Snapchat made waves within the creator financial system by taking a daring step towards revolutionizing shoppable AR experiences. The social media large opened up native commerce to its prime creators, together with the likes of Kylie Jenner, permitting them to transcend easy “Store Now” buttons in Tales and combine AR Lenses with buying options. Probably the most talked-about moments got here when Nicki Minaj partnered with Snapchat to advertise her album Queen utilizing an AR Lens with a “Store” button that permit followers buy her unique $25 necklace straight inside the app.
This seamless buying expertise made it simpler than ever for followers to have interaction and purchase with out ever leaving the platform.
The strategic intention behind Snapchat’s Shoppable AR initiative was clear: to boost creator-driven commerce whereas making AR buying an immersive, accessible, and interesting expertise for customers. By permitting creators to include “Store Now” buttons straight into their AR Lenses, Snapchat eradicated the friction that comes with redirecting customers to exterior web sites, making purchases quicker and extra built-in.
The marketing campaign’s success was grounded in its means to mix leisure with commerce—over 70 million folks use Snapchat’s AR Lenses each day, spending a median of three minutes partaking with them, making it the right platform to roll out native commerce. Consequently, Snapchat not solely positioned itself as a hub for creators but in addition as a direct competitor to Instagram, all whereas bolstering its e-commerce choices by way of AR.
Now, let’s pivot again to how this all ties into the broader image of influencer advertising and marketing, particularly in rising sectors like Digital Actuality (VR) and Augmented Actuality (AR).
Snapchat’s strategy to integrating buying with AR Lenses affords a glimpse into the way forward for influencer campaigns inside VR/AR ecosystems. As VR and AR applied sciences turn into extra prevalent, manufacturers might want to adapt these methods—leveraging immersive experiences, influencer partnerships, and seamless commerce integration to create distinctive, partaking buying journeys.
Greatest Influencer Advertising and marketing Methods for AR/VR Experiences
Influencer advertising and marketing has entered a brand new frontier with the rise of Digital Actuality (VR) and Augmented Actuality (AR), providing manufacturers unprecedented alternatives to have interaction customers in immersive and interactive methods. From digital try-ons to gamified experiences, manufacturers are discovering inventive methods to merge tech innovation with influencer storytelling to spice up engagement, drive gross sales, and construct lasting emotional connections. Let’s dive into a number of the greatest methods for leveraging VR and AR in influencer advertising and marketing and the way real-world examples deliver these methods to life.
1. Scaling International Engagement for AR/VR Manufacturers with All the time-On Influencer Methods
With regards to AR/VR advertising and marketing, an always-on influencer technique is a game-changer. As a substitute of fleeting campaigns, manufacturers can set up a constant presence by partnering with a various set of influencers throughout numerous areas and platforms. This strategy builds momentum, making certain that the model stays related and top-of-mind.
The “Hero, Hub, Hygiene” content material technique is essential right here: Hero content material garners consideration with premium, high-budget productions like large reveals or occasion activations; Hub content material retains the model in dialog with common updates, livestreams, or video sequence; and Hygiene content material ensures there’s all the time one thing new, resembling tutorials, group shout-outs, or product updates.
By mixing these content material varieties, AR/VR manufacturers can create a gentle stream of content material that captures each broad consideration and deep engagement.
Oculus put this technique into motion with one among their world influencer campaigns. Partnering with 450+ creators, lots of whom had been gaming and YouTube creators like Markiplier, they distributed VR {hardware}, equipment, and sport codes to influencers worldwide. The influencers had been requested to evaluation the Oculus Quest VR headset and clarify the revolutionary expertise that makes digital actuality accessible to everybody.
Oculus additionally used the branded hashtag #OculusPartner to attain factors on social media and hopefully drive user-generated content material that they will repurpose and reuse as promotional content material. The outcomes had been spectacular: 295 million views and over $48 million in earned media worth.
