The essential influencer marketing trends for 2025

Are you ready for 2025?

It’s that time of year again - the time where it’s time to predict the trends of the coming year and find some way to apply them to your business strategy.

After having conversations internally, with customers, and analyzing the results of thousands of campaigns conducted this past year, we’re happy to share what we believe will be the dominant influencer marketing trends of 2025.

You came for the trends, so let’s get going!

Trend 1: AI will continue to dominate

That’s right, we’re starting with the big one. Large language model (LLM) AI apps have exploded ever since ChatGPT was unveiled, and there seems to be an AI app for every possible problem marketers could think of. From content creation to data analysis, AI can do the grunt work while you focus on the higher level problems. And AI has found its way to influencer marketing, too.

First of all, virtual influencers will grow, both as completely virtual influencers, and virtual versions of your favourite influencers. As of writing, Meta is testing a ton of features that will allow influencers to create virtual versions of themselves to answer questions, interact with their audience, and much more. This can help take the load off influencers, although it remains to be seen how these features will work in practice, and if they’ll be useful enough.

As well, virtual influencers have been around for a while, but now expect more and more to pop up on your feeds, as it’s easier than ever to create them.

But what about AI helping marketers work with real influencers? Well, AI will play a big role in that too.

AI can help refine your campaign strategy, assist with planning and ideation, create & refine briefs, and even help crunch the numbers after your campaign.

AI can also assist with finding the right influencers! Searching for influencers manually is a pain, but with AI, you can simply ask them to find the perfect influencers according to your detailed criteria.

Honestly, we could probably create an entire post on how AI will impact influencer marketing in 2025 and beyond, but we have more trends to cover. But don’t be afraid of AI - instead, think critically about how it can help your team and your processes.

Photo by @mjolnir.kleekai

Trend 2: Brand marketing will make a comeback

Performance marketing vs Brand marketing - the eternal struggle.

In today’s data-driven world, brand marketing has taken a backseat in most companies as they focus on that which they can measure. Marketers ‘round the world know that a strong brand is key to steady growth. But when your boss tells you “we need results now”, it’s difficult to stay the (brand) course.

However, we need look no further than Nike’s fall from grace to get a warning about the impact of neglecting brand marketing in favour of performance marketing. After putting all their chips on a direct to consumer, this summer they realized that it just didn’t work, and shareholders reacted accordingly, with Nike’s stock value plummeting 20%. And they aren’t out of the swamp yet.

Performance marketing will always have its place in a marketing mix. However, as consumers install more adblockers, become more disillusioned with brand content, and crave more authenticity in an otherwise highly filtered civilization, brand marketing is absolutely key to continue building loyalty and enticing new customers. And putting all your eggs in one basket is just bad form, in investing, farming, and in marketing. No matter how much DTC grows, there is still value in having products found on store shelves and not simply online.

And don’t worry - even the big players are getting this wrong! In 2019, Adidas was investing heavily in performance marketing as they believed that it was impacting revenue most. However, as Marketing Week tells it:

“... while Adidas thought only performance drove ecommerce sales, in fact it was brand activity driving 65% of sales across wholesale, retail and ecommerce, while performance also drove wholesale and retail sales.”

This applies heavily to influencer marketing, where having the right brand match is essential for building relevance and resonance. We expect influencer marketing to become the core of most brand marketing strategies, and for those strategies to rise in importance.

Ida Nevala, Marketing Communications Manager at Fonum, has this to say about brand marketing and its importance.

"It is clear that in recent years, data-driven digital marketing has led brands to focus heavily on what drives sales, as evidenced by data. This can be seen in the erosion of long-term brand awareness and brand loyalty, to which larger companies in particular are waking up or have woken up and are starting to change their strategy back to brand-driven marketing and increasing brand loyalty. At Fonum, we believe in strong long-term brand awareness building, and have invested in it, not on a campaign-by-campaign basis, but strategically and over the long term. Short campaigns support sales momentarily, but their value is only seen in the campaign period and they do not build a long-lasting impression on our customers.”

Photo by @sselinamaria

Trend 3: Increased scrutiny on results

Alright, so what gives? We’ve just gone and said that brand marketing, a marketing form notoriously hard to track, will reign, but yet there will be increased scrutiny on results?

Let us explain.

As marketers, we’ve gotten better at proving results of our efforts, and brand marketing reporting is improving in that area. While it’s hard to prove everything, we do have options, such as follower growth, share of voice, etc.

And so services will improve to serve that need!

For example, at Boksi, we have improved our influencer search and launched our Discovery tool to help you find the absolutely best influencers that will drive the best results. You can evaluate influencers according to specific factors, such as:

• Audience demographics
• Content views
• Follower count
• Engagement rate

This helps you find the best influencers based on statistics and also brand values.

And as social media platforms continue to improve, they’ll provide more information on who saw your posts and which action they took.

