What Are Micro-Influencers?
Micro-influencers are unique because they specialize in their particular niches. They are social media influencers who have a number of followers between 10k to 100k. Unlike celebrity influencers, also known as macro influencers with 100k followers or more, who usually depend on getting as many hits or traffic as possible, the interest of micro-influencers' followers is often more focused.
This means that most of their followers belong to one community, which is why they tend to respond more to the micro influencer's recommendations.
Why Promote To Micro-Influencers?
There are three main reasons you should consider working with micro-influencers to grow your business. They are the following.
Higher Engagement
As mentioned, followers of a micro-influencer belong to a small community. Because of this, they usually have higher engagements and response rates.
The numbers do not lie. People who have been promoted through micro-influencers found that they get 6x more responses with micro-influencers than macro influencers with a huge follower base. They may have fewer followers, but these followers engage more with the micro influencer's content.
So, if you are looking to increase your advertisements' response rate, the best path to take is to work with micro-influencers to boost your brand's social media presence. If you have not done this before, at least consider including them in your marketing plan. You will never know how much it can impact your business until you try it.
Affordable
Many business owners have seen the value of influencer marketing. However, not all of them can afford it. This is because it can be quite expensive if they choose to hire celebrity influencers.
Celebrity influencers are called such for a reason. This is because they have a ton of follower counts. Because of this, they usually require higher advertising fees. If you cannot afford this, you can always hire micro-influencers.
They have cheaper advertising fees as compared to macro-influencers with hundreds of thousands to millions of Instagram followers, and they can promote you to a highly targeted audience.
Better Social Proof
Social proof is essential in today's businesses. Potential customers now utilize the power of searching to find out everything they can about the company before buying. Social proof plays a vital role in getting more people to purchase from you, and you can improve that by hiring micro-influencers.
Since micro-influencer advertising fees are generally lower, you can get five to 10 micro-influencers to promote you. This stimulates conversation about your brand and can also help with your social proof.
Micro-Influencer Marketing Strategy
Just because micro-influencer marketing is useful doesn't mean that you should approach any micro-influencer and ask him to promote you. You should also implement a filtering system to find the right micro-influencer to represent your brand.
For this, you need to take note of these two tips.
Consider Content Quality
If there are many micro-influencers in your industry, it can be hard to choose the right one. Content quality plays a vital role in helping you do this.
Once you examine the blog and social media profiles of micro-influencers, you'll find that some will stand out from others. Your goal is to choose the micro-influencer that does not only have quality content but also has content that is relevant to your brand.
This way, you don't have to hard sell your products. They are already presold through the micro-influencer.
Track Engagements
You also have to be wary of fake followers. There are so many so-called micro-influencers.
They have a few thousand followers, and they are actively posting content. However, you also need to look at other factors such as likes, comments, and shares. This will help you to see if the followers are legit.
If they like and interact with the content, it means that the followers are real people and genuinely support the micro-influencer.
How To Find The Right Micro-Influencers For Your Business
How can you easily find micro-influencers who are ready to promote you? Well, you can start with influencers who are already using your products. How can you find them? Well, you can find them through branded hashtags.
You can find these people by merely inputting your brand name in a hashtag in the search bar of hashtag-supported social channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This will help you find individuals who are already talking about your brand. If you find people who are already using your products, then that is better.
Why do you need to approach people who have used your branded hashtags? Well, it is generally easier to promote these people. Just as you need to advertise your business, you also need to do the same with someone who has never heard of your brand. It is easier if they already know and have bought from you.
This cuts the explanation time in half, and it is easier to convince them to become your brand ambassador. Once you have done that, you can now expand your search to include hashtags of your product types and relevant topics to your brand.
For example, the hashtag of the word 'fishing' will matter to you if you are selling rods and reels. Similarly, you can get some results if you use the hashtags 'fishing-rod' or 'fishing reel.' It all depends on the product that you are selling.
Aside from hashtags, you can also use influencer databases or networks. This is where you can specifically search for influencers based on topics. The influencers on these websites are usually divided into categories, and you can readily reach out to them because their contact information is included.
One platform that will work for this purpose is Scrunch. This has a tool that will allow you to filter your search based on the micro-influencer category. This way, you only get influencers who are relevant to your business.
Micro-Influencer Marketing Pros and Cons
If you are still on the fence about whether you should incorporate micro-influencer marketing into your business, here are some pros and cons that you should consider.
Pros
- Higher engagement - One of the advantages of working with small influencers is higher engagement rates. And this is based on real numbers. According to statistics, business owners can sell 6x more with micro-influencer marketing because the market is hyper-targeted.
