Who said social media influencers need to be popular to create a long-lasting impact? What is essential is to make sure they are relevant to your industry. Since influencer marketing began, brands and agencies have been looking for means to spend money on high-profile social media users with a massive following. But when you look for influencers to partner with, brands need to consider the quality of the content they produce, their audience, demographics, engagement rate, authenticity and reach. With that being said, brands can get amazing results with smaller micro-influencers. Micro-influencers are more accessible, can drive more traffic to your website and create more engagement on social media. With these benefits at your disposal, it’s time for brands to include micro-influencer campaigns in their marketing strategy.
What are Micro-Influencers?
Micro-influencers are social influencers with an audience reach of 10,000 to 100,000 followers. They have an ardent following and although smaller, it doesn't affect the influence they hold. Whilst they have fewer followers, they are more engaged with them on a day-to-day basis. Compared to influential people with thousands of followers, micro-influencers have greater engagement success with the relevant followers. Micro-influencers have a more compact, targeted audience which is more useful when you are selling something.
What should Brands look for in a Micro-Influencer?
Before you start your influencer marketing campaign, establish your goals. Your goal could be to raise brand awareness, get more traffic to your business, blog or promote a product to drive more sales. After you establish your goals, look into what type of micro-influencer you want to use. When you research influencers, there are three essential things to look out for.
Niche: What niche does the influencer belongs to? What type of subjects do they cover and talk about the most? What is their area of expertise?
Engagement vs followers: the number of followers an influencer has is essential but at the same time, it's essential to look into the amount of engagement they receive. Brands must find out their engagement and response rate. The more the influencers engage, the more genuine the engagement will be. This is the most significant advantage of using micro-influencers. Unlike influencers with a lot of followers, micro-influencers can afford to interact with their followers on regular basis.
Audience: look into the influencer’s audience. Do they share a similar target audience? Is their audience in the same location you are operating in? When using influencers, your goal should be to reach out to more of your target audience. This will help raise awareness for your brand and create more conversations with the audience. If the influencers don't have the same target audience, you will not be able to attain your ultimate goal.
What they share: the kind of content, tools and apps influencers share with their audience.
Now you are aware of what micro-influencer marketing is, let's look at the reason for including micro-influencer marketing in your strategy.
They have a smaller, more targeted audience: working with millions of followers with different interests will make it tricky to create content that appeals to everyone. Micro-influencers create content on topics they are passionate about, such as food, fitness or photography. They spend a lot of time building their presence and mastering their content to build a community that is interested in the subject they talk about. Working with influencers with small yet relevant followers ensures brands and products will be in front of the users they care about.
Authentic and credible voice: when famous influencers, like the Kardashians or other mega-influencers, tag a product or a brand, we know it’s a blatant ad. But do we really think about the product they are promoting? When customers see celebrity-endorsed infomercials on TV, they don't believe the celebrity uses the products they endorse. Micro-influencers, on the other hand, are personally interested in their online presence, making them more authentic. They spend hours curating the perfect Instagram post. Small-time influencers treat their followers like their friends, which mean they are honest and genuine.
They are not hard to get: micro-influencers grow their fan base one by one, interaction by interaction. They give their fans genuine attention and appreciation by replying to their comments; they thank them for their support with giveaways and websites promo codes. They work hard to provide the type of content customers will resonate with.
Cost-effective: if you want to increase your following on Instagram, spending more on endorsements will not help. Small influencers are more open to working with lesser-known brands. They are not only effective but cost less as well. According to a recent study, micro-influencers charge $75 to $250 for one post. If you need top tier influencers, you will have to spend up to $1,000 or more. Working with a micro-influencer that is active in your brand's industry is more valuable than paying millions to someone who has generic followers.
Higher engagement: smaller influencers are capable of building a loyal following as they regularly interact with their fans. According to experts, micro-influencers have 22 times more conversations than typical users. They not only engage with the right audience, they engage significantly more. With more interactions, fans get to know micro-influencers on a deeper and more personal level. Because of this trust, when micro-influencers recommend a product, followers are motivated to make a purchase. Micro-influencer marketing campaigns are 6.7 times more efficient per engagement than most of the other influential counterparts. With micro-influencers, you get value for money.
Before you start collaborating with relevant micro-influencers, search for the influencers that fit your brand. After reading the above points, you will be in a better position to include micro-influencers in your influencer marketing strategy.