Australia – With popular singer-songwriter Taylor Swift announcing its ‘The Eras Tour’ world tour, social media mentioned about her have spiked across influencers and brands in Australia, following growing demand for tickets of said concert in the region. This was according to the latest data from influencer marketing platform HypeAuditor.

According to the data, there were 182 social media posts with mentions of the Anti-Hero on Instagram that were shared by a total of 133 influencers, reaching an audience of over 10.7 million people.

The data also noted two events in June that contributed to the social media mention spike. The first was on June 20 when the news broke that the megastar was bringing her ‘Eras Tour’ to Australia. This was then followed by an even bigger spike on June 28 when concert promoter Frontier Touring opened their pre-sale tickets, which saw more than 4 million eager fans across the country attempting to secure tickets.

In terms of social media engagement, social media posts about the American pop idol performed particularly well achieving an average engagement rate (ER) of 3.5% with a total of 477,242 likes and 9,598 comments throughout the month. Meanwhile, ER on Instagram shows how good the quality of the posts is and how well an account interacts with its followers.

Some of the top brands mentioning Taylor Swift include beauty brand Mecca Beauty, stationary brand Typo, retail chain Myer, media entities 7News and Guardian, and women-centric media Mamamia.

Alex Frolov, CEO and co-founder at HypeAuditor, said, “The hype around Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour has been building up globally for the past three months with Swifties sharing videos and photos of the show on social media reaching billions of people around the world. Globally there have been 22,951 posts on Instagram mentioning Taylor Swift, reaching 230 million people since the start of her international tour in March 2023.”

He added, “An ER of 3.5% is a reflection of the calibre of the singer’s fandom and how engaged Swifties are. Regardless of who is posting about Taylor Swift on social media, the posts are likely to generate likes and comments. It’s not surprising that brands have also been jumping on the bandwagon to increase their reach and engagement with their followers. It will not stop here. We expect more brands to milk the Taylor Swift mania with themed sales, promo codes, outfit suggestions, etc up until the Aussie shows in February 2023, as a way to increase their visibility and extend their reach.”

Sydney, Australia A new study by HypeAuditor, an AI analytics platform for transparent and fraud-free influencer marketing, revealed that minority of the influencers in Australia are not proactively collaborating with brands for partnerships despite the development of influencer marketing in the industry.

HypeAuditor surveyed over 500 content creators on Instagram and TikTok with over 1,000 followers. It was found that one-third of the influencers prefer to not actively participate with brands for partnerships or respond to inquiries in groups or marketplaces. However, 94% of these respondents still prefer to make partnerships with brands.

Moreover, the study also revealed that 46% of influencers had seen an increase in brand partnerships this year compared to 2022 whilst 39% noticed an increase in the amount paid by brands for sponsored posts.

Alexander Frolov, co-founder and CEO at HypeAuditor, said that content creators are confident that there are collaboration opportunities and it’s a matter of exerting efforts to find meaningful opportunities.

“Influencers, especially those who are new to the space or have a smaller reach, wanting collaborations and partnerships will need to take control and leverage the right tools to find the right partners that resonate with their content,” Frolov added.

Moreover, HypeAuditor has announced its new platform HypeAuditor for Influencers to bring both influencers and brands that seek for collaborations. The platform will give access to HypeAuditor’s solutions including Media Kit to easily generate custom media kits for influencers directly to brands, account analytics and market analysis, and updates from the most notable followers.

Sydney, Australia Aussie influencers and brands are not jumping on the NFT bandwagon as fast and as eagerly as its counterpart countries, according to a report by AI-analytics platform, HypeAuditor.

The new data has revealed the current state of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Instagram following the platform’s announcement that it will start integrating NFTs from leading blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Flow and Polygon, testing digital collectibles with select creators in the United States. Following this, only 281 Aussie influencers have been posting about NFTs on Instagram in the past 6 months, accounting for a total of 717 posts.

The data revealed that since January of 2022, there have been a total of 717 social media posts on Instagram about NFT or mentioning NFT, reaching a cumulative audience of 1.5 million. Out of the 717 posts, less than 15% were sponsored posts. 