- Lower cost - ecommerce Influencer marketing is genuinely for everyone because hiring social media influencers that have followers between 10k to 100k is much more affordable than working with social media celebrities. This is the best route for business owners who don't have a huge marketing budget. It will allow them to promote their brand without sacrificing their profits.
- Niche categories - Why is micro-influencer promotion better when it comes to engagements? The answer is in its niche categories. These small influencers usually work with a particular niche so the topic is narrower, and the followers are fewer so it is easier to build a more personal relationship. But this also drives engagements through the roof because the market is hyper-targeted.
Cons
- Lower reach - There is a reason why micro-influencer promotion is cheaper. This is because of the lower reach. Since they have fewer followers than celebrity influencers, it also means that your advertisement will only reach a few people. You don't need to worry. Despite the lower reach, the conversion reach is often higher if you have the right offer.
- Potential for less real engagement - If you did not research your micro-influencers the right way, you might end up with micro-influencers with less than satisfying engagement rates. This is the reason why the quality of the content and the amount of engagements matter. You need an influencer that will help you to promote your business.
- Weaker Brand Promotion - You may do your share of researching your target small influencer before you promote your business. However, you will still find that brand promotion will be weaker compared to celebrity promotions. This doesn't mean that it is not sufficient. It just means that you need to multiply your campaigns.
- More work to reach consumers - If you expect that you will instantly get a surge of traffic and sales from your micro-influencer campaign, you will be disappointed. You see, it is not enough to promote your brand to only one micro-influencer. You have to promote your brand to at least five small influencers if you want this to work.
How To Attract Micro-Influencers To Your Business
You can approach micro-influencer marketing in two ways. First, you can look for ways to convince micro-influencers to promote your business. Another approach is to attract micro-influencers to your business. In this section, I will discuss the latter.
Start With A Plan
You must know your goals before you set up your website to attract micro-influencers. You need a website, a social profile, and a product. But you also need to know your goals.
Have A Referral Program
One way to quickly attract micro-influencers into your marketing funnel is to create a referral program. This is a system that pays advertisers a reward for promoting the program to their followers. With this in place, you can efficiently recruit new smaller influencers into your team.
All you need to do is to create a dedicated referral page for each influencer. This means that each referral program should be tailored to your target influencer. To do this, you need referral software that can also create your b2b referral program. This is an application that will help you to launch your referral program in a few clicks.
You may need to choose compatible software. For eCommerce sellers, you may need the best affiliate marketing tools to complement your program. Also, start finding answers to your questions such as how to promote your Shopify store. An example of this is Best Drums Set Labs.
It is an eCommerce website that offers the best u87 clone and they launched a referral program for influencers successfully.
How To Promote Your Business With Micro-Influencers
Many business owners think of working with local micro-influencers as a way of approaching micro-influencers to promote their business. But it is more than that.
In this section, you'll learn how to get micro-influencers who will be on your team and support your brand continuously.
Look For Fans
You will have more luck in convincing micro-influencers to promote you on Instagram, TikTok, or any social media platform if they are already fans of your brand. This means that they should have bought your products and shared your products on social media.
You can easily find them by searching with product and brand hashtags. This will help you uncover potential micro-influencers that are compatible with your business.
Why This Works
This works because you don't have to convince the influencer to like you. You also don't need to explain your brand to them. They are already familiar with your brand and what you offer. And they are far more likely to authentically share your products with others because they believe in them.
Let Influencers Share Your Story
You need to do more than ask them to post a picture of your product. You also need to share your story or solve your market's problem. You can do this by listing all the pains, fears, goals, and desires of your target market.
This will help you to understand where they are coming from so that you can create a story that appeals to them.
How This Works
This is how marketing should be done today. With all the marketing messages that your target market is receiving, you must employ some strategies to stand out. Crafting a story that speaks directly to your audience's needs, wants, fears, and desires is more effective. This helps your audience to see that you care about them.
Run Multiple Micro-Influencer Campaigns In Tandem
As mentioned, running a single micro-influencer campaign is not that effective. You will need multiple micro-influencer campaigns that are done in tandem. This also helps your business with social proof and allows you to widen your advertisements' reach.
Why This Works
This counters the disadvantages of working with micro-influencers. With more campaigns, you have more chances for exposure and conversion. As mentioned, this widens the reach and minimizes your losses. With this approach, you can still win even if one influencer does not generate as much engagement.
Trisha Ballesteros