They used relationship-building with creators to drive not simply speedy views, however long-term model loyalty, serving to to solidify Oculus’ presence within the increasing VR area. With real-time dashboards and KPIs, the crew optimized the marketing campaign’s efficiency at each stage, ensuring they maximized their share of voice and stored the dialog round Oculus alive.
Deal with constructing long-term relationships with influencers, not simply one-off collaborations. By working with creators on an ongoing foundation, you possibly can foster deeper model loyalty and generate constant, genuine content material that resonates along with your viewers over time.
2. Leveraging Mid-Tier Influencers to Drive Engagement
When selling AR/VR merchandise, typically it’s not about reaching the most important names—it’s about attending to the proper viewers. Mid-tier, micro-, and nano-influencers usually supply extra personalised, relatable content material with increased engagement charges, making them very best companions for tech corporations focusing on area of interest markets. By working with a variety of influencers, manufacturers can maximize their attain throughout totally different communities whereas fostering genuine connections with potential prospects.
For PlayStation’s VR2 headset, the model targeted on smaller-scale influencers in Canada, leveraging their devoted fanbases throughout Instagram and YouTube. The purpose? Enhance consciousness of PlayStation VR and increase engagement with its regional Canadian viewers. By partnering with influencers like Karl Conrad, Justin Tse, and Erin (aka The Girly Geek), PlayStation tapped into a mixture of tech fanatics and gaming followers who had sturdy affect inside their communities.
The influencers shared their private experiences with the PlayStation VR, usually incorporating personalised captions and gameplay critiques. With a mixture of sponsored posts and genuine content material, they had been capable of generate stable engagement, with some posts reaching as much as a 5% engagement charge. This marketing campaign proved that smaller influencers may drive large outcomes, with the model efficiently cultivating real curiosity round their AR/VR tech.
Don’t underestimate the facility of micro-influencers! Their extra engaged, area of interest audiences can usually present increased return on funding and construct extra belief along with your model.
3. Utilizing Influencer-Led Storytelling to Drive AR/VR Engagement and Acquisition
Influencer-driven campaigns thrive once they faucet into genuine, relatable storytelling that resonates with a focused viewers. For AR/VR manufacturers, crafting narratives that talk to the non-public experiences of customers is a robust technique to generate curiosity and engagement.
The secret’s to construct content material that feels private, relatable, and shareable—particularly when paired with influencers who embody the model’s values and join deeply with their followers.
Pokémon GO’s #CatchYours marketing campaign used storytelling because the core aspect to drive consumer engagement and acquisition in the course of the pandemic. By figuring out Gen Z females because the audience, the marketing campaign leveraged influencers from throughout the globe—Australia, Brazil, Chile, and the US—who authentically linked with their communities. These influencers labored with native creators to seize their distinctive experiences with the sport, showcasing the AR magic of Pokémon GO in relatable, culturally related methods.
.@_ZoeTwoDots and her Togepi have racked up nearly ONE THOUSAND kilometers collectively on their journey. Inform us about your go-to buddy right here. #CatchYours pic.twitter.com/WBAfXjOvcp
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) June 22, 2021
The marketing campaign was designed to make Pokémon GO really feel private to every viewer, utilizing distant inventive path to soundly orchestrate influencer collaborations throughout lockdown. The consequence? A music-driven anthem video and a large 100M+ views throughout all channels, together with YouTube and TikTok, the place the model capitalized on trending content material to achieve new audiences and develop its following.
The marketing campaign’s success lay in its means to create an aspirational life-style message that resonated deeply with the goal demographic.
For AR/VR manufacturers, give attention to creating campaigns that enable influencers to share private, relatable tales. This not solely will increase engagement but in addition fosters a deeper emotional connection along with your viewers.