The report found there are only 124 Instagram influencer accounts in Australia containing the word NFT in their bios, with the accounts totalling over 5.2 million followers. The United States for instance has over 1900 NFT influencers. The top 3 categories for NFTs in Australia are Art (12.7%), Music (10.4%) and Photography (8.4%).

Alex Frolov, CEO and co-founder, HypeAuditor, said, “While it’s been reported that Australians have participated in the hyped-up market activity of trading NFTs, with many saying they’re using it as a way to save money for a house, compared to other countries like the United States, the uptake has been rather slow down under.”

According to Frolov, the slow trend might be an indication that Aussies are a bit more cautious when it comes to spending or investing in new sectors, and are more willing to take their time to understand the market before throwing themselves at it. The skyrocketing cost of living in Australia may also be another reason why Australians are more reluctant to gamble their savings on NFTs.

Since January 2022, a total of 281 influencers posted about NFT and only 14% of the posts were sponsored by brands. People aged 18 to 34 are the ones engaging with the social media posts about NFTs the most. Meanwhile, the influencers posting about NFTs the most are aged 25-34 yrs old. 

NFTs are getting traction mostly from micro-influencers with 10k-50k followers (44.1%) and nano influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers (42.7%). 

Australia’s Top 10 NFT Influencers with NFT in their bios are:

“From the Top 10 NFT Aussie influencers, it’s worth noting that their engagement rate (ER) overall is also very low. A good Instagram ER is between 2-3% and anything above 3% is considered high engagement. From the list above, only three influencers have high ER which is another indicator that the interest in NFTs hasn’t peaked yet,” added Frolov.

Sydney, Australia – Despite ongoing lockdowns in Australia for the past few months, the local influencer marketing scene remains unfazed, as more and more brands have tapped online influencers via sponsored activity, according to data from AI analytics platform HypeAuditor.

From data collected from 1 to 28 of October, there were 3,179 sponsored posts from 1,651 influencers, categorized as those with an authentic following of more than 1000, with the hashtag #ad and/or #sponsored, slightly down from 3,722 sponsored social media posts in September when both Sydney and Melbourne were in lockdown.

While the brands’ influencer marketing campaigns were running as usual during lockdowns, influencers were quick to embrace #freedomday on their social media platforms. Between October 1st and October 25th, 794 influencers shared 1,037 posts using the hashtag #freedomday, reaching 2.5 million people. 

The hashtag #freedomday refers to the sweep of restrictions lifting across Greater Sydney, with 213 posts by influencers peaking by 11 October. 

On October 22, when Melbourne’s lockdown ended, influencers posted less than half as much, with just 95 posts. Considering it was Melbourne’s sixth lockdown in 2021, the novelty of #freedomday has clearly worn off.

“Australian brands and marketers understand that influencer marketing is a foolproof strategy within their overall marketing plans. A significant by-product of city-wide lockdowns was people being on their devices and on social media more than ever, seeking new forms of entertainment. Influencer marketing proved to be one of the best ways to reach consumers during a lockdown, and keep the marketing lights on when people are not out and about,” said Alexander Frolov, CEO and co-founder at HypeAuditor.

He added, “#freedomday for influencers means more creative freedom to create paid content for brands, as they are no longer restricted to the confinement of their homes. Over the next few months, we can expect to see a spike in travel-related content from influencers as interstate as well as international borders reopen and travel brands come back in full force after the devastating effects the border closures had on the industry.”

Sydney, Australia – With the rise of social media influencers, there has been an evident rise as well of online influencers who teach more about finance or so-called ‘finfluencers’, and the number is steadily growing in Australia among female millenials, new insights from influencer marketing platform HypeAuditor shows.

According to the data, despite the fact that these ‘finfluencers’ only make up less than 1% of all influencers in the country, they have proven to be incredibly impactful, particularly for brands investing in sponsored content and wanting to engage with commercially minded millennials. On TikTok, the finance-related hashtag #moneytok has more than 3.8 million views, as well its accompanying hashtag #stocktok with more than 361 million times as of this writing.

