the performance of their content.

For example, listeners might discover the Dropps brand on a podcast, get retargeted on Facebook or Instagram and see the brand again in a piece of influencer content. The different touchpoints build trust on the path to purchase. But audio ads don’t offer a lot of metrics for monitoring success, and that can be challenging.

US households trust banks far more than Big Tech for handling their personal data, per a Bank for International Settlements survey from June. The controversies surrounding leaks and testimony from former product-manager-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen, combined with the recent outage, will only widen this trust gap.

The influencer marketing industry is changing, and the pandemic is propelling many of the major shifts in the market.

YouTube influencers make the most, but video is lucrative on Instagram, too

Social media has become a hub of influence on many consumers’ shopping. Boomers, though, have been wary of this, whether via ads, postings by fellow consumers or the cajolery of “influencers.”

Putting that into perspective, US internet users trust their inner circle for recommendations more than they'd trust an employee in a store, fellow online consumer or influencer. Product recommendations certainly encourage brand discovery and can even get shoppers to spend more than intended. But if a product has a low rating or not enough reviews, it can be quickly overlooked.