4. Blurring the Strains Between Digital and Actual By Influencer-Pushed Immersive Experiences
For AR/VR manufacturers seeking to interact audiences on a deeper degree, the important thing lies in seamlessly merging the digital world with actuality. As a substitute of merely showcasing the tech, the technique includes crafting experiences that enable influencers to actively immerse their followers in these digital realms. It’s about creating narratives that unfold each nearly and bodily, drawing folks right into a story they will expertise firsthand.
By leveraging AR or VR tech in real-world environments, influencers can showcase the true potential of those immersive applied sciences, making the expertise relatable and tangible. This strategy faucets into the facility of experience-driven content material, the place influencers don’t simply speak concerning the product—they stay it, breathe it, and invite their audiences to do the identical.
An modern instance of this technique in motion got here from the RAID: Shadow Legends marketing campaign. As a substitute of pulling gamers right into a purely digital world, the model introduced its journey straight into the actual world by way of an augmented actuality expertise. Gamers, armed with solely their in-game IDs, may use their telephones to open a portal into the sport’s universe and embark on an AR quest to discover a hidden dragon egg.
WE ARE GOING ON AN EGG HUNT!🥳🥚💖!However not simply any eggs! Dragon eggs!🐲🔥😤COME JOIN TOMORROW! IN RAID SHADOW LEGENDS!Ready room up!⏬🕗: 5pm PST | 8pm EST | 9am JST
Set up Raid: Shadow Legends for Free Cell and PC: #PR pic.twitter.com/ORGXWPwlGA
— Scarle Yonaguni💋💅 NIJISANJI EN (@ScarleYonaguni) April 21, 2023
To amplify the expertise, gaming influencers and bloggers had been recruited to information their audiences by way of the journey, showcasing how the sport’s mix of actual and digital worlds created a totally new, immersive expertise.
The consequence? A worldwide phenomenon the place gamers embrace the sport’s digital treasure hunt, deepening their connection to the model whereas having influencers straight interact with their communities by way of this cutting-edge AR expertise.
When crafting immersive AR/VR experiences, be sure that to associate with influencers who can totally embody the expertise, not simply market it. Search for influencers who’re naturally interested by expertise and might talk the magic of those worlds in a manner that feels private, partaking, and thrilling for his or her followers.
5. Leverage Influencers for Genuine Product Demos that Drive Motion
Neglect dry tutorials—at this time’s AR/VR merchandise shine brightest when influencers present their audiences how they really work. The magic occurs when these influencers put the product by way of its paces in actual, on a regular basis conditions, offering real, on-the-ground demos that spotlight the product’s true worth.
A key technique right here is letting influencers display options naturally with out the strain of good, scripted performances. Whether or not it is testing the gadget in motion or strolling followers by way of how they use it each day, product demos ought to really feel genuine, not like a gross sales pitch. It’s about letting their followers see the product come to life, giving them an actual sense of what to anticipate once they strive it themselves.
For AR/VR manufacturers, these demos are a possibility to interrupt down the advanced and make the tech really feel accessible, straightforward, and—most significantly—value investing in.
Take Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, for example. Influencers like Casey Neistat and Zac Alsop turned product demos into real-life content material that resonated with their audiences. Casey hit the streets of Manhattan, electrical skateboard in tow, giving his followers an up-close take a look at the Imaginative and prescient Professional’s capabilities as he effortlessly used it in a dynamic atmosphere.
Equally, Zac posted a playful, relatable Instagram video of him strolling his robodog, all whereas carrying the headset, making the expertise really feel pure and a part of on a regular basis life. These demos didn’t simply showcase the product—they introduced it to life for thousands and thousands of viewers, racking up 4 million views for Casey and 120K likes for Zac.
Deal with real-world eventualities in your product demos. The extra pure and natural the demo feels, the extra seemingly it’s to resonate along with your viewers and drive curiosity.
