Here’s Everything You Need to Know about Micro-Influencers
Influencer marketing has become a popular way to promote a business. It simply involves building relationships with influential people, who then promote your brand to their followers on social media, their blog, on in their email newsletter. The newest form of influencer marketing involves building relationships with micro-influencers.
What is a Micro-Influencer?
Let’s start with what micro-influencers are not. They are not celebrities or people with hundreds of thousands of social media followers.
Instead, they are regular people (although they might have a blog) with a couple thousand followers.
Why Should I Work with Micro-Influencers?
If you choose to use influencer marketing to promote your business, you’ll have to decide whether you want to work with a huge influencer or a micro-influencer. We recommend choosing micro-influencers.
Don’t take our word for it? Check out these 5 reasons why you should choose micro-influencers:
1. They Attract a More Niche Group of Followers
Celebrities, like Selena Gomez and Kylie Jenner, attract anyone and everyone to their social media pages. So, a lot (probably most) of their followers won’t be your target market.
Micro-influencers, however, tend to attract a more defined group of followers. A fashion blogger who really only shares photos of them wearing athleisure will really only attract followers who are interest in athletic clothes and loungewear.
These niche groups of followers can work in your favor. You can find micro-influencers who connect with your target market, then work with them. For example, if you sell e-design services, work with home decor bloggers.
2. They’re More Authentic
A lot of times, celebrities aren’t running their own social media accounts. They have a team of professionals photographing them, writing their captions, responding to comments, etc. Everything they post is very carefully planned out.
Micro-influencers, however, are doing all that themselves. That means that their posts and interactions are authentic. So, when they promote your brand, the posts will be genuine and authentic (making more people want to buy).
3. They Get More Engagement on Each Post
It might seem like celebrities get more engagement because they have more likes and comments than micro-influencers. But, look closer. Micro-influencers don’t have as many followers, but the followers they have are more engaged.
What does that mean to you? It means that their followers are more likely to interact with a post and buy your product or service.
Not only that, but Instagram’s algorithm will work to your advantage here, too. If you regularly interact with someone on Instagram, their posts will show up at the top of your newsfeed. So, if a micro-influencer’s followers are regularly interacting with them and the micro-influencer posts about your company, their followers will see it quickly.
4. They Have Stronger Relationships with Their Followers
Because micro-influencers are running their own accounts, they’re the ones interacting with their followers. So, they know their followers pretty well and have gained their trust.
If a micro-influencer recommends a product, their followers are more likely to take that recommendation seriously and buy the product.
5. They’re Cheaper than Celebrities
This is a big one! You’re small, just starting out and don’t have a ton of money in your marketing budget. Of course, you want to stretch each dollar as much as you can, while still making a huge impact.
Celebrities and larger influencers cost a lot. For example, Kylie Jenner charges up to $400,000 for a single post on Instagram. Who could afford that??
Micro-influencers are a lot more affordable. Some of them might charge a couple hundred bucks, but others will post in exchange for free products. You could hire 10 micro-influencers and still be paying a lot less than you would for a celebrity.
How do I Pick a Micro-Influencer to Work With?
Are you convinced that you should be working with micro-influencers, but have no idea how to find ones that fit your brand’s image?
1. Look at Who’s Already Tagging You
People that are already tagging your business in their posts already know your brand and love it enough to share it (for free!). Capitalize on that by building a stronger relationship with them. If you hire them to post about you, their posts will be genuine and will fit right in with everything they’re already posting.
2. Look for People with Lots of Engagement
The number of followers a person has is important. When looking for a micro-influencer to work with, look for people with 1,000 to 10,000 followers.
But, don’t just look at that number.
Look out how engaged those followers are. How many likes are they getting on each post? How many comments? Engaged followers are more valuable than unengaged followers.
3. Don’t Forget to Check Out Who’s Following Them
After you’ve found a few micro-influencers that you might want to work with, look at who’s following them. Make sure their followers are your target audience. If they’re not, working with that micro-influencer won’t do you any good.
4. Get Familiar with Their Content
After you’ve narrowed down your list of potential micro-influencers, familiarize yourself with their content. Make sure that what they’re posting aligns with your company’s values. If it does, then anything they post about your products will seem very natural and authentic.
How Can I Include Micro-Influencers in My Marketing Strategy?
Have you chosen a few micro-influencers to start contacting, yet? Maybe you’re thinking about it but aren’t quite sure how to work with them.
There are several ways you can incorporate a micro-influencer (or two or three) into your marketing strategy – it all depends on what you want to accomplish. Do you want more followers? Do you want more sales? Do you just want more brand awareness?
Your goal will help you figure out the best way to work with micro-influencers.
1. Have Micro-Influencers Post on Their Own Accounts
This is probably the first strategy you thought of, right? It’s simple – the micro-influencer takes a picture that includes your project, writes a caption, chooses some hashtags, posts it to their account, and tags your company’s account.
Their followers will learn why their favorite [fashion blogger, workout enthusiast, etc.] likes your product and buy it themselves.
2. Do Account Takeovers
An account takeover is a great way to add new followers to your company’s account. Basically, the micro-influencer takes over your account for the day. Before they start, they share a post and/or story on their own account telling their followers to join them over at your account.
They’ll post pictures and share stories throughout the day as themselves. Their followers will love that they have a new avenue to connect with the micro-influencer, so they’ll start following your page, too.
3. Share Their Content on Your Blog
A lot of influencers and micro-influencers work on social media platforms – particularly Instagram because it’s visual and easy to connect with their followers on. But, that’s not the only way you can include micro-influencers in your marketing strategy.
Ask a micro-influencer if you can share some of their content on your blog (or vice versa). Then, both of you will share the post on your social media accounts. It will attract more people to your blog so you can build up your readership.
There are a lot of other ways to work with micro-influencers. How do you include them in your marketing strategies? Tell us in the comments below!