Influencer marketing in 2025: a guide for fast-growing brands

Like any marketing plan, successful influencer marketing requires time dedicated to building the right strategy, starting with research.

You probably already know what your target audience looks like but do you know which platform they’re on? Instagram might not work for you, while TikTok could be a roaring success. Consider your demographic and if you don’t already have a presence on that platform, you might want to leverage your existing following from another social channel.

It’s important to select one or two channels to aggressively target at first. What works for one channel may not work for another. Deciding on which channels to target will produce better results in the short term. And once you have one channel mastered and are ready for more growth, you can expand to others.

Building a campaign with an influencer or a group of influencers is not like building an advertising campaign, you won’t be able to art direct their work and edit their copy. They are one full package: photographer, editor, stylist and copywriter. According to Forbes, “the influencer is in control of the brand’s message, choosing how they would like to portray it.” That’s why doing the right research on the right people for your brand is so important at the very start of building your referral program.

Consider how you will find the right influencers to promote your product. Make sure you avoid incidents of inauthenticity that could harm your brand image by only partnering with influencers who stand behind your brand values. Working with influencers in your niche ups your chances of building a successful partnership.

When working with micro-influencers, be mindful of upskilling them with resources that can help them to improve their content. It's worth investing in the quality of your influencer content, as it often outperforms branded content.

When you find the perfect match, remember, that you’re working with real humans. That’s the beauty of influencer campaigns. These are people who have spent time growing and engaging with other humans to build an organic following. This means they have a reputation to uphold.

Brands like SkillShare, Fuji Film and Audible partner with influencers using referral programs to promote their products. Our own platform has seen successful campaigns with IDEAL OF SWEDEN, Onepiece, PopSockets, Fabletics, and more.

What you really want to look out for when selecting which influencers to partner with is the amount of engagement they get per post. Phoney accounts might have 300K followers that they bought, but only get 20 likes on a picture. Social media marketing experts agree that buying followers is never a good idea because it ruins the integrity of a page, with an eventual massive drop in followers when you stop payments. You also risk Instagram shutting your page down entirely.

Social media is about quality over quantity and so you might choose to partner with micro- or nano-influencers who may only have a few thousand followers but whose audience actually actively engages with the page and sees the content regularly. Taking this route often results in better ROI.

Ambassador marketing gives you the unique opportunity to build a thriving community of long-term content creators. As consumers lose faith in large influencers who have been exposed for inauthentic sponsorships or fake or bought followers, smaller creators have entered the spotlight.

Ambassador marketing is surging as brands want to partner with authentic creators over longer periods of time. Influencers often enter into short-term partnerships with brands. When followers see a product being endorsed once or twice, they might see through the marketing for what it is. But when creators affiliate themselves with your brand long-term, it shows that your products are actually a part of their daily life - something they can’t live without. This continued loyalty to a brand inspires others to give your products a try.

Our ultimate micro-influencer marketing platform was created by a highly successful brand Onepiece to help similar fast-growing e-commerce brands connect with individuals who have the potential to be passionate advocates & ambassadors.

Our tool enables e-commerce brands to build a community around their most prized assets: their customers, followers and fans. We pride ourselves on partnering with authentic ambassadors because these are everyday people who create real connections.

Book a demo to find out more.