Everybody wants to aim for the stars – be it literal ones or something that’s bigger and better than the rest. Much the same is with influencer marketing, where some businesses still have the notion that any large-scale influencer is the right influencer for their product.
In this article, we’ll try to show you the points of why a micro-influencer might actually be a better choice and how to approach such a marketing strategy.
First things first – let’s figure out what exactly micro-influencers are?
There’s a quantitative aspect that’s really easy to discern – a micro-influencer usually has from around 10,000 to 100,000 followers. Everyone who’s over this number no longer qualifies for a micro-influencer title.
Another thing that micro-influencers are famous for is their content on niche topics – be it products for growing the most beautiful house plants or the best knitting needles, their topics aren’t as large-scale as simply ‘fashion’ or ‘lifestyle.’
Since their topics are quite specific, so are their audiences. And since the audiences and the creators are united by a topic they are all burning for, such audiences tend to be a great deal more loyal than those of megastar influencers. Besides that, such loyal fans are also highly engaged with the creator’s content, which, in turn, could work wonders with brand awareness.
And lastly, micro-influencers’ audiences do trust the person they are following and a shared trust enables the creator to influence their audience’s purchase decisions.
Okay, so now we know what makes a micro-influencer, but why should you choose someone small-scale over a celebrity?
The answer here is simple enough – AdWeek did research to figure out how the dynamics of audience engagements correlated with the number of followers.
This is what they found:
- Influencers with less than 1,000 followers usually have about a 15% percent engagement rate
- Those with 1,000 up to 9,999 had a 7,4% engagement rate
- And the large-scale influencers only had about a 2,4% engagement rate
Need we say that engagement builds brand trustworthiness and authenticity? Surely not!
You’re probably wondering why exactly do audiences engage more with micro-influencers?
Three words – authenticity, relationships, and credibility. Let us explain a bit here:
- Authenticity – unlike big stars, small-scale influencers are usually full-time workers and do not rely on sponsored content for income. On occasion, such influencers do promote a brand; they make sure there’s a match of values on both sides, thus ensuring that their audiences will believe in such an endorsement. And if the audiences believe in an endorsement, they are likely to try the product themselves.
- Relationships – nobody likes talking to a wall, right? Well, micro-influencers care about their audiences and interact with them, which builds a relationship and increases engagement percentage. Everything works on a personal level here!
- Credibility – unsurprisingly, the best kind of advertising that audiences are likely to trust comes from people they trust. And this isn’t only to family members and friends, extending well into the digital world where consumer opinions reign supreme in influencing purchases. Now, if that consumer is actually a micro-influencer, the strategy pays off ten-fold!
So, here’s why you should think about pairing up with a micro-influencer
Micro-influencers create hyper-targeted content – remember when we talked about their niche topics and closely-knit communities of followers? This means that you can tailor your advertising in a highly-targeted, specific, and effective manner.
Second, engagement rates of sponsored content that’s published by a micro-influencer can be thirteen times higher (yes, thirteen times!) than that of a traditional digital advertisement and a significant four times higher than that of a celebrity influencer-led campaign. Enticing numbers, aren’t they?
And last but definitely not least, pairing up with a micro-influencer is quite a cost-efficient endeavor. You can choose to partner up with one of the creators without spending a heap of money or divide your budget among several, thus reaching even bigger portions of your target audiences.
And where to find these wonderful micro-influencers?
As with everything, you have a couple of choices here. You could scour social media until you find the exact right person to be the flagbearer of your campaign; you could hire a marketing agency to do the job for you (but we all know that it comes with costs that are through the roof), or you could just message us!
One of the top points of working with Agenic is that you don’t really have to search for influencers to match your brand values and your target audiences – we do it automatically. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?
What’s even cooler is that even if you choose five, ten, or fifteen influencers to work with, you don’t have to think about the dreaded babysitting. How? Well, with Agenic, all of the processes are automated, and you can reach your campaign’s data at any time with just a click.
The end note here would be this – aiming for the stars is always a good idea, but scaling down and choosing a micro-influencer over a celebrity might be just the right shortcut in your marketing strategy. And if you are still unsure if a social media influencer marketing campaign is the thing your business needs, write us a message and let’s talk!
