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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

ads. Instagram may have a smaller audience than The truth is that chatbots can have difficulty under-
Facebook, but their users are much more engaged. As standing exactly what a person is asking of them.
audiences are already on Instagram, Stories offer There isn’t much room for nuance or ambiguity. As
superior traction for engagement for advertisers. such, using a computer to conduct a conversation can
still be a barrier to an engaging experience.
The golden age of influencer marketing
However, in process-oriented industries, chatbots are
Influencer marketing is a big enabler of revenue, and big generating a significant return on investment. If you
brands are getting on board. It’s estimated need to book an airline flight or reserve a hotel room, a
that influencer marketing ad spending will reach $10 chatbot is a handy way to walk you through that
billion by 2020. The reason is that consumers prefer to process. But if you want to complain that your hotel
see authentic content from people who they trust and room is not what you expected, a chatbot probably
follow on social media, rather than content they are can’t resolve that problem.
getting from a brand.
Overall, in terms of raising brand awareness and
However, in this golden age of influencer marketing, reaching a broader audience of consumers, chatbots
there is also a good deal of fraud. Social media were still not ready for prime time this year.
marketers learned they need to do their due diligence
before investing in an influencer. Data is still king

It’s critical that brands gain the capability to sniff out 2018 was truly a remarkable year for social media.
influencer marketing fraud such as fake fans, fake These are just of a few of the many emerging trends
engagement and fake interests. For instance, brands that had a transformative impact on how brands use
could examine an influencer’s performance over a longer social channels to reach their target audiences. Of
time period and their engagement level per 1,000 fans. course, there is one aspect of social media that didn’t
Without these data insights, brands may waste time and change in 2018. Solid data is required to drive decision
money on an influencer with no real reach or engage- making to successfully leverage platforms like
ment. Facebook and Instagram.

The limited success of chatbots In 2019, reliable data will still be a business imperative
to help you know precisely where to invest your
Chatbots were supposed to be the next big thing for advertising budget in order to maximize reach,
customer relations and brand outreach, being deployed engagement and business impact. ◊
on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp to communicate
one-on-one with consumers and prospects, solving By Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CEO, Socialbakers
problems and marketing goods and services.

In 2018, the brands who experimented with chatbots
began to realize they weren’t going to be the big success
they thought they would be.

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