Have you ever been convinced by a celebrity to purchase a product? It’s okay if the answer is yes, we have all been there.
The term “influencer marketing” has been around for a few years now, and is much more than just a buzzword. 2017 saw an explosion of influencer marketing and every firm wanted to have an influencer marketing strategy, and the ones who failed to do so got left behind and tried to catch up in 2018. In 2019, influencer marketing showed some great jump.
2020 is here and influencer marketing is showing no sign of slowing down. But there has been a major change in the method in which brands approach influencer marketing. Once it was all about getting biggest names, now it is about assigning influencers with a smaller but highly engaged following.
In terms of numbers, celebrity influencers may look great with millions of followers on social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook, but in terms of conversion, they miss the mark. The reason may be that their followers may not be as engaged with the content they put out. This may lead to an inept marketing campaign. Also, partnering with celebrity influencers requires a huge initial investment, which generally leads to more than a few uncomfortable conversations about ROI. Here micro-influencer comes into the picture.
What is a Micro-Influencer?
Micro-influencers are smaller influencers who have ten thousand to one lakh followers. This means they are capable to engage regularly with their smaller but dedicated followings. They are way more important to businesses that are interested in actually selling their products as opposed to mass visibility. In fact, as per to HelloSociety, micro-influencers have a 60% higher campaign engagement rate than macro-influencers. In the majority of the cases, the engagement rate for influencers is highest at a couple of thousand and then starts to stagnate.
Where can you find micro-influencers?
Micro-influencers exist in every industry, but like every influencer marketing campaign, you must be careful about selecting the right ones. The best place to begin your search is your own social media accounts, as micro-influencers might already be following you or engaging with your posts. Also, there are various tools to help you discover influencers who are engaged with your industry or products similar to yours. It is important to find influencers who not only engage with products like yours but also have an audience that matches your target audience.
Keeping track of your interactions with influencers and managing your relationship carefully is essential. Generally, a spreadsheet doesn’t cut it. So, you have to choose a tool that gets job done and helps you in keeping track of your interactions.
Importance of Micro-Influencers Marketing
Using micro-influencer marketing may seem counterintuitive, which means why would you seek out someone with a lesser number of followers to promote your brand?
There are many reasons to believe micro-influencers may get better results for your brand.
Micro-influencers have better engagement rates
Markerly studied Instagram engagement and discovered a surprising trend, as the number of followers of an influencer increases, their number of likes and comments from followers decreases.
In its analysis, Markerly determined the following:
- Instagram users with less than 1,000 followers earned likes 8% of the time.
- Instagram users with 1,000-10,000 followers got likes at a 4% rate.
- Instagram users with 10,000-1,00,000 followers achieved likes at 2.4% rate.
- Instagram users with 1 million to 10 million followers generated likes at only 1.7% of the time.
Micro influencers have more targeted audiences
Markerly also noted that micro-influencers have a more targeted follower base than influencers with millions of followers.
For an instance, take a clothing brand, if it partnered with a celebrity with millions of followers on Instagram and Facebook, the celebrity could reach huge pool, but a last part of the audience might not be interested in fashion. Whereas, if the clothing brand gets connected with 100 fashion bloggers with over 1000 followers apiece, it would be able to connect to a smaller but more targeted and better-engaged audience.
Micro influencer marketing is more affordable
Micro influencers are more affordable than celebrities or profiles with millions of followers. Celebrities many times charge up to $7500 for a single Instagram post promoting a product. Whereas, 97% of micro-influencers on Instagram charge less than $500 for a promotional post. Granted, brands normally work with more than one-influencer to enhance their reach, but at these rates, even a hundred micro-influencers would cost less than a single celebrity on Instagram.
Micro-influencers are more authentic
Micro-influencers are real individuals so their content on Instagram is real too. Instagram users with a few thousand followers likely post contents on their own, reply to comments, and behave more authentically than a celebrity or a brand with a social media manager might. If a micro-influencer engages with promotional posts on Instagram, their followers may be more inclined to click to learn more about the brand they are posting about.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aashish Yadav
Content Writer, Martech Cube
Aashish is currently a Content writer at Martech Cube. He is an enthusiastic and avid writer. His key region of interests include covering different aspects of technology and mixing them up with layman ideologies to pan out an interesting take. His main area of interests range from medical journals to marketing arena.