What is the recent item you purchased? A pair of headphones? A Bluetooth speaker? A lipstick? Or maybe a pair of jeans. I am sure that you checked out at least a couple of reviews if not more.
This is an era of influencers. With the advent of YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and other social media websites, people started sharing their feedback on these platforms. Gradually, these people started to influence the purchase habit of their followers. Since they influence what we buy, these people are termed as influencers. There are different types of influencers. From macro to micro to nano influencers inspire us to make our purchase decisions.
What is micro influencer?
A few years back, people who had 3,000 followers were termed as micro influencers. However, the number of nano influencers has increased in the last few years. So, now the number of followers that you require to be a micro influencer is at least 10,000. While some people say that micro influencers should have 10K to 50K followers, some say that the number can be from 10K to 100K.
Whatever the number is, if you follow someone with a minimum of 10,000 followers’ base, you are following a micro influencer.
Where would you find micro influencers?
Now, this is a question that many of you may be thinking right now. We all know that social media platforms are used by influencers, be it macro or micro, to influence people. However, influencers who are famous on Instagram may not be as famous on YouTube. Similarly, Facebook influencers may not be as known on Pinterest.
So, first, you have to understand which medium is suitable for your business. If you think that your primary target audience is on Facebook, you can take help from Facebook micro influencers. Likewise, you can contact with Instagram influencer if IG is the platform for your business.
Once you know which platform to choose, you can now start your research. Like any other step that you take regarding your business, choosing the right micro influencer is also important for you. While the number of micro influencers is increasing, not each or any of them is suitable for your business. I suggest you to conduct a thorough research before you invest on any micro influencer.
You have to realize that each influencer has his/her own follower base. The target audience of the influencer should match the audience that you target. Besides, the influencers that you want to collaborate with should be associated with products or services similar to yours. You can’t really ask a beauty influencer to promote your ERP module, can you?
However, there are a few companies that have taken a different approach in influencer marketing. SprezzaBox Inc., Daniel Wellington, Adidas, etc. are brands that are targeting audiences in different spectrum as well. So, these brands are thinking outside of the box and involving influencers who are not directly related to these brands.
Image courtesy: https://bit.ly/2EnKQ2h
As you can see from the image above, SprezzaBox has collaborated with Candianbros. This Instagram page is owned by two dogs (Jasper and Louie) and their owner HuMan (Rodson). Whether your company is a well-known brand or not, you can still try this hack once in a while.
Why do you need micro influencers?
Influencer marketing has become popular because of the fact that it is much easier to influence the target audience in comparison to traditional advertising or promotions. As people trust the influencers they follow, they tend to purchase the items that these influencers recommend.
However, you may think of big names such as Kim Kardashian or Neil Patel or Usain Bolt depending on the product or service you want to promote. While these influencers do have a huge number of followers, they may not help you as much as you think.
Image courtesy: https://bit.ly/38JtFpG
On the contrary, micro influencers, with their less number of followers, can engage with more people and influence them. I assume that you are planning to collaborate with micro influencer(s). So, here are a few reasons that will explain why you need micro influencer instead of macro influencer.
Affordable options:
Whether you are a small brand or a big, you will have a budget fixed for promoting your brand. While big brands have enough budget to collaborate with macro influencers, small and medium companies may not have that budget. If you own a small or medium business, you may not be able to team up with celebrity influencers who have huge fan following.
Image courtesy: https://bit.ly/2POxGR7
In that case, you need an affordable option. You can collaborate with micro influencers for as small an amount as 100USD depending on the number of followers they have. If you identify the right influencers, you may end up spending nothing. You can simply work in partnership with the influencer with a contract of promoting each other on your respective social media platforms. This will help both the parties to increase the number of followers on their respective social media accounts.
Accessible:
While macro influencers may have a huge fan base, they do not really communicate with their followers regularly. However, micro influencers are more accessible to their followers. Micro influencers generally communicate by replying to comments, direct messages, and other ways. Their followers are also more likely to post a comment on their posts.
These influencers are not only accessible to their followers but also to the brands. You don’t have to go through PR to reach these influencers. The micro influencers generally handle their emails by themselves and you can directly reach them via their official email ID.
Relevant:
Many of the time, brands just team up with any celebrity to endorse their brands. The celebrity might not even be related to the company’s products or services. This approach used to work before. But now, consumers are more aware about what they are buying and who is being associated with the brand.
If you want to market a new fried product, you can’t really collaborate with a fitness influencer. You have to connect with someone who is associated with food, each and every form of it. So, a food blogger should be your ideal choice.
Similarly, when you are launching new beauty products, micro influencers in beauty industry are more relevant than any other influencer. Posting videos or photos or writing blogs is not all that matters. When the blogs are written by the right blogger or the videos are uploaded by the right influencer, people are more likely to get influenced.
Trustworthy:
There are two types of people that we follow on social media. We either follow celebrities or we follow influencers in particular niches. No matter which celebrity you follow, you will hardly get influenced by the products they recommend.
Image courtesy: https://bit.ly/2RV7K9d
In contrast, people are more likely to trust influencers who communicate with them on social media platforms. As most of the micro influencers use the products in front of the camera and provide a true feedback, they are more trustworthy.
The micro influencers are more trustworthy to you also than the celebrity macro influencers. Why? The simple answer is that the micro influencers have a follower base that they connect with on a regular basis. So, these influencers can create more engagement among their followers. More engagement means more people knowing your brand and trusting your brand because the influencers recommend it.
Influence:
What are influencers for? To influence, what else? However, recent survey shows that as the number of followers of an influencer increases, their impact on the followers reduces. Impact cannot be measured with the number of likes. But it should be measured with the increment in your sales figure.
Image courtesy: https://bit.ly/2rGpKcQ
A micro influencer may not have hundreds of thousands of followers. But the limited number of followers that they have is more likely to be impacted by what products or services they recommend.
Conclusion:
When you are trying to create an impact on the consumers, better do it rightly. If you are not sure about how to find out the micro influencer for your brand, you can start by researching on your target audience. Check out who they follow on their social media.
If you are just getting started with the process, it can be intimidating, maybe even appear to be impossible. However, let me assure you that it is not. You have to invest a little time of yours before you invest on any micro influencer and success is yours.
You may not be accustomed with the fact that you can use influencer marketing. Hence, we are here to help you out. Nico Digital is a full service digital marketing agency that takes care of all your digital marketing needs so that you can focus on growing your business.
