I lately bought an lovable cable-knit sweater on TikTok Store merely as a result of I noticed an influencer post about it.
The pull influencers of all followings have on social media customers right this moment is powerful.
In spite of everything, 63% of consumers will possible purchase merchandise promoted by an influencer they belief.
In my position at Nickelodeon, I work in worldwide influencer advertising, so I understand how essential an influencer technique is to manufacturers of all sizes.
Nonetheless, we don’t at all times have the funds to rent the most important influencers within the sport. Enter micro-influencers.
On this information, I’ll inform you every part you could learn about micro-influencers, together with manufacturers which can be utilizing them efficiently and how one can join with these people to advertise your model.
Desk of Contents
What’s a micro-influencer?
Micro-influencers are social media content material creators with a median of 10,000 to 100,000 followers who sometimes publish about area of interest matters. Manufacturers accomplice with these people on social media to advertise merchandise with genuine, visible posts as an alternative of sponsored adverts. Whereas they could have a smaller viewers than bigger influencers, their audiences might be extra engaged.
Micro-influencers are social media customers, not like typical celebrities, consultants, or public figures. They’re people who work or focus on a specific vertical and continuously share social media content material about their pursuits.
In contrast to conventional “influencers,” micro-influencers have a extra modest variety of followers, however they boast of hyper-engaged audiences.
What’s influencer advertising?
When brands partner with influencers, they can leverage the established trust amongst the influencer’s audience. Consumers are more likely to buy from someone they know, so influencers are extremely effective when it comes to strategies like word-of-mouth marketing or increasing social proof.
Brands often pay influencers to either post content featuring their products or sponsor their events, capturing the influencers’ large reach. However, organic content can also be achieved with some influencers if you establish a barter deal that doesn’t involve monetary payment.
Types of Influencers
Influencers are generally categorized into four groups based on their number of followers.
Nano-influencers
1,000 to 10,000 followers
Often, they’re regular people who have recently developed a higher following.
They are still on the smaller end and may not have the reach a brand is looking for, but their followers are dedicated and engaged in the influencer’s niche, authentic content.
Micro-influencers
10,000 to 100,000 followers
They are stronger than nano-influencers in terms of following while still maintaining a highly engaged audience.
Their content may still be niche, but they may be more likely to branch out to try new concepts and work on targeted marketing campaigns.
Macro-influencers
100,000 to 1,000,000 followers
These influencers are likely well-known by social media users and brands and may already receive several brand partnership requests.
While they have greater reach than nano- and micro-influencers, their content may have less engagement and personalization.
Mega-influencers
More than 1,000,000 followers
They are likely celebrities or massive personalities with huge fees to work with.
While an endorsement from one of these influencers would be huge for a brand, it may not be as worthwhile if they’re promoting many other brands or if their content is overall less genuine.
I think micro-influencers can be the perfect middle ground for brands beginning their influencer marketing strategy. Since they have smaller followings, their fees may be lower and availability greater. However, they still have a larger reach than nano-influencers, making micro-influencer marketing a powerful option.
The Value of Micro-Influencers
A micro-influencer marketing strategy may seem counterintuitive. Why would I seek out someone with a smaller following to promote my brand? Take a look at the following list of reasons micro-influencers might get better results.
Micro-influencers have better engagement rates.
In my experience, the number of followers doesn’t always equate to how well content resonates with those followers.
A great way to track how engaging an influencer’s content is by the number of likes, comments, shares, and saves it receives. This shows that users are going out of their way to interact with the influencer and the post.
Micro-influencers can produce up to 60% more engagement than different varieties of influencers.
For example, the average engagement rate on TikTok for micro-influencers ranges from 8.37% to 17.96%, in comparison with simply 4.96% for mega-influencers.
Micro-influencers have extra focused audiences.
Sometimes, micro-influencers have extra focused audiences since their content material is extra area of interest. Individuals observe them not as a result of they’re a preferred identify however as a result of they’re tuned into the influencer’s content material or model.
If I’m a style model constructing my influencer technique, I can both accomplice with one mega-influencer or a number of micro-influencers. A mega-influencer with 1 million followers has an average engagement rate of 1.21%. That’s roughly 12,100 engagements per publish.
