Influencer Marketing: What Works and What Doesn’t in 2025?

Influencer marketing has quickly become a vital part of connecting with consumers and businesses, with nearly 90 percent of marketers in the U.S. expected to work with influencers in 2025.

But what strategies and tactics work best when using influencers to engage your audience in 2025, which trends should you be aware of, and what pitfalls do you need to watch out for? Fullintel recently spoke with an influencer marketing expert at FINN Partners, a global marketing and communications agency, to get to the bottom of exactly that. 

Table of Contents

• How Has Influencer Marketing Evolved?
• Key Trends Around Influencer Partnerships
  • Authenticity
  • The rise of micro/nano influencers
  • Engagement rate over vanity metrics
• Best Practices for Influencer Marketing

How has Influencer Marketing Evolved?

Influencer marketing has evolved from a trendy experiment into a cornerstone of PR and marketing strategy, and FINN Partners Global Health Social Media and Influencer Strategy Lead, Ryan O’Grady, says the pandemic was a big part of that shift, at least when it comes to the healthcare space. 

“The pandemic created a culture of isolation and skepticism, so we noticed an increased desire for online communities as individuals wanted to hear from others about their lived experiences, expertise, and perspectives. That never diminished the value of corporate and brand-supportive communications, but we suddenly saw this energy around people connecting with influential voices in the health space to learn more about a resource or treatment,” explains the founder of FINN Partners’ Global Health Social Media Group, a team of 20-plus social media strategists who work regularly with healthcare-related influencers. 

“The authenticity and credibility of human voices began to take center stage, and have since become a priority tactic in many of our clients’ communications strategies.” 

O’Grady and her team work with several types of health influencers to help FINN Partners’ clients achieve their goals while also building meaningful relationships with various target communities, including patients and caregivers, advocates, and medical professionals.

Key Trends Around Influencer Partnerships

Authenticity

The need for authenticity is often discussed in conversations about PR trends, but is magnified in the influencer and the social media user-generated content (UGC) space. That’s because the whole point of influencer or UGC content is that it’s supposed to come from people with authentic experiences or who use a product in their real lives.

When content seems inauthentic, audiences can get turned off – or worse – especially when the information is health-related.

“Talking about someone’s health is such a personal and emotionally driven experience, so it is critically important that the influencer partnership provide comfort, guidance, and support to the viewer,” O’Grady says. 

The rise of micro and nano influencers 

That sense of authenticity has led FINN Partners and others to embrace the rise of micro influencers (also known as nano influencers), which generally have lower follower counts than well-known celebrities but also have extremely engaged audiences.

One study found that micro influencers have a 3X higher engagement rate on Instagram than mega influencers.

O’Grady says the strong bonds nano and micro influencers have with their audience can be a powerful tool for healthcare organizations.

“There are benefits to macro or celebrity influencer partnerships but typically, these individuals partner with numerous brands, so health companies run the risk of their message and campaign feeling diluted in the mix of other corporate promotions,” she explains. “Whereas, many nano or micro influencers may not even realize the level of their influence. They may have started their community as a way to share their story and connect with others with a similar experience. Then suddenly, a partnership with a health company makes them realize that their voice is louder and even more impactful than they thought. Their small but mighty audience adds to their credibility and authenticity.”

Engagement over vanity metrics

Engagement is the name of the game for any online medium, but is especially important when working with micro influencers. That’s why O’Grady says engagement rate is her team’s No. 1 metric when vetting or evaluating influencers of all stripes.

Impressions, after all, can be purchased. And high follower counts can consist of bots or people who are completely checked out. These vanity metrics aren’t really a good indication if someone is an effective influencer, O’Grady says – especially if you’re looking to establish a long-term partnership with them. 

“To our team at FINN Partners, and many of our clients, we believe there is greater benefit in engaging an influencer partner with 5,000 Instagram followers who drives a 30 percent engagement rate, for example, versus a partner with  70,000 followers who drives a  two percent engagement rate.”

Best Practices for Influencer Marketing in 2025

For the most effective and efficient influencer campaigns in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, or beyond, it’s important to follow certain best practices to protect both your brand and your influencer partners. 

• Let your audience dictate the approach: While business-to-consumer (B2C) content may require more heartfelt emotion, business-to-business (B2B) influencer campaigns are typically better by playing it straight and sticking with key messages.
• Let your target audience dictate the platform: Companies need to approach influencer activations with their target audience in mind. From there, the team can identify potential partners who are active on the applicable platform. For example, if O’Grady’s team is trying to connect with consumers about resources around certain conditions, she advises her clients to seek out active influential voices on consumer-geared Meta or TikTok. In the end, the right platform also depends on where your influencers have built an active and impactful audience.
• Define clear and measurable campaign goals and key performance indicators (KPIs): Set measurable targets for awareness, engagement, or conversions, and align content types with these goals.
• Vet influencers thoroughly before signing contracts: O’Grady’s team vets influencers using both technology and manual analysis – they call this “the intersection of art and science.” The team uses social listening and influencer tools to analyze high-level metrics to determine a broader list of potential partners, and then conducts a manual vetting of the individual’s social media channels to ensure the partnership could be a fit.  “You need to do your homework,” O’Grady says, “because you can get into murky waters really quickly if you solely focus on reach and engagement without considering qualitative metrics.”
  
  “We need to consider past content engagement, previous partnerships, and visual aesthetic as a way to determine if the influencers’ values align with the company’s mission and goals. We must vet and ensure these people  genuinely believe in what we’re trying to promote before contracting.” 

But one of the most important best practices for brands in any vertical is that once you’ve vetted and contracted with an influencer, you’ve gotta just let them cook. Otherwise, their content will likely come off as inauthentic and contrived. 

These people are influencers for a reason, after all.

“It’s about relinquishing a little bit of control,” she says. “The company needs to allow the influencer to be true to themselves and their existing audience, or else the output will just look like a paid ad. That  decreases the credibility of that influencer and undercuts your partnership.”

Trust Fullintel to Track and Evaluate Influencer Partnerships

Fullintel’s combination of AI-powered, semi-automatic monitoring and reporting tools, expert human curation, and global reach allows healthcare, pharmaceutical, and other Fortune 500 organizations to accurately vet and track influencer engagement across more than 30 social media networks. Contact Fullintel today to request a demo.