6. Crafting Genuine, Interactive “First-Impression” Experiences with Influencers
Creating genuine, interactive experiences is essential when introducing AR/VR merchandise to the market, particularly within the early levels of launch. The primary impression issues—it is not simply concerning the product itself however about the way you invite your viewers to expertise it. On this case, influencers are the right companions to information customers by way of that preliminary expertise.
The technique is to leverage influencers to create interactive, first-hand encounters along with your product—whether or not it’s AR filters, product demos, or digital worlds. The purpose is to make the expertise really feel private, immersive, and hands-on. This strategy ensures the product is not only promoted, however actively skilled by the viewers in a manner that’s partaking, shareable, and memorable.
As a substitute of a easy demo or tutorial, you’re permitting your influencers to construct interactive worlds that present a deeper connection between their followers and the product. These worlds aren’t simply enjoyable—they offer followers a style of the product in a manner that feels actual and first-person. This might be by way of AR filters, VR worlds, or stay digital interactions.
Let’s break it down by taking a look at Garnier’s #GarnierVitC marketing campaign to advertise its new Vitamin C Glow Increase Night time Serum. As a substitute of merely counting on influencers to advertise the product by way of primary content material, Garnier created a customized AR filter that allowed customers to step into an immersive “Vitaverse”, a serene, futuristic spa-like world that introduced the serum’s advantages to life.
This was not a standard product demo. Influencers like @kristiinesloth and @jenniesofie didn’t simply publish static pictures of the product; they led their audiences into this interactive world. Through the use of the AR filter, followers may discover totally different elements of the product, switching between evening and day modes to visually perceive how the serum works at totally different instances of day.
This was a first-impression technique in motion—moderately than simply telling followers what the serum does, Garnier allowed them to expertise it. The influencers turned guides on this digital area, serving to followers join with the product in a private, dynamic manner.
To craft really genuine interactive experiences, don’t simply create a product demonstration—make it an expertise that fosters real exploration. Permit influencers to personal the narrative, and make sure the expertise feels private and immersive for his or her viewers.
The Way forward for Influencer Advertising and marketing is Immersive
As AR and VR applied sciences evolve, influencer advertising and marketing is positioned to play a pivotal function in shaping the way forward for immersive buying experiences. Snapchat’s pioneering integration of AR Lenses with shoppable options set a brand new precedent for seamless commerce inside social platforms, whereas manufacturers like Oculus and PlayStation are pushing boundaries with steady influencer engagement methods.
Shifting ahead, AR/VR manufacturers should give attention to creating genuine, interactive first-impression experiences, leveraging influencers to information audiences by way of immersive digital worlds. By merging leisure with commerce, manufacturers can construct deeper emotional connections and drive sustained engagement, in the end making AR/VR expertise really feel each accessible and thrilling.
Ceaselessly Requested Questions
How can AR and VR be used successfully for influencer advertising and marketing?
AR and VR could be leveraged in influencer advertising and marketing to create extremely partaking, interactive, and immersive model experiences. Right here’s how:
Product Demos & Digital Strive-Ons: Customers can interact with merchandise by way of AR/VR, experiencing them in a digital area earlier than buying. For example, magnificence influencers can display digital make-up try-ons or style influencers can showcase clothes or equipment by way of AR filters.
Immersive Experiences: AR/VR permits manufacturers to craft environments or experiences which might be partaking and shareable, amplifying social media buzz. For instance, VR occasions or digital excursions allow influencers to deliver merchandise to life in inventive methods.
What are the advantages of utilizing VR and AR in influencer campaigns?
There are a number of key benefits to incorporating AR and VR into influencer campaigns, each when it comes to client engagement and total model influence:
Profit
Description
Elevated Interplay
Customers work together with merchandise or content material in an enticing, hands-on manner.
Genuine Model Experiences
AR/VR creates memorable moments that align with model narratives, fostering stronger emotional connections.
Wider Attain and Shares
AR/VR experiences are extremely shareable, producing social media buzz and rising visibility.
How can AR/VR improve buyer engagement in influencer advertising and marketing?