Nonetheless, since mega-influencers have such broad audiences, these 12,100 engagements are possible not all from followers considering style.
Now, if I accomplice with seven style micro-influencers with 50,000 followers every and an average engagement rate of 3.86%, that’s a complete of 13,510 engagements.
This technique ends in extra engagements and targets followers considering style who usually tend to turn into consumers.
Micro-influencers are extra inexpensive.
The very best-paid mega-influencer on this planet is Cristiano Ronaldo, who makes a whopping $3.2 million per sponsored post. I’d say most manufacturers can’t afford such a staggering value for a single publish with an influencer.
Micro-influencers are sometimes way more inexpensive. Their charges can vary from $100 to $1,000 per post, which might help manufacturers afford a breadth of content material spanning a whole marketing campaign, reasonably than a single publish.
To do some extra math, you’d must work with 6,400 micro-influencers at a charge of $500 per publish to achieve the price of one sponsored publish with Ronaldo. Whereas Ronaldo is clearly an outlier, it’s lesson on how manufacturers can higher allocate their funds.
At Nickelodeon, we generally even work with micro-influencers freed from cost as a part of a barter deal. For example, we are going to produce a customized press mailer selling a brand new sequence and ship it to the influencer, who will publish in regards to the mailer in alternate for protecting the superior new merchandise.
Micro-influencers are extra genuine.
Micro-influencers are actual folks, so their Instagram content material is actual, too.
Instagram customers with a number of thousand followers possible publish their very own content material, reply to feedback, and behave extra authentically than a model or a celeb with a social media supervisor may.
If a micro-influencer creates a promotional publish on Instagram, their followers may be extra inclined to click on to study extra in regards to the model they’re posting about.
Instagram’s algorithm additionally prioritizes posts in customers’ feeds from profiles they observe and work together with, in addition to genuine, high quality content material. Meaning content material from micro-influencers might be proven greater than that of mega-influencers since their content material is taken into account extra sincere.
TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes content material that’s various and attention-grabbing and doesn’t essentially prioritize content material from creators with greater followings. Due to this fact, micro-influencers nonetheless have the prospect to be seen extra continuously in a person’s FYP (For You web page).
Now that I’ve efficiently satisfied you of the worth of micro-influencer advertising, learn on for a information to discovering micro-influencers to work with.
The best way to Discover Micro-Influencers
1. Use influencer discovery instruments.
That is my most popular technique of discovering influencers. Many influencer discovery tools, such as Traackr and Tagger by Sprout Social, were built with capabilities for this exact purpose.
On the homepage of most influencer marketing tool websites, you will see a button to Request Demo. This allows you to schedule a live demo with a specialist to test if the tool has all the capabilities you need.
The suitable influencer advertising instrument ought to have discovery capabilities. It is a dashboard that means that you can seek for influencers throughout the instrument’s database.
For example, I can use a instrument’s Discovery dashboard to find style micro-influencers. I’d filter for influencers with 10K to 100K followers.
Then, I’d add different filters, similar to “Vogue” for the class or matter and “English” for the language. I may also filter for the influencer’s age, viewers, common engagement charge, and most popular social media platforms.
When receiving demos, be sure that the influencer discovery course of is as seamless as potential. The instrument also needs to supply all the data and metrics you could know in regards to the influencers, similar to model affinity, key phrases, common charges, and get in touch with info.
2. Use the search function on social media platforms.
One other nice choice for manufacturers beginning out who could also be cautious of investing in an influencer administration instrument is discovering influencers the place they’re: social media.
I exploit this technique usually because it’s fast and natural. Quite than coming into a number of info and filters, I can merely scroll by means of numerous accounts and see who resonates.
On Instagram, I can seek for a subject I’m considering. For instance, I searched “style model.” Then, I toggled over to Accounts, so I solely acquired outcomes of profiles associated to this matter, reasonably than precise posts or places.
The primary a number of outcomes are often huge, dear personalities and publications, so I scrolled down for a bit till I began viewing influencers with followers within the micro-influencer vary.
The above screenshot reveals an account with 66.2K followers.
