Influencer Marketing – Are Micro-Influencers taking over?

If I said the word ‘Influencer’ to you, who do you immediately think of? Most like a celebrity or household name, for example The Kardashian’s. On a near daily basis they will post photos to their Instagram accounts with #ad written in the description box below. And when these large, generic influencers tag a product or brand in an Instagram post, we often know it’s an advertisement. But do we ever really know what they really think? Probably not! Bloggers and Vloggers such as Zoella and Huda-Beauty, with Instagram accounts of well over 1 million followers, can earn up to £36,000 for a single sponsored post. Big celebrities, like the aforementioned Kardashians, are reported to cash in up to $250,000! However, a new wave of Micro-Influencers are now taking the internet by storm. But what is a Micro-Influencer? To understand we first need to look at what Influencer Marketing is.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing is simply promoting and selling products or services through people who have a large audience. This is a strategy that has been around for years, initially with celebrities and athletes pairing up with brands for promotion. The unique aspect of Influencer Marketing today is how social media has opened it up for anyone to get involved. In the last couple of years brands have gone after the most popular Instagram users with 100,000+ followers. Yet in recent months we have seen a rise in the Micro-Influencers.

Micro-Influencers

Micro-Influencers are essentially the same as Macro-Influencers, but they have a smaller audience of between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. These accounts don’t tend to earn enough to make this their sole occupation, unless they’re at the top end in terms of followers. However, they are invested in the platform and often put in a lot of creative effort. Although they have a smaller following, the followers they do have are often highly engaged with the content being posted. On top of this, smaller channels have a higher interaction rate. Many channels will respond to comments left on posts, making their community feel valued. Due to the high engagement between both the content creator and their following, these influencers become a trusted source for recommendations. Some Macro-Influencers have been known to hire external people to help or even to solely manage these accounts. So what you’re seeing, isn’t necessarily coming from the person you first thought.

Is One Better Than The Other?

Ultimately any form of Influencer Marketing is effective, although Micro-Influencers have a higher engagement. On average, micro-influencers (1,000-25,000) have a like rate of 4%, Mid-Tier Influencers (25,000-100,000) have a lower like rate of 2.4% and Top Tier Influencers (100,000+) have a like rate of only 1.7%. It’s important that the content being shared out is hitting an engaged audience who actually want to see what your selling.

‘The Game’ isn’t just getting eyeballs, but getting eyeballs that care’

Micro-Influencers also work well for most companies, especially small brands as you can split a bigger budget into smaller chunks to distribute over more smaller influencers. This works well for companies getting off the ground and trying to get known online. If a big budget isn’t on the cards you can even send free products. For example, a hotel could offer a travel blogger a free stay. Although if you’re planning to use multiple Micro-Influencers instead of one main influencer, be aware of the extra workload involved. This way you have more people to reach out too and more relationships to maintain.

Whichever way you look at it, Influencer Marketing is a great strategy to bring awareness to your brand. Whether you go down the avenue of using micro-influencers to keep costs down and engagement rates up. Or if you want to target a wide audience range in one go with one big account. Influencer Marketing is flexible and can be adapted to your needs.

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