It’s no surprise that the influencer market has seen a rise in popularity as social media usage increases every year. This is also due to the increased need for online shopping following the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, a recent survey suggests that 51% of consumers have purchased a product or service, as a direct result of seeing it promoted by an influencer.
Micro Influencers are dominating the industry. People will often choose their recommendations over celebrity recommendations. Let’s take a closer look at how micro influencers can be a great fit for your brand.
Where they fit in the influencer tiers
They are often divided into five levels according to how many followers they have. There are many factors that affect the followers of influencers. Changes in engagement rates, cost and audience type are evident between tiers.
* Nano influencers typically have 1k-5k followers.
* Micro influencers are those with between 5k and 50k followers.
Medium influencers typically have 50k-100k followers.
* Most Macro influencers have 100k-1M followers.
* Over 1M people follow mega influencers.
What are their strengths?
As we mentioned, the number of followers you have changes as you move up the tiers. Because they offer all the tiers of influence without being limited in any way, micro influencers have been the most successful in recent years. Mega influencers can have huge reach, but they are expensive and have low engagement rates. You can also work with nano influencers, which are less expensive but may not have the experience you need. Let’s now look at the advantages of working directly with micro influencers.
Engagement rates
If you look at engagement rate, nano influencers rank highest. However, to get high engagement and reach even more people? Micro influencers are a great option. While their engagement rates might be lower than nano’s, they still enjoy great interaction with their followers. This is because they have a greater reach which allows your product to be seen by a larger audience. People still value the opinion of influencers.
Cost
Incentives are affordable with great results. Micro Influencers are the best middle ground. Higher payments will be due as you progress up the influencer ranks, including fees for managers for professional, full-time influencers. However, micro influencers are not expected to have managers because they are still moving up the ranks of their career.
A micro influencer can often be hired to promote your product for an incentive. This depends on the product’s perceived value. The fashion industry is an example of how micro influencers can be used to their advantage. Many start-up fashion companies have discovered this method of marketing to work wonders, so if this applies to you, then check out this guide to using influencer marketing for fashion brands.
Niche Audiences
Working with micro influencers has many other benefits. The hardest part of finding influencers is sourcing them without help. So, we would recommend using an influencer marketing platform to find influencers, whilst being able to analyze their followers.
Brands can take advantage of micro-influencers with expertise in a particular area and an audience that is representative of a niche community. Accessing data on an influencer’s followers will allow you to see not only their age, gender, or location but also their interests. Celebrities and mega influencers have many followers with different interests. However, micro influencers are able to target a particular market because of their experience and knowledge in the area. By narrowing your audience, you can find influencers who have followers that match your criteria.
Here are some things to keep an eye on
There are some things you need to be on the lookout for, as with all influencers. Micro influencers are in the spotlight, and we’ve seen numerous accounts with fake followings, hoping to increase their status. This is another way that an influencer marketing platform could help you out, by analyzing Instagram influencers‘ profiles and providing you with audience authenticity data.
The most genuine influencers’ followers growth is a gradual increase over time. This means that if an account shows a sharp rise or decrease in followers, it is possible that there is something more. Here’s an example to show how healthy followinger growth looks:
It is also important to keep track of the comments and likes ratios. A platform like Heepsy will allow you to evaluate the influencer’s engagement rate against an average for their account size.
However, you should ask yourself these questions if you are doing your own investigation.
Do they have a different number of likes across posts?
Do they have very few posts to reach a large number of followers?
Are they getting few likes for the number of followers?
Are they very active in comments?
This will allow you to see if the influencer bought followers, likes, comments, etc. Fake influencers can be frustrating, but the amount of genuine ones that can help your brand is far more important than this.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that influencer marketing is worth the time and money. Micro influencers may be the best choice for your brand. They are definitely the most popular at the moment, and with that in mind, check out our Influencer Marketing Guide to find plenty more information on them, and every other type of influencer too!