Subsequent, I clicked on accounts that me, similar to @just_trish_style, and seen their profiles. This offers me a good suggestion of the varieties of content material they publish, in addition to any model partnerships they’ve lately carried out. This info will assist me determine if the influencers are match.
If I’d like to achieve out to an influencer I found on social media, I can first verify their bio. Many influencers share an e mail for his or her administration straight of their bio, as seen within the instance above. If there isn’t an e mail listed, I can ship a direct message and categorical my curiosity in working with them.
An identical tactic entails trying to find hashtags reasonably than key phrases. Use the identical search bar and sort in a related hashtag. For example, I searched #nycfashion within the Tags tab and obtained dozens of outcomes for associated hashtags.
I need to keep away from any hashtags with thousands and thousands or tons of of 1000’s of posts as it will make it tougher to sift by means of the gang of each influencers and common customers utilizing these hashtags.
So, I scrolled down till I discovered #nycfashioninfluencer which had 1,000+ posts. I clicked on the hashtag, which robotically looked for it within the For you tab.
I clicked on a publish that me, which navigated me to that influencer’s profile.
The account has 49.1K followers, so it falls within the micro-influencer vary. I like the remainder of @bria__bryant’s profile, so I can then attain out to the e-mail listed in her bio.
3. See who related manufacturers are partnering with.
Another choice that additionally entails utilizing social media is testing the competitors. Whilst you possible don’t need to rent the identical influencers rivals use, it’s useful to get a way of the varieties of influencers which have labored for related manufacturers.
Most manufacturers will both incorporate the influencer straight right into a publish on their profile or create a collab publish with an influencer. In any other case, they could have re-shared an influencer’s publish onto their Story or in-feed. Regardless, it’s best to be capable to view a few of their influencer content material on their account.
Get began by trying to find associated model accounts on Instagram. For example, if I work for a ladies’s style model, I can seek for Lisa Says Gah, a woman-run, moral, impartial boutique. Scrolling by means of their profile, I found a publish through which the model tagged numerous micro-influencers modeling its clothes.
I just like the vibe of @vivianyrl, so I navigated to her profile. Right here, I clicked the Observe button. Instagram then auto-populates a row of Steered for you accounts. These are profiles much like or adopted by the account I simply adopted.
I made a decision to take a look at @aishafarida’s profile. Right here, I can see that she’s additionally a micro-influencer with 25.7K followers.
I just like the varieties of posts Aïsha posts, that are fashion-forward and aesthetically-curated. For one final verify, I clicked on a few of the posts in her photograph gallery to see if she sometimes tags manufacturers.
I can see that in most of Aïsha’s posts, she tags clothes and jewellery manufacturers, which is an efficient signal. It reveals that, if I have been to work with Aïsha, it might be in her common social media model to tag and showcase my style model.
I can now attain out to Aïsha through the contact e mail listed in her Instagram bio and see if a partnership is feasible.
4. Use a search engine.
If conducting this investigative work on social media feels daunting, worry not! You are able to do very related analysis on a search engine.
Seek for the sort of influencer you’re in search of. For instance, I searched “style model micro-influencers” on Google and acquired a number of outcomes surrounding my search question.
Upon clicking this link, I scrolled by means of the checklist of 10 choices. Since this text is from February 2023, a few of the influencers have grown in dimension and are now not micro-influencers. Nonetheless, I found a number of nice choices for fashion-niche micro-influencers, similar to @heyimlindz.
I appreciated the sound of her model, so I navigated to her Instagram account. I desire scrolling on social media on my cellphone reasonably than on my laptop computer, so I manually searched her account there. Nonetheless, many articles like this have direct hyperlinks to social media profiles, which saves time.
Lindsey’s profile matches the persona of my style model and has 31K followers, falling within the micro-influencer vary. I then checked out a few of her posts as I did for Aisha’s Instagram.
I can see that Lindsey tags style manufacturers and promotes their merchandise straight.
She additionally mentions distinctive store low cost codes for her followers. That is somebody I’d be considering working with to get the phrase out about my model, so I can attain out to the e-mail in her bio or DM her.
