Consumers are engaging more heavily with fragrance on social media, in response to a report from influencer marketing firm Traackr.

In response to the corporate’s State of Influence report, which analyzed mentions and engagements from greater than 41,000 influencers from 2019 to 2020, fragrance — which is notoriously difficult to market online — has piqued interest from influencers, with posts on TikTok growing 449 percent. Consumers are matching that with heightened engagement, which grew 1,065 percent.

Pierre-Loïc Assayag, cofounder and chief executive officer of Traackr, said the category has taken cues from other segments and overarching trends in behavior. “An enormous amount of creativity has gone into talking about how products make you are feeling, slightly than the products themselves,” he said. “It is a trend that may take off well beyond fragrance.”

Gesturing to other resonant communications, comparable to posts about Black Lives Matter (which grew 10,069 percent in 2020) or body positivity (which grew 345 percent), Assayag said interesting content doesn’t must be product-centric to drive sales.

“A variety of socially related and politically related issues, for instance, aren’t visual in nature. We must always not feel sure or constrained by having to indicate a product online for sales to choose up or people to get interested. It’s the story behind it that needs to be compelling,” he said. User engagement with Black Lives Matter posts, for instance, grew 36,198 percent.

Some brands across categories weren’t quick enough to pivot to social marketing, or e-commerce, Assayag said. “Before 2020, I might describe adoption of influencer marketing as shades of gray. Now, there’s a giant gap between brands. There’s a chasm between brands which have doubled down on influencer marketing and furthered their efforts, and the others not far enough within the adoption curve took a giant step back. It’s been a defining 12 months,” he said.

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