AR and VR increase buyer engagement by making interactions extra private, dynamic, and immersive. By influencer collaborations, manufacturers can:
Provide Interactive Experiences: Through the use of AR filters or VR try-ons, influencers can lead their viewers by way of a novel expertise, providing a enjoyable and personalised journey.
Foster Actual-Time Engagement: Dwell-streaming AR/VR occasions with influencers can straight join manufacturers with their viewers in real-time, making customers really feel concerned and valued.
Are digital influencers efficient in AR/VR campaigns?
Digital influencers could be extremely efficient in AR/VR campaigns, particularly when focusing on youthful, tech-savvy audiences. They provide manufacturers full inventive management and the flexibility to craft tailor-made, futuristic narratives. Listed below are just a few the explanation why they work nicely in AR/VR:
Consistency and Precision: Digital influencers can convey particular model messaging with out the unpredictability that comes with human influencers.
Interesting to Digital Natives: They resonate nicely with youthful audiences who’re already immersed in digital and AR/VR areas.
Can AR/VR campaigns drive conversions for luxurious manufacturers?
AR and VR are highly effective instruments for luxurious manufacturers seeking to create distinctive, high-end experiences that resonate with customers. Through the use of these applied sciences, luxurious manufacturers can:
Technique
How It Drives Conversions
Immersive Product Demos
Permits prospects to have interaction with merchandise in an unique, detailed setting, boosting confidence.
Digital Showrooms
Creates an unique, high-end buying expertise, rising the probability of buy.
Customized AR Filters
Allows prospects to see merchandise in actual life, serving to them visualize possession and driving decision-making.
How do influencers create AR/VR content material for manufacturers?
Influencers can create AR/VR content material by collaborating with manufacturers to design experiences that align with their fashion and viewers. Usually, this includes:
Utilizing AR/VR Platforms: Influencers work with manufacturers and builders to create customized filters or VR experiences on platforms like Instagram or Snapchat.
Guiding Audiences: Influencers create walkthrough movies, tutorials, or stay streams that showcase the AR/VR options, encouraging viewers participation.
Which platforms are greatest for AR/VR influencer advertising and marketing?
With regards to AR and VR influencer advertising and marketing, sure platforms stand out for his or her immersive capabilities and large attain.
Platform
AR/VR Capabilities
Instagram
AR filters, interactive Tales, and IGTV for live-streaming VR occasions.
TikTok
AR filters, viral challenges, and short-form AR-based influencer content material.
Snapchat
Revolutionary AR lenses and interactive branded AR filters.
How can AR/VR enhance model storytelling in influencer campaigns?
AR/VR can revolutionize model storytelling by immersing audiences in interactive, experiential narratives. Influencers can use these applied sciences to deliver a model’s message to life in a manner that static posts and conventional adverts merely can’t.
Creating Immersive Worlds: Manufacturers can transport audiences right into a story with digital actuality, permitting influencers to information them by way of an enticing narrative.
Interactive Product Storylines: AR permits customers to discover a product’s backstory or key options by way of a digital layer, offering extra context and fostering deeper connections.
Can AR and VR improve model consciousness for area of interest merchandise?
Sure, AR and VR can considerably increase model consciousness for area of interest merchandise by providing distinctive, memorable experiences that encourage social sharing. These applied sciences enable smaller or area of interest manufacturers to face out by delivering high-impact, interactive campaigns that captivate their audience and generate buzz throughout platforms.
In regards to the Writer
Author
Koba Molenaar brings almost a decade of wealthy expertise in content material writing, specializing in digital advertising and marketing, branding, SaaS, and eCommerce. Her ardour for serving to manufacturers, from solopreneurs to established corporations, join with their audiences shines by way of her work. As a member of the Golden Key Worldwide Honor Society, Koba’s dedication to excellence is obvious in her work, showcasing her as a relatable and educated voice within the business.