So don’t shy away from measuring your campaigns - there are lots of options available to you.

Trend 4: Brands that crack social commerce will win

Social platforms are improving their social commerce features to help influencers drive direct sales instead of mere promotions. For example, it’s easier than ever to make in-app purchases and live-stream unboxings that share links directly to the products mentioned.

And live streamed video is becoming more popular than ever, with 27% of all internet users watching live streaming content on a weekly basis. And when you look at social media, 37% of users find live video content most engaging, and 43% of 18-34 year olds prefer Instagram for their live video content. Most expect that figure to only grow, so now is the time to consider your live streaming strategy.

You may recall that these were big things a few years ago, only to have TikTok halt their planned live shopping roll out to Europe, and Meta cancelling their live shopping features altogether in 2023. However, social commerce is still alive and well on other platforms like YouTube and Twitch, and now that TikTok plans to bring their shop to Europe, you can bet that Meta will follow close behind (after learning what TikTok did right and wrong, of course).

The main benefit of social commerce and live shopping on social media platforms? Well, instead of influencers providing a link to your store with a discount code to use at checkout, now influencers can promote the products live, and viewers can purchase them directly in the app itself, with discounts and influencer commissions already applied.

Photo by @miiamirjami

It’s a small thing, but every hint of friction you remove from the sales process will keep consumers hooked, improve conversion rates, and sell more product.

So keep an eye on your social media platform of choice, and also evaluate your influencers on their selling skills and experience with social selling. That could be a key factor to help you build your brand and generate revenue.

Social commerce also ties nicely into our next trend, which is…

Trend 5: Long-term partnerships will win out

Running one-off campaigns with multiple influencers is still great, but partnering with influencers who really match your brand values will provide the best long-term results.

They don’t have to be strictly social media posts, either - consider live product unboxings and reviews, or including them as moderators for your events, for example. Having a trusted influencer promote your event could do more for signups than any paid advertising campaign.

A long-term partnership ties that influencer to your brand, meaning when consumers see one or the other, they’ll automatically make a positive association with the other. This builds trust over time, which creates loyalty.

For example, some brands go as far as to let influencers run their social media accounts. This allows the influencer to create a positive relationship with consumers as the face of the brand, while also encouraging consumers to create their own content and connect on a human level with the brand.

So as you evaluate influencers, spend some time scrolling through their content and reading comments on their posts. How do they interact with their audience? What do they value most, and does that come across as authentic? All these and more will help you decide whether or not they’re worth partnering with in the long term.

Boksi helps you not only find the best possible creators, but also connect with them to start a meaningful long-term relationship. Our Discovery Tool provides real-time profile metrics with data pulled straight from Instagram and TikTok, so you know you’re getting authentic data. And once you’ve found them, you can add them to your list of preferred creators so they’re always close by.

Check out our pricing options here.

Photo by @sarkkulind

Trend 6: Microinfluencers will drive better results

Mega influencers won’t be going anywhere, but micro and niche influencers will continue to rise in popularity with brands.

Instagram recently announced that they will be defaulting to Views as the leading metric on content, which has some people excited and others devastated.

On the one hand, creators can now show brands exactly how many people saw their content, and brands can report that to their superiors to understand their reach.

On the other hand, with the changes to algorithms and how content is displayed, those with large follower bases have found that their content may not get seen by their follower base, which means followers mean far less than they did 10 years ago.

This shift to views follows the general trend of content - content that entertains and resonates with viewers will spread, and weak content will shrivel.

Micro influencers and niche influencers often have higher engagement rates than mega influencers, which does impact views, and they can be closer to their audience than someone with over 200k followers. Smaller influencers are typically more authentic and ‘real’, and they don’t have a finely crafted persona. They simply are who they are, which in turn attracts people who enjoy that vibe.

So consider the goals and budget of your campaign - you may be surprised what a dedicated group of micro influencers can do for you.

Trend 7: Cross-platform strategies become easier and better

Finally, cross-platform influencer marketing campaigns will be easier than ever. Social media platforms like YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram, and more are embracing new technologies to bring more people to their platforms, and give creators more tools to create amazing content. And as platforms develop, it will be easier to share and repurpose content for each channel.

For example, influencers can create filters related to your brand that others can use in their own posts, and those filters don’t have to be limited to one platform. They can also run simultaneous live streams that connect to multiple platforms, meaning less work for more sales.

It can be costly and time-consuming to implement these features today, but we predict that they will become easier and easier to work with in the future. And as they improve, so does your ability to create even more immersive, interactive experiences that truly resonate with your target audience.

Are you ready for 2025?

It is possible to measure amazing results with influencer marketing and provide incredible content without breaking the bank or adding to your packed workload.

Boksi is the perfect solution for any brand who needs to harness the power of creator marketing in an easy, effective way.

Our discovery tool ensures you’ll always find the perfect influencer for your campaign - contact us today and we’ll show you how it will give your team their time back.