The Future of Influencer Marketing with AR and VR

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that allows us to superimpose digital material like images, sounds, or messages on top of a real-world environment. As the name implies, augmented reality seeks to supplement reality with digitally created components. It does not, unlike virtual reality, supplant reality. Instead, it combines the virtual with the real to produce a display environment based on reality. One of the fundamental aims of augmented reality is to emphasize certain characteristics of the actual environment, improve comprehension of those characteristics, and extract meaningful and accessible information that can be used in real-life applications. Big data may help organizations make better decisions and get insight into the purchase habits of their clients, among other things.

What is Virtual Reality?

The use of computer modeling and simulation to enable a human to engage with an artificial three-dimensional (3D) visual or other sensory world is known as virtual reality. VR applications immerse the user in a computer-generated world that resembles reality via interactive devices that send and receive data and are worn as goggles, headsets, gloves, or body suits. In a standard VR format, a user wears a stereoscopic screen helmet and displays animated pictures of a virtual world.

Who are Influencers?

Influencer marketing is a channel-independent approach of having someone else, usually a person with a strong social presence, convey a brand's message. It is the formalization of informal communication into a logical procedure. Through extension, an influencer is any person who is used in this method of marketing by proxy.

There are different types of influencers with the two most common being aspirational influencers and authoritative influencers:

-       Aspirational influencers are comparable to celebrities in that the items and services they advocate are purchased as a replacement for embracing their general celebrity lifestyle. They typically have a huge number of followers across several channels, with a diverse population represented.

-       Authoritative influencers are often niche leaders with substantial followers in their respective industries and topics.

AR, VR, and Influencer Marketing

AR and VR influencer marketing already exists to some level. Branded filters are available on platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok, and marketers may pay influencers to use these filters in their posts. This is a valuable type of Snapchat or TikTok influencer marketing, but the VR and AR influencer marketing sector have a lot of space for development.

Branded content is already a growing trend in the VR realm with Nike and Balenciaga for instance providing consumers with purchase options for their virtual avatars. Influencer marketing will have an impact anywhere there is virtual commerce. That said, VR is highly gamified, and with the growth of video game followers and streaming, talented VR gamers will quickly become huge influencers. They'll be able to hold virtual events and wear virtual stuff among other activities as well.

In the fashion and beauty sectors, influencers’ own try-ons will reach hundreds of millions of followers, sending customers directly to the apps of their favorite companies to experiment for themselves. Influencers will send their followers in droves to play with the latest technology, putting firms that haven't embraced AR at a disadvantage. Influencers won't even need to have an outfit to show off how they'll look in it, resulting in more content at a faster pace. Massive online events might be organized around the notion of a bunch of influencers wearing the same clothes to demonstrate how they would look on a variety of body types and sizes.

For lifestyle influencers, virtual reality will change the face of how these people market for brands' products and items. Their content will come to new heights with both AR and VR, and bring an entirely new direction to the way they hold live streams as we now know it. They will allow the showcase of their 360-degree live videos with their audience as a shared experience. Doing so enables people wearing virtual reality headsets to stroll and chat with their favorite social media stars, experiencing their perspectives and vantage point in real time - all within a social network. This will be more engaging than any influencer material in the past.