What are Micro-influencers and Why Do They Matter?
What are Micro-influencers and Why Do They Matter?
Micro-influencers are content creators having with less than 100K followers on a particular social media channel. These creators usually share content on topics they are passionate about. These include niche topics like travel, beauty, fitness, photography etc. and built a community around their content.
The most familiar influencer marketing campaign is when brands collaborate with famous influencers posting sponsored content. Instagram is the most preferred platform to build and engage with their followers. This is because of its content-driven formats and excellent discoverability.
Micro-influencers work well for straightforward campaigns and they provide excellent one on one engagement with their followers. Micro influencers enable brands to reach to small and active audiences. This is in stark contrast with macro-influencers who provide a wide reach for incredible brand awareness.
In order to reach large audiences, brands have to work with multiple micro-influencers due to their individual reach being significantly lower than macro-influencers. This usually means a lot of extra work and a higher probability of mistakes in a campaign.
Influencer marketing campaigns have many nuances that need to be kept in mind to ensure flawless execution. In order to achieve success and scalability with micro-influencers, it is prudent to work with an influencer marketing agency adept at managing influencers.
Why Work with Micro-influencers?
Higher Engagement: Micro-influencers have a small but engaged community of followers. This results in higher engagement rates even if the overall numbers don’t match up to large influencers. Micro-influencers have an average engagement rate that is higher than the industry standard of 2%.
Cost-effective: Micro-influencers can be great for small businesses operating on a small budget. Micro-influencers charge a relatively small amount for campaigns and brand see higher ROI than a campaign with top-tier influencers.
Targeting a Niche: Micro-influencers come from all sorts of niches where they have built an engaged audience around a niche they are passionate about. They share relevant content, personal recommendations and thoughts that their audience is interested in.
Challenges with Micro-influencers
There are obvious challenges that arise when dealing with micro-influencers. The reach and impressions of a micro-influencer campaign are less. This results in lower brand awareness as compared to a macro-influencer campaign. As a brand, you need to work with a pool of micro-influencers to get the same results. This sprouts another challenge of managing these influencers from their contracts to their content approvals. This certainly increases the complexity of the campaign leading to communication delays. However, if all aspects are taken care of, such influencer marketing campaigns can be very effective. It is a good idea to partner with an influencer marketing agency. They can assist the brand with influencer management and ensure flawless execution of campaigns.
Influencer vetting is an important aspect of influencer marketing campaigns to avoid complications. Brands need to consider the following points when deciding which micro-influencers to onboard for their campaign:
- Reputation: Brands need to be aware of an influencer’s history and look for any controversial episodes or past mishaps to ensure brand safety. Also, collaborations with competitors could be a point of contention and therefore worth considering.
- Consistency: Fake followers are plaguing the influencer marketing industry. Influencers buy followers to inflate their value causing brands to overpay for their services. It is important to work with influencers who have built their following organically.
There are many nuances to bear in mind when collaborating with micro-influencers. It is one of the many solutions to a brand’s marketing requirements. Understanding the merits and demerits of working with micro-influencers is key to the success of influencer marketing campaigns.