Influencer content may not be reaching as many people organically than users thought. According to an analysis by the influencer firm, Whosay shared with Marketing Dive, organic reach for influencer content on Facebook decreased by an average of 23% over the last 12 months. The research was based on 50 influencer campaigns across a variety of categories with an #ad disclosure. It was found that Facebook reach was the lowest for influencers with more than 5 million followers at 4.2%, followed by those with between 2.5 million and 2 million followers at 4.4%. In contrast, reach was 5.6% for influencers with 1 million to 2 million followers, and interestingly, those with fewer than 200,000 followers saw the highest reach at 7.5%. Falling organic reach on Facebook for influencer campaigns could be due to a number of factors. The platform recently overhauled its algorithm in order to shift the focus on organic posts by brands and publishers in favour of content posted by family and friends, which could explain the slight drop – although in the last few months Facebook has built tools to better accommodate influencers, such as increasing more interactive tools for live video, including polling. While research finds that brands are investing more in Facebook influencers, those with a large following appear to be taking a greater hit to performance than in the past. The declining numbers may reflect how marketers are now starting to favour quality and fit of followers over quantity. Out of those surveyed, 96% of multinational brands now state “quality of followers” as the most important criteria when choosing their influencer partners. Meanwhile, Whosay also found that Instagram’s organic reach was 36.1% for creators with 1-2 million followers. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is now the most popular platform for influencer marketing, taking a share of 34% of total influencer revenues compared with that of 13% for Facebook.
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