BrandGraph® Reveals 34% Rebound in Influencer Marketing Industry Travel & Tourism Content
August 03 2020 - 2:00PM
IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ: IZEA), the premier provider of
influencer marketing technology, data, and services for the world’s
leading brands, published a brief today which provides its first
public analysis of the influencer marketing industry within the
travel and tourism industry since the outbreak of COVID-19. The
industry brief is based on data surfaced by BrandGraph, IZEA’s
proprietary social intelligence platform focused on the influencer
marketing space. The platform is used to identify, compare, and
contrast momentum across brands, topics, and concepts in social
media. BrandGraph leverages IZEA’s proprietary content
classification engine and datasets to classify content across more
than 4 million influencers and 600 million pieces of social
content. For this study IZEA analyzed 520 million pieces of content
from August 2019 to July 2020.
Download the BrandGraph COVID-19 Travel Brief here
: izea.com/covid-19/bg-travel
Influencer Sponsorship Hit its Lowest Point
in AprilBoth the absolute count and relative content
volume of sponsored influencer content among travel and tourism
brands dropped significantly from the beginning of February to the
end of April, 2020. In that three-month period, the industry saw a
66% decrease in relative content volume, with hotel brands seeing
an 80% drop and airline brands seeing a 77% drop during that time
period. April marked the low point for the overall travel and
tourism industry as well as each sub-category measured within the
industry.
A Three-Month High in JulyJuly
marked a three-month high for sponsored influencer content in the
travel and tourism space, with relative content volume bouncing
back 34% from the lowest point in April. However, the relative
content is still less than half of what it was at this time last
year, as illustrated in BrandGraph. Hotels have seen the largest
increase in sponsored content volume since hitting bottom. Airlines
have seen little recovery and remain down 75% year over year.
“While larger influencer marketing categories such
as media and technology have seen meaningful increases in sponsored
content since the onset of COVID-19, the travel and tourism
vertical is among those sectors hit the hardest,” said Ted Murphy,
Founder and CEO of IZEA. “Influencer marketing for travel and
tourism largely relies on an influencer visiting a location and
sharing that experience with others. That was extremely difficult
if not impossible when much of the country was on lock-down in
March and April, but as restrictions started to loosen, we began to
see more and more brands reengaging influencers.”
IZEA recently released a Coronavirus study that
indicated a growing interest among consumers to visit a hotel
within the next 4 weeks. While air travel remains a strong concern
for most, 30% of all respondents indicated that they plan to take a
road trip this fall. The same study revealed that 94% of all
respondents surveyed indicated that they would be willing to wear a
mask, if required, to visit their favorite retailer or restaurant.
A consumer’s willingness to wear a mask opens the door for many
travel and tourism destinations to require social distancing and
masks for customers.
“Travel and tourism brands are turning to
influencers as they navigate reopening to the public,” continued
Murphy. “Negative consumer sentiment for the travel and tourism
industry is a significant challenge right now, particularly for
airlines. Marketers are turning to influencers to educate consumers
on what to expect from their company and what they have done to
keep their customers safe. It is a definitively different narrative
for travel and tourism brands, but one that is incredibly important
to share as they seek to keep people safe and make customers
comfortable with the idea of travel again. We believe that the
bounce in travel influencer sponsorships since the bottom indicator
in April is reflective of the opportunity that brands see in
working with influencers to regain business. This is a natural
marketing channel for them to both educate consumers and create
desire for them to travel safely again.”
About IZEA Worldwide, Inc.IZEA
Worldwide, Inc. (“IZEA”) operates IZEAx, the premier online
marketplace that connects marketers with content creators. IZEAx
automates influencer marketing and custom content development,
allowing brands and agencies to scale their marketing programs.
IZEA creators include celebrities and accredited journalists.
Creators are compensated for producing unique content such as long
and short form text, videos, photos, status updates, and
illustrations for marketers or distributing such content on behalf
of marketers through their personal websites, blogs, and social
media channels. Marketers receive influential content and engaging,
shareable stories that drive awareness. For more information about
IZEA, visit https://izea.com/.
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- A shift from a lockdown mindset to a safety mindset
- The beginning of a travel and tourism influencer marketing
recovery
- An increase in negative travel and tourism sentiment
Martin Smith
IZEA Worldwide, Inc.
Phone: 407-674-6911
Email: ir@izea.com
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