I can observe this identical course of on a search engine to search out different related micro-influencers. If the search outcomes don’t prove satisfactorily or the outcomes are too broad, take a look at out completely different key phrases. I counsel utilizing key phrases that greatest characterize your model.
For example, if I needed to be extra particular, I might strive “moral style model micro-influencers” if that worth is essential to my model.
Or if we’re an NYC-based firm trying to work with native influencers, I might search “nyc style micro-influencers.”
5. Rent an influencer advertising company.
I get it — we don’t at all times have the time to do the boots-on-the-ground work. You could have a whole enterprise to run and may’t constantly spend time doing meticulous analysis and outreach to dozens or tons of of micro-influencers.
On this case, it’s sensible to rent an company to deal with the legwork. A number of influencer marketing agencies focus on numerous points of an influencer marketing campaign, together with outreach, contracts, marketing campaign monitoring, and funds.
When researching companies, remember the next elements:
- Fee. How do their charges examine to rivals? Do they tackle an annual retainer or cost per marketing campaign?
- Influencer Database. What number of influencers have they got entry to? Do they solely deal with home influencers, or can they entry influencers globally? Can they uncover influencers with as few as 10K followers, or is there the next follower minimal to filter into their system?
- Purchasers. Have they labored with shoppers in your trade earlier than? Have they got metrics to share on previous marketing campaign efficiency?
As soon as you discover the best company, they need to be capable to deal with the complete influencer discovery and outreach course of for you, as long as you transient them on the marketing campaign abstract and targets.
Now that you know the way to search out the best micro-influencers, I’ll stroll you thru easy methods to work with these micro-influencers to make sure significant, efficient campaigns.
The best way to Work With Micro-Influencers
1. Create an influencer transient for the marketing campaign.
Like with any marketing campaign, one of the simplest ways to start out is with a short. It is a doc that explains the marketing campaign abstract and targets to the influencer.
I often wish to maintain this doc as transient and easy as potential — in spite of everything, we don’t need to bore or overwhelm influencers with detailed jargon.
If potential, maintain the transient to a single web page and embody the next:
- Marketing campaign identify
- Marketing campaign abstract
- Objectives
- Messaging necessities
- Audience
- Deliverables
- Timeline
For instance:
Marketing campaign identify: Black Friday Sale
Marketing campaign abstract: [Fashion brand] is having an enormous Black Friday sale this 12 months, and we want your assist to get the phrase out! We are going to ship you a group of curated items you could model in your social media in your individual distinctive method. Present your viewers that now’s the time to deal with themselves to moral style good for a enterprise lunch, household dinner, women’ night time out, and every part in between.
Objectives:
- Drive folks to our web site to make a brand new buy.
- Develop consciousness of our model and followers of our social media.
- Present your followers that we’re the new new model for younger, fashionable ladies.
Messaging necessities:
- Use my code [NAME]10 for a further 10% off your order!
- All garments, footwear, and equipment can be/are 30% off!
- Observe [brand handle].
Audience:
- Gen Z and younger Millennials (ages 15-35).
- Females or anybody who appreciates female clothes.
Deliverables:
- 1 long-form Reel/TikTok.
- 2 short-form movies or static Tales.
Timeline:
- Ideas due: November 1.
- First drafts due: November 8.
- Closing edited variations due: November 15.
- Story 1 publish: Week of November 18.
- Reel/TikTok publish: Week of November 25.
- Story 2 publish: November 29 (day of).
This transient reveals the influencer that I’m taking their work significantly whereas giving them the data and instruments they have to be profitable.
I attempt to share the transient not less than one week earlier than the primary due date to supply the influencer with ample time to evaluate and ask questions.
2. Encourage micro-influencers to make use of their very own model and voice.
Whereas the transient is essential to information the sorts of posts the micro-influencer will publish, it’s additionally essential to present them some artistic liberty. In spite of everything, I chosen them for a motive — and that motive is that I already take pleasure in their content material.
I let the influencer know I need them to stay genuine to their model and magnificence whereas nonetheless following the transient. In my expertise, this results in a robust, trusting partnership, which ends up in high-quality posts that replicate each the model and the influencer.