Among ‘finfluencers’, 34% are female aged 25-34 years, while only 16% are male in the same age bracket. Meanwhile, the balance shifts when looking at ‘finfluencers’ aged 35-44, of which 25% are male and only 9% are female.

The audiences these ‘finfluencers’ reach have a similar skew, with 57% of their audiences being female, of which 44% are aged 25-34, and a further 19% are aged 35-44. The demographic highlights a trend among mostly female consumers wanting to be educated by influencers who look or seem ‘just like them’, who use layman terms and empower them to become financially empowered.

According to Alex Frolov, CEO and co-founder at HypeAuditor, there has been a steadfast growth of the finfluencer phenomenon in the country, and brands wanting to engage with commercially savvy influencers and communicate with money-conscious consumers are taking advantage of this evolving trend.

“It’s interesting to see this movement driven mostly by millennials, reflecting an ongoing trend of turning to, and trusting online information and sources when making significant life decisions or going through major milestones such as buying a first home, investing in shares for the first time, or re-assessing the best superannuation options. Finfluencers are stepping in where traditional financial institutions or more established enterprises have historically made this information challenging to navigate and [take] action,” Frolov said.

However, he cautioned about brands and consumers translating online content into actionable financial advice, stating that while many finfluencers in Australia have a strong finance background, not all are qualified to provide financial advice.

“For finfluencers with a strong and highly engaged audience, it could become challenging for their audience to know the difference between a finfluencer’s observation or piece of advice for a specific scenario, and their advice for the follower themselves. With more finfluencers joining the scene, brands will need to stay vigilant in determining the most relevant and reliable finfluencers to partner with, and consumers will need to exercise caution analyzing financial advice,” Frolov concluded.

Influencers are being upended by virtual influencers – computer-generated influencers that operate like real-life ones. Brands are increasingly seeking to partner with them, or even create them, to tap into their fan base through endorsement deals. Virtual influencers have emerged in the last few years as, arguably, the next big thing in influencer marketing. 

Characters like Lil Miquela (3.1 million Instagram followers) and Knox Frost (791,000 followers) who are both Instagram-verified, have worked with all sorts of brands and entities, from Calvin Klein and Dior to Samsung and the World Health Organization. According to an analysis published on Bloomberg by OnBuy, a U.K.–based online marketplace, Lil Miquela is estimated to make over $10M per year — for the company that created her. With 3.1 million followers on Instagram, HypeAuditor, an analytical platform for influencer marketing, estimates that she charges around $12,500 per sponsored post, making her the highest-paid ‘robot influencer’.

Virtual influencers have quickly gained traction within the industry. Technology is enabling studios and advertisers to create virtual influencers that seem almost real, giving them personalities and lives that they share with consumers, to try and form a connection with people. And brands have found that they offer certain advantages over real influencers. 

First, they are cost-effective, and content can be produced relatively quickly — it is very simple for a graphics designer to give a virtual influencer a new wardrobe and place them in any location on Earth, compared to having to fly or drive a real influencer to a specific location for a photoshoot. 

Second, they seem to be relatively effective. Influencer marketing is already one of the most effective methods to bridge the gap between a brand and its audience by leveraging an influencer’s authenticity and engagement with their fanbase. Our research finds that virtual influencers have almost three times the engagement rate of real influencers, indicating that their followers are more likely to like and comment on their content compared to the content produced by their human counterparts. 

Third, and perhaps most important, is that they are controllable and pose a significantly lower risk to a brand’s reputation. Given that virtual influencers are scripted and controlled by their creators, there’s much less chance that they will embarrass their clients by posting something offensive or controversial on their social pages. So in many ways, virtual influencers may appear like the safest option for brands.

However, brands would be wise not to get too caught up in the hype, as there are some issues around virtual influencers. 

While virtual influencers have a higher engagement rate than human influencers, HypeAuditor’s research found that 48 percent of virtual influencers had negative follower growth in 2020, meaning that they are losing followers. This may be because the accounts were losing bots, or that their audience simply did not like the content and were unfollowing them.

