In the past ten years, influencer marketing has exploded as the go-to choice for advertising dollars, with social media surpassing all other advertising channels, including search engines.

Think about that for a second. That shift means that more people are learning about brands through the social media they consume than by actively searching for information when they are seeking a solution.

In particular, Gen Z—those born between the mid-to-late-1990s and 2010—relies heavily on social media influencers for products, services, and experiences. They're turning to social media for information, inspiration, to learn what to buy, what to cook, and where to travel. And influencers in all those categories help inspire those experiences or those purchases.

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Knowing the influencer market.

The influencer market has only continued to grow. Take a look at these stats from the 2025 Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report from Influencer Marketing Hub:

• The estimated market for influencer marketing is projected to reach $32.55 billion in 2025, significantly increasing from $24 billion in 2024. 
• Influencer marketing is projected to grow 35.63% between 2024 and 2025, significantly outpacing traditional advertising channels.
• In 2024, social media surpassed paid search to become the world's largest advertising channel, with $247.3 billion in global ad spend, including influencer collaborations, short-form videos, and live shopping experiences. That figure is expected to grow to $266.92 billion in 2025.
• In 2025, 63.8 percent of brands plan to partner with influencers.

As an early adopter of influencer marketing (I’ve been working with them for more than 10 years), I needed to learn this side of marketing through trial and error, including finding subject-matter experts to support strategic campaigns for clients.

Now, the market is maturing to a point where the tools are becoming more sophisticated—you can use research and AI in all manners of influencer marketing to help ensure ROI on your campaign. Influencer marketing is about getting smarter with those partnerships. There’s a lot of good research out there that can help guide you, even if you're new to it.

It’s all about understanding who’s a good fit for your campaign, properly vetting those influencers, and understanding what’s an appropriate media advertising spend for working with them. 

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Finding your influencers.

Influencers—those who primarily use social media to create content and develop an audience base—are essentially categorized by follower count:

• Nano-influencers (1,000 to 10,000 followers)
• Micro-influencers (10,000 to 100,000)
• Macro-influencers (100K to 500K), think those who are “Internet famous”
• Mega-influencers, public figures and celebrities (500K+ to 1 million+). 

If you can’t afford the celebrities, there are great benefits of working with nano-influencers. They have a high engagement rate, strong trust among followers and are highly affordable. Typical compensation can range from $10 to $200 per post, according to Growth Rocket. 

Micro-influencers are desirable because they often have a very focused niche audience (I once hired an influencer who specifically focused on cheese curds). These niche influencers can create great partnerships with your brand, and their rates are still affordable, ranging from $100 to $5,000, says influencer-hero.com. 

One thing to remember: It’s important not to get hung up on follower count. Smaller, engaged audiences can be as impactful. Social Cat tells us that a micro-influencer with 15K followers and a 7% engagement rate can actually drive more response than a macro with 1%. It’s all about authenticity.

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Know your goals.

Finding the right influencer for your brand starts with the goals for your marketing or PR campaign. You may love a particular influencer, but they may not be a great fit for your brand. 

Just like with other forms of strategies in your media mix, you need to know what you’re trying to accomplish by working with a particular influencer. Is it awareness? Sales? Building a community? Sharing user-generated content? All of the above? 

Ultimately, you want people to authentically try your product or service. 

In one of my first campaigns working with social influencers, our client did not have a social media following yet. Their brand was essentially a healthy snack selling mainly in Tier Two retailers (like gas stations and convenience stores), and their goal was to bump their product to a Tier One (like Target or Walmart). 

We launched their social accounts, and I proposed working with some influencers to help us build a community of people who loved their product. I knew I needed a fairly large influencer who had a very active, engaged audience that would not only respond to the product, but hopefully follow the product on social media after. 

We sent her the product and then worked with her on a campaign centered on the healthy snack on-the-go. As part of that, we had her ask her audience to like and share the snack on Instagram. 

I paid a significant amount for two posts. And I was very nervous. It was a huge investment, not only for the brand, but—what if it didn't work? 

Happily, we went from zero to thousands of followers—literally overnight.

The question was: Will they stay after the contest? Will they continue to follow and engage with the brand? As we pulled metrics six months and a year later, we could see that the audience not only stayed, but we were able to continue to engage them with great content, and the community really continued to grow. 

The campaign worked because I understood our goals and we vetted a partner who had a strong following—and who truly did activate.

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Start early and get it in writing.

Clients often ask me how early we should start working on finding an influencer. The earlier the better, even if you’re targeting a nano- or a micro-influencer. You want to start at least three months ahead of time—ideally six months—to get things on your influencers’ calendars, everything contracted, and organized the way you want it.

Regardless, getting your agreement in writing is very important. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has compliance rules and regulations surrounding transparency, and when an influencer is getting paid for a relationship, they're obligated to disclose that relationship. 

Normally, when you work with a larger influencer, their agent will have contracts readily available. Smaller ones may not. I’d highly recommend putting together a boilerplate that can be adjusted, or work with a partner who has contracts in place. 

You should include everything from payment, number of times they’ll post, and any other aspects such as timing. With larger influencers, it might be six to nine months before you see anything. Nano- and micro-influencers have shorter timelines. The key is setting expectations, having those conversations and getting it in writing up front. If you leave it up to the influencer, you may find yourself having to spend unnecessary time and energy chasing it down. 

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Understand that the creative process is different.

When I first started working with influencer marketing, there was a learning curve when it came to how it fit within paid advertising and earned media. I was used to developing and producing my advertisement exactly the way I wanted that to run. Journalists are totally different—you’re providing information but you don’t have control over the result.

Influencers are a sort of hybrid, where they are paid but retain their creative control. And this was very hard for some of my clients in the early days because they really wanted to edit that content like they would an ad.

Key is finding and vetting the creators who are aligned with your brand and values, who you can work with in multiple campaigns. It’s about making sure they share similar values to your audiences and your brand. 

Good influencers will want to try the product before saying ‘yes’ to a partnership. And if they don't love it, it would be a huge red flag for me—it will come through in the authenticity. 

In fact, it’s happened. I've sent product to higher level influencers, we started the collaboration process, and—they weren’t keen on the product. 

At that point, you have to make a decision. No doubt, it's uncomfortable to have to go back to the client and say it wasn't a fit. But if you are truly looking to engage new audiences through influencers, you need to be working with somebody who authentically gets behind the product. 

The younger generations of consumers—particularly that Gen Z population—are looking for recommendations from people they trust, and they can sniff out inauthenticity immediately.

Allowing that influencer to bring their voice into your campaign is truly important to the overall performance, but it does involve a level of trust. 

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Look to the long term.

Once the influencer produces the content, don’t let the grass grow under it. Boost that post and share it, and repurpose the content seasonally. With up-front discussion, you can plan where to best share and repurpose that content on other channels—think newsletters, guides, and more. 

You can work with the influencer to obtain rights to be able to use that content beyond the initial post through your channels.

It’s important to look at influencers as part of your integrated marketing mix and how you're using them in your campaign. Again—having all those conversations up front just makes those relationships more solidified, your marketing dollars work harder, and the content work more strongly for you.

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