3. Overview the proposed content material earlier than finalizing.
Whereas I already included this within the transient, I can’t emphasize this sufficient: At all times evaluate the influencer’s content material and supply suggestions earlier than finalization.
I initially anxious this may take away the artistic freedom and authenticity I simply talked about. Nonetheless, a model’s authenticity is equally as essential as that of the micro-influencer. Even armed with a short, the influencer received’t essentially know the way greatest to seize a model’s voice in its content material.
Because the professional in your model, it’s best to at all times be the ultimate eyes on the content material to make sure it’s acceptable, will get the proper message throughout, and is in keeping with your company values.
4. Decide how the brand will get involved with the micro-influencer.
Once you’ve successfully secured a micro-influencer partnership, it’s important to plan how best to interact with the influencer’s social post to grow your brand’s social media presence. Ride the coattails of the influencer’s platform and use it to your advantage.
Brands can participate in the influencer’s post beyond just liking it. Take a look at @melissasonico’s sponsored publish under.
The model @mate_the_label commented on the publish to interact. This helps enhance model visibility with Melissa’s followers and may encourage them to observe the model, too.
Manufacturers may also ask to publish a collaboration publish with the influencer. An Instagram collab publish is co-created by a number of accounts and seems on all their feeds.
One person creates the publish and invitations others to collaborate. All collaborators’ usernames seem on the prime of the publish, as seen within the under collab publish between @michelledugor and @vespucciconsignment.
Manufacturers may also publish the influencer’s content material straight onto their very own profile and tag them to present credit score, as seen under in @girlfriend’s publish that includes @alissa.iris.
Manufacturers may also re-share an influencer’s publish onto their Story, like @womensbest did with micro-influencer @exercisingwitheleanor’s Reel.
There are many methods to interact with an influencer’s publish, so work with the influencer to determine which choice works greatest for you each.
5. Ask for suggestions.
On the finish of the marketing campaign, I naturally observe the outcomes utilizing my firm’s most popular analytics and influencer advertising instruments. Whereas these marketing campaign outcomes are crucial, so is the connection with the micro-influencer.
That’s why I like to recommend asking them for suggestions on the marketing campaign’s completion.
What labored properly, and what didn’t? Did the content material and messaging really feel genuine to their social media presence? Did they obtain constructive sentiment from the partnership? What would the influencer change in the event that they have been to work together with your model once more?
These learnings can be important if you wish to accomplice with the identical influencer once more, however they’re additionally essential for different future influencer partnerships. Conserving the influencer’s area of interest and model on the forefront of the marketing campaign will guarantee favorable, profitable, and painless collaborations.
Now that you simply’re armed with the guidelines and methods to deal with these micro-influencer partnerships, learn on for examples of actual manufacturers already utilizing these processes efficiently.
4 Manufacturers Utilizing Micro-Influencers Efficiently
1. Mejuri
Mejuri is a luxurious, on a regular basis jewellery model that prioritizes creating high-quality, sustainable merchandise.
A giant a part of the model is displaying that nice jewellery can nonetheless be accessible and relatable. Due to this fact, it is sensible that Mejuri companions with micro-influencers who can construct off of that message of authenticity and relatability.
Mejuri works with micro-influencers to showcase its merchandise worn in on a regular basis settings by actual people.
I like two latest posts the model did with @cheftarathomas which present the micro-influencer carrying her favourite items whereas in her pure factor.
It is a good instance of how micro-influencers can enhance a model marketing campaign. With 18.1K followers, Tara has some attain but additionally the belief and loyalty of her few however mighty followers. Her inclusion on this marketing campaign brings emotion, relatability, and credibility to Mejuri’s model and merchandise.
A number of of Mejuri’s posts function micro-influencers. Some, like Tara, might appear to be an unconventional alternative, however this unconventionality is what works so properly. Mejuri positions itself as greater than only a style and beauty-adjacent model — it’s a way of life model for everybody.
2. LaCroix Glowing Water
LaCroix Glowing Water makes use of micro-influencers to advertise its model in a aggressive market. The model’s social media presence is vibrant, colourful, and effervescent — identical to its iconic glowing water packaging.
