What is Micro-Influencer Marketing?
Micro-Influencer Marketing is the part of influencer marketing where brands and businesses leverage the power of social media personalities in order to promote their products and services. As compared to other influencer marketing, Micro-Influencer marketing is a relatively new concept and it works on a much smaller scale giving maximum output.
Micro-Influencers are the individuals who have the number of followers, ranging between 10,000-1,000,000. These influencers work or specialize in a particular niche and industry. Micro-Influencers develop a strong relationship with their audience. Brands partner with these individuals to promote their products to a healthy community.
One of the most common Social Media platforms where Micro-Influencer marketing is seeing a booming increase is Instagram. There are certain industry-specific micro-influencers like the food blogger, traveler, a local fashionista, fitness guru, etc.
Why Micro-Influencer Marketing is better?
As compared to the Micro-Influencers, Macro-Influencers and Celebrities are the people with thousands or even millions of followers. These Individuals partner with brands and promote products to a wide scale of audience.
While Micro-Influencer marketing works on a much smaller scale but it has proved to be beneficial in generating higher conversions and leads. Around 80% of the users surveyed, said that they prefer buying something a Micro-Influencer recommends.
Statistics also highlights that as the number of followers increases for any social media account, the engagement rate drops. Figures show:
- Below 1000 followers- generate 8% of engagement.
- 1000-10000 followers- generate 4% of engagement
- 10,000-1,000,000 followers- generate 2.4% of engagement
- 1-10 million-, generate 1.7% of engagement.
Micro-Influencers provides the edge over Celebrity endorsement as with the less amount of followers these influencers have a better chance of engaging and having a conversation with their audience.
Micro-Influencers provide the true value of the campaign as they operate on the basis of trust and any false promotion always carries the risk of losing the follower’s trust.
Advantages of Micro-Influencer Marketing.
Micro-Influencers are passionate and knowledgeable about their particular field and by partnering with these individuals to promote their brand, businesses can leverage numerous advantages like:-
- Higher Engagement- Choosing engagement over the reach is the new success formula that many international brands are now using to scale their marketing campaigns. Though Micro-Influencers have a more moderate number of followers they provide a higher amount of engagement. With the help of Micro-Influencers, businesses can target a more specific and engaged community.
- Targeted Audience– Celebrities and Macro-Influencers have a huge following base but not all would be interested in any specific product. Whereas Micro-Influencers are based on a particular niche and by targeting the right influencer, businesses can promote their products to the right audience and can draw higher leads and conversions.
- Cost-effective – As compared to the Celebrities and famous personalities, micro-influencers charge fewer fees and generate high ROI. Brands can also reach multiple Micro-Influencers to promote their products in a limited budget.
- Humanize your brand– Micro-Influencers are the famous individuals who have a high following on social media handles. They have a community around them which recognizes them and their work. By partnering with these influencers, businesses can establish a human face behind their brand. This helps in developing a more connected relationship with the audience.
- Bring Brand’s existence on to Social Media– Brands that are new in the market and have not started their marketing campaigns can do so by opting for the Micro-Influencers. These influencers can aware the community around them of your brand and can help drive first leads and sales.
How to find the Right Micro-Influencers?
Micro-Influencers field is dynamic and there are millions of Influencers working in different niche and industry. However, to find the best Micro-Influencers for your brand promotion, there are certain factors to take into account like:-
- Relevance– Before finalizing any Micro-Influencers to do the promotion of your brand, it is necessary to look at whether that Influencers works in your specific niche or not. Relevance is a key factor and selecting the irrelevant Influencer will lead to loss of time and money.
- Engagement– Look for the influencer which draws more engagement amongst its community. Engagement is often calculated by dividing the number of likes and comments any post received by the number of followers an account has.
- Reach– Once, you have finalized the relevance and engagement, it’s time to look for the maximum reach any Micro-Influencer can provide. Reaching the maximum number of people and drawing higher engagement within that should be the goal of the influencer marketing campaign.
- Look for the hashtags and Keywords– One of the best strategies of finding the right influencer is to type the relevant brand Keywords and Hashtags into the explore field. Look for the individuals that already mention your brand name and also the ones who promote similar types of products.
Conclusion
Influencer Marketing saw an exponential increase in the year 2017. Since then it is continuously growing and it’s expected to reach new heights in the coming years. Working with influencers and micro-influencers provides a great marketing option for brands and businesses. Micro-Influencer Marketing requires less investment and offers higher engagement and ROI as compared to other digital marketing channels.