Another concern is around regulation. Many have questioned if virtual influencers conflict with the rules set by advertising watchdogs. For instance, the Australian Association of National Advertisers Code of Ethics requires an influencer to disclose that a post is a paid endorsement of a product or service. And this is complemented by the Competition and Consumer Act which covers ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’. Obviously, virtual influencers have not and can never try the products they promote themselves, which can be viewed as misleading and deceptive, even if they disclose the paid partnership. 

The fact that some virtual influencers look so life-like could also potentially mislead the public. HypeAuditor’s survey of Instagram users in 2019 by consultancy firm Fullscreen found that 42 percent of millennials and Generation Z have followed an influencer on the platform without realizing that they are computer-generated. 

Because of this, it is predicted that the rising popularity of virtual influencers will also lead to calls for them to be regulated, so that they don’t deceive the public or mislead their followers. 

And while virtual influencers are less likely to go off-message, brands do need to carefully consider what kind of biases a virtual influencer or their creators might have, as this could still cause damage to their brand’s reputation. Diversity and inclusivity are also highly important to consumers today, so brands must be careful when hiring virtual influencers instead of real human ones. French fashion house Balmain received criticism in 2018 for using three ‘diverse’ virtual influencers in a campaign, rather than hiring actual diverse human beings. 

Influencer marketing has huge potential in the advertising industry, as it enables brands to form much more human connections between themselves and their audiences. While there is certainly a place in ad campaigns for virtual influencers to create engaging content, brands would be wise not to forget about their human counterparts. 

This article is by Alexander Frolov, CEO and co-founder of HypeAuditor.

HypeAuditor is an analytical platform that helps brands manage the effectiveness of their influencer marketing campaigns.

Sydney, Australia – HypeAuditor, an AI analytics platform for measuring effective influencer marketing, has today released a new competitor analysis tool called Competitor Grid, which allows brands to check the reach of influencer marketing campaigns of their competitors.

Through the new tool, Competitor Grid gives marketers the ability to easily analyze the performance of competitors’ influencer marketing campaigns. Arming them with important information, such as the full list of influencers they work with, analysis of the creatives used, and amount spent per post on a campaign. HypeAuditor’s aim is to help marketers make more strategic decisions for their brand’s influencer marketing activity. 

Furthermore, the tool gives users full access to analytics on how competitor brand’s influencer marketing campaigns are performing, including a close analysis of the following criteria namely engagement rate, audience quality, influencer quality, cost per engagement, and reach.

Competitor Grid’s development comes in response to the demand from marketers, as highlighted in research conducted in January 2021 by HypeAuditor, which found that 1 in 3 marketers (31%) are unaware of the influencers their competitors are working with, whilst almost half (45%) do not know the audiences their competitors are targeting through influencer marketing and with 87% finding it helpful to get a list of Instagram posts with competitors’ mentions.

“As influencer marketing matures, brands are reevaluating how they work with influencers. Instead of one-off deals with hundreds of influencers, all using the same copy, marketers, and agencies are now looking for more long-term, authentic partnerships that give influencers more creative control.” said Alex Frolov, CEO of HypeAuditor

Following the release of Competitor Grid, HypeAuditor conducted a research analysis of Australia-based brands and measured them against each other based on Instagram influencer marketing.

In the study, HypeAuditor noted that Australian home-grown brand Chemist Warehouse is the highest performer in influencer marketing in Australia, in terms of beauty brands. HypeAuditor notes such strong performance due to the brand achieving 1.51% average engagement rate for the quarter, an average cost of $0.32 per engagement, and 89 sponsored and likely sponsored posts from 61 Instagram influencers such as Sophie Monk, Christina Sikalias, and Jules Robinson.

The research also noted that global beauty brand Sephora failed to compete against its Australian local counterparts, with home-grown brands like Bondi Sands and Priceline Australia still taking the lead in influencer marketing reach.

“To do this effectively, they need data that they can rely on when developing influencer marketing campaigns. Our new Competitor Grid answers these new needs and helps marketers make the right decisions when looking at implementing an influencer marketing strategy, based on valuable information gathered about competitors’ strategies,” Frolov added.