Influencer marketing is an incredibly beneficial method to be added to your marketing strategy. With the increasing amounts of time spent behind a screen every day, it’s no wonder that our shopping habits have now adapted. Not only this, but the way that we search for products and services and interact with brands online has changed drastically.
As a business, getting your brand in front of the consumer through social media is becoming more and more important every day.
Why consider influencer marketing?
No matter what your business goals are, I can assure you that influencer marketing can help. Some of the most common goals that we see from brands commencing influencer campaigns are to:
- Increase content creation
- Improve brand awareness
- Encourage website traffic
- Attract new social media followers
- Drive sales
But of course, there are a whole variety of other goals that can be met through this marketing technique.
Influencer marketing is considered a low-cost strategy that generates an amazing return on investment for brands. A common misconception is that influencer campaigns are for large global brands, using big-name celebrities. However, influencer marketing has taken a totally different turn over the years.
The wave of social media influencers has resulted in the launch of multiple influencer marketing management platforms like Humanz, Grin, or Upfluence. These platforms allow businesses to search through their large databases for the right influencers in a particular niche in no time, thanks to the many filter opportunities. Humanz even enables brands to reach out and connect with the influencer and generate the whole campaign right on its platform for a minimal subscription fee.
Whatever your budget, there’s influencers out there for you. This strategy can be used by brands with a very minimal budget, whilst reaping the benefits.
What are micro influencers?
In this article, we are going to focus on micro influencers, as this is possibly the most popular group of influencers, and those that are accessible to the majority of brands. So, what are micro influencers, you may ask.
Micro influencers are the group that has somewhere between 5K and 50K followers. These influencers have probably started their accounts as a hobby or through a passion for something particular. At this level, they are typically growing this hobby into something of a career. They will have a good level of expertise in their field, and previous experience with brands.
One of the added benefits of working with micro influencers is the opportunity for your brand to access niche communities. For example, micro influencers may have a loyal group of followers within the category of ‘beauty’. If your product attracts a specific market, let’s say female consumers within the 25-35 age group, interested in beauty, then working with a micro influencer in this area will allow you to reach this direct group of consumers.
Why are micro influencers so great?
Other than briefly mentioning the ability to reach a niche market, there are several other amazing characteristics of micro influencers that are worth going over in more detail. So, let’s dig a little deeper.
1) High engagement rates
The average engagement rates from micro influencers are some of the best available. Of course, you can stumble across micro influencers with poor engagement. However, we are talking about the average engagement from the different influencer groups.
Micro influencers boast high engagement rates, which shows that their audience tends to have a genuine interest in their content. This refers to the impressions on a post, where followers will be interested enough to like and comment.
With far fewer followers to manage than that of a mega influencer, micro influencers are able to communicate with more of their followers, in turn developing better relationships.
At the end of the day, yes, your content may reach more screens by working with a bigger influencer. But, what’s far more important is whether it reaches those that will actually be interested in your product or not.
2) Low cost
As mentioned, micro influencers are typically low-cost. This means that they are a great group to be working with, no matter your budget.
Depending on the perceived value of your product to the influencer, you can expect to pay minimal fees, and often close a deal for your product alone. As this group is still trying to grow their accounts to a higher position, they tend to be fairly approachable when it comes to incentive.
The key thing to not forget is the costs of shipping and handling, thinking about where your influencer is located. These costs vary significantly across different countries, so keep this in mind.
3) Authentic
One of the greatest things about working with micro influencers is their authenticity metrics. This is something that can be particularly challenging to assess on your own, so you may need the help of an influencer marketing platform.
When analyzing Instagram influencers, you can keep an eye out for unnatural comments, varying numbers of likes and comments, and behaviors that would seem strange.
However, by using an influencer marketing platform, you can access specific data provided by artificial intelligence technologies that will show suspected fake follower percentages from an influencer profile.
Typically, micro influencers are known for being the most authentic. Their followers are generally very loyal and have been with them from the start of their journey. Micro influencers are respected for generally only collaborating with brands that they like, and being honest with their followers.
Finding micro influencers
When you’re ready to find influencers for your campaign, I would recommend heading over to Heepsy. You can search directly on social media platforms yourself, although working with an influencer marketing platform will be more time and cost-effective.
You can search directly for micro influencers, as well as being able to filter your search with dedicated filters depending on any other needs that you have for the campaign. If you want to look for micro influencers, select the ‘followers’ box and click 5K-50K followers, as you can see below. Then add whichever other filters you require.
Conclusion
So, that’s the three reasons why you should be working with micro influencers! As some of the most cost-efficient and authentic influencers with great engagement rates, there really is no downside to this group.
Even if micro influencers don’t seem like a great fit for your brand, you can always benefit from influencer marketing with another group, like nano or macro influencers, too!
