How Influencers Can Improve Audience Trust

Advertising is almost useless with the trust of an audience. Consumers look at advertising with a bit of scrutiny, and advertisers understand that. A new study from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) shows that influencer marketing is trusted even less than advertising as a whole. 

The BBB’s National Advertising Division surveyed 3,720 people on their level of trust in advertising and influencer marketing, and the vast majority of them ended up in the middle with a response of “somewhat trust.” Only 11.3 percent of respondents said they flat out “do not trust” advertising, while 26.0 percent of respondents said they “do not trust” influencer advertising. It’s in our best interest as advertisers to try to offer solutions, because, as the study points out, influencer marketing is a 24-billion-dollar industry, with 82.7 percent of marketers utilizing them in some way. It’s here to stay and only becoming a bigger part of marketing budgets, so it might as well be the best it can be.

Who Are Influencers

The Oxford dictionary defines “influencer” as “one who or that which influences.” The Oxford dictionary is stupid.

In this context, an influencer is someone who has achieved a large enough social media following that they’re able to influence (it all comes full circle) other people's purchasing decisions. They accomplish this through social media ads and product placements in their otherwise organic content.

It’s important to point out the difference between influencer marketing and celebrity endorsements. Yes, influencers are celebrities in a sense, but celebrity endorsement typically refers to when mainstream celebrities (from mediums beyond social media) appear in paid advertisements.

On the venn diagram of those who could be considered influencers and those who could be considered celebrities in the traditional sense, there is quite a bit of overlap. That means that there are many people who do both, but that doesn’t mean influencer marketing and celebrity endorsement are the same thing.

Why is Influencer Marketing so Important

In 2015, the worldwide ad spend on influencer marketing was just $1.7 billion. This year, it’s expected to reach nearly $33 billion, a 36 percent increase from 2024. A big reason for the increase is that the audience for digital content and the number of people who can make a living from creating it, has grown significantly in that time. For example, in 2016, there were 2,000 YouTube channels that had at least one million subscribers, and in 2022, that number had increased to 29,000.

But apart from the natural progression of content creators and audiences drifting to digital platforms over time, chief marketing officers and the like have strategic reasons behind spending more on influencer marketing. As Rahul Titus, global head of influence at Ogilvy, said to Bloomberg, “People trust people more than they trust brands.” And of course, intuitively, that feels true, but the study from the BBB contradicts this idea.

Why Don’t People Trust Influencer Advertising?

There are several reasons why people don’t trust influencers the way they did back in the old days (2016ish). Oh, what a simpler time it was.

Over-saturation

That $33 billion in spending on influencer marketing means that there are a lot of sponsored posts. Arguably too many for the typical consumer. Rahul Titus said, “People trust people more than they trust brands.” True, but now those people have created so much sponsored content that now they feel like corporations themselves. Consumers feel like they’re being sold to from every angle (and they are), so the line between brand and individual just gets blurrier and blurrier. In this respect, the advertising industry has really overplayed its hand and turned what should be one of the most trustworthy forms of advertising into one of the least trustworthy.

Inauthentic Content

This one falls on us, the copywriters of the world. Poorly written ad reads are wreaking havoc on the influencer marketing industry. Oftentimes, in long-form YouTube content, especially, the content creator will do an ad read as part of the video, and these ad reads often sound so repetitive, inorganic, and frankly, long, that you automatically tune out. One of the most famous culprits for terribly written ads is a mobile game called Raid Shadow Legends. Whoever is responsible for writing this copy has found their talking points, and they’ve stuck with them. Ad after ad. Year after year. Don’t believe us? Here’s an hour-long compilation. Please watch it in its entirety before you resume reading this blog.

Undisclosed or Hidden Sponsorships

This is probably the greatest culprit of diminishing trust. Social media is rife with sponsored posts that don’t disclose that they’re sponsored even though they’re supposed to. According to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers, influencers are required by law to disclose when they’re being sponsored. And yet we know not everyone is complying with these rules, because they keep getting caught.

According to a study by Informs, over 95 percent of sponsored posts on X (the artist formerly known as Twitter) did not disclose that they were sponsored. Recently, comedian Kevin Hart, who has 177 million Instagram followers, recently rewrote (well, presumably not him but one of many social media managers) the caption for a post that didn’t clearly disclose that it was sponsored by JPMorgan Chase. This change actually came at the request of the BBB’s National Advertising Division, the same people responsible for the study on the trustworthiness of influencer marketing. 

Working With Shady Brands

Not long ago, one of the brand names you’d hear the most in YouTube ad reads was an app called BetterHelp. It wasn’t quite to the Raid Shadow Legends level, but it was getting there. BetterHelp is an app that provides remote therapy and is still the top therapy platform in the IOS app store. We say “still” because they were the subject of a scandal when they paid a $7.8 million settlement to the FTC because BetterHelp was charged with sharing user data, including sensitive mental health information, with Snapchat, Facebook, and other companies.

There was backlash against the countless influencers who were promoting BetterHelp. The defense of these influencers was, “How could they have known what BetterHelp was doing?” with the common response to that being something like, “They should’ve been sure they weren’t doing anything shady before taking them on as a sponsor.” Either way, this incident caused a reckoning on influencers’ roles in deciding what to promote and definitely eroded some trust between influencers and their audiences, especially those who continue to promote BetterHelp to this day.

How Influencers (and Brands) Can Rebuild Trust

So that’s how we got to this point, but what is the path forward? How can influencers regain the trust of their audiences?

Disclose Ads Transparently

Influencers need to be upfront about which posts are sponsored. Luckily, the FTC has provided this handy dandy guide for how to do just that. Influencers should:

• Use simple and clear language to disclose sponsorships.
• Make sure the disclosure is somewhere people will actually see it.
• Only discuss their experiences with a product if they’ve actually used it.

Only Work With Ethically Aligned Brands

Influencers do have a responsibility to make sure the brands they’re working with are legally and ethically above board. With the BetterHelp scandal, many influencers felt that they were absolved of any responsibility because they weren’t actually the ones sharing the data. And that may be true, but their audiences probably look at it differently, and that’s the most important thing.

How Marketing Directors Should Choose Influencers to Work With

By prioritizing transparency, ethical partnerships, and authentic storytelling, influencers and brands can regain consumer trust and unlock the full potential of influencer marketing.

Vet the Influencers You Work With

Similar to the way influencers are responsible to ensure they’re working with ethical companies, companies have a responsibility to make sure they’re working with ethical influencers. If you’re considering sponsoring an influencer, dig deep into their content and see if they’re guilty of the missteps laid out in this blog. Are they doing a poor job of disclosing ads or even outright lying? Then people probably don’t trust them and will be skeptical of you if you work with them.

But also go beyond their sponsored content. Make sure their organic content is what you want your brand attached to.

Measure Impact Beyond Impressions

It’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on a few KPI’s when they won’t always be your best indicators of success. With paid social ads, you’re probably looking for things like total engagements, engagement rate, and clickthrough rate, and those are all important. Look for sentiment, engagement, and quality of audience response.

Build Long-Term Partnerships

If you can, avoid one-off sponsored posts. Providing the same group of influencers with new and refreshing ad copy or sponsored post ideas will help you build a relationship with their audience, like the one they have built. 

Want to launch your influencer marketing campaign? Curious about which influencers are worth sponsoring? We can help you find out. Come on down, and we can scroll together.