• A new report by social analytics agency HypeAuditor revealed the trends that impacted social media marketing in 2020.
• It showed that micro and nano influencers with fewer than 5,000 followers create the most engagement and value for brands.
• Influencers on newer platforms “care more about engaging” with their audiences, Clare Winterborn, founder of influencer and communications agency Born Bred Talent told Business Insider Australia.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

A new report highlights key trends impacting influencer marketing, as well as the fastest growing social media accounts in Australia.

Conducted by global social analytics agency HypeAuditor, the report reveals the social media marketing trends across Instagram and TikTok in 2020, along with Australia’s fastest growing accounts.

The report found that active social media users increased by 10.5% in 2020, and its insights suggest what’s already been reported by experts in the industry; that influencers that spend time developing engagement with their audience — though smaller — actually have audiences that convert to sales for the brands they work with.

Clare Winterborn, founder of influencer and communications agency Born Bred Talent told Business Insider Australia that in her experience, newer influencers and those on younger platforms “care more about engaging with and growing their audience” than the past generation of influencers, who are more focused on opportunities to monetise on platforms that are proven to be successful.

She said the pandemic forced companies to experiment and put more time and thought into unique strategies for audiences across different platforms.

For example when TikTok emerged, she saw brands throw money at it with little thought from fear of missing out, but that now “the Australian market is putting a lot more care and strategy into it.”

Her insights align with the report’s findings, which show that in the Australian market, and out of all the social media platforms, TikTok celebrity influencers have the highest engagement rate; 16.44%, compared to 2.4% on Instagram.

The report also found that nano-influencers — those with between 1,000 and 5,000 followers have higher engagement rates than micro influencers.

TikTok received a 60% increase in users, with half of Australia’s TikTok influencers nano-influencers with under 5,000 followers.

Sporting personalities and lifestyle accounts saw the largest follower growth in 2021, with cricketer David Warner (@davidwarner31) gaining three million followers in 2020, followed by lifestyle influencers Savannah Clarke (@savannah_clarke), fitness creator Chloe T (@chloe_t) and fashion influencer Anne Curtis Smith (@annecurtissmith), who all boosted their followings by around 600% in the first few months of 2021.

And the push by the national and state tourism industry to redeem the sector appears to have paid off, with three of the top most tagged brands on Instagram in the first three months of 2021, with @Sydney, @visitnsw and @tasmania the top-most-posted accounts.

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