LaCroix identifies micro-influencers on Instagram and asks them to share product consciousness posts. It finds micro-influencers by looking out branded hashtags, similar to #LiveLaCroix, and when customers tag the model on Instagram, as seen in @rachelmuse’s publish under.
The model feedback and asks to repost the posts or supply product vouchers in alternate.
Whereas LaCroix works with personalities as huge as Katie Ledecky, it additionally targets profiles with decrease follower counts to take care of a sense of genuine “realness” that appeals to millennial and Gen Z Instagram customers.
LaCroix additionally deeply understands its model and finds micro-influencers who match its vibrant, energetic, optimistic tone, like @kaylakane.
By tapping into smaller, extra focused networks of micro-influencers, LaCroix cultivates an genuine, enjoyable social media presence and ensures its product is in entrance of the eyes of comparable customers.
You probably have a bodily product that appears nice on digital camera (like an eye-popping can of LaCroix), strive participating with micro-influencers by sending free merchandise for Instagram promotions.
3. ASOS
Vogue and cosmetics retailer ASOS collaborates with micro-influencers on Instagram to showcase new merchandise. ASOS’s social media presence is fashionable, moody, and aspirational, and the model effortlessly incorporates micro-influencers with related vibes, as seen on this instance with @hannahkennie.
What I recognize about ASOS’s technique is that the micro-influencers chosen are indistinguishable from ASOS’s precise fashions.
This reveals precision within the influencer choice course of and a dedication to defending and representing the model.
Past this, in February 2024, ASOS relaunched its ASOS Insiders program, which had been discontinued in 2020 throughout the pandemic. This system consists of 36 staff throughout numerous departments who have been chosen as model influencers.
These ambassadors curate style picks, present model inspiration, and are featured faces on ASOS’s social channels.
The style-forward staff got new social handles with which they offered insider views on the model.
Whereas these staff, like @asseenonmini, are nonetheless rising their new accounts, they sometimes fall within the nano- or micro-influencer vary on their private socials.
ASOS prioritizes amplifying existing content, in addition to creating new content material.
This ties into its technique of constructing real connections with clients — ASOS capitalizes on the belief and engagement micro-influencers have constructed with their audiences and makes use of it to amplify model messaging and not using a want for fixed content material creation.
4. Samsung
Samsung has tapped into the facility of micro-influencers for a number of campaigns to advertise completely different merchandise, from smartphones to sensible TVs, in addition to a lifestyle. Most influencers are chosen from particular niches associated to the Samsung model, together with tech, images, gaming, music, and basic way of life.
I like how Samsung reveals actual folks utilizing its merchandise in actual methods. For example, the model showcased award-winning artist influencer @aerosynlex creating all new artworks dwell, alongside a showcase of Samsung Body TVs, which transforms TVs into artworks.
The partnership makes complete sense and allowed Aerosyn-Lex to stay genuine to his model and craft whereas benefiting from Samsung’s platform and the chance to take part on this planet’s largest electronics present.
Equally, journey and way of life micro-influencer @lauramourinhobelbut captured her summer time journey reminiscences on a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 cellphone. Once more, the content material was trustworthy to her typical model and effortlessly integrated the model’s new product.
Assume Micro
There may be usually pushback from management to drag within the largest influencers within the sport, however I hope this publish highlights the worth of micro-influencer advertising.
Success on social media doesn’t at all times imply accessing essentially the most potential folks with every publish. It’s about focusing on the best folks in the best method.
The secret is selecting micro-influencers whose niches align together with your model’s area of interest and trusting them to create content material that authentically conveys the message.
There’s additionally the bonus that choosing an influencer with a smaller viewers might imply they’re loyal to your model in a method that higher-profile influencers aren’t assured to be.
You may really feel assured that the influencer will possible work with you on a number of campaigns and received’t instantly be snatched up by a competitor.
My largest piece of recommendation is to be open to micro-influencers who uncover you, together with these you hunt down. Look out for social media customers tagging your model or utilizing branded hashtags, as they could simply turn into your subsequent huge ambassador.
Editor’s notice: This publish was initially revealed in March 2017 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.
