Micro-influencers can greatly improve your social media marketing
As a business, it can be quite a big task to come across as authentic and genuine to your customers. While it’s simpler for smaller businesses, as they’re viewed as more “human” than bigger ones, it remains a challenge nonetheless. You need to win the trust of consumers and build a strong brand identity.
This is where influencer marketing can come to the rescue. It utilizes the influence of social media personalities and also adds a human touch to your brand. When they endorse your products, their audiences will see these endorsements as genuine reviews and take their word for it.
However, if you own a small business, micro-influencers, in particular, can be very helpful. These are influencers with 10k to 50k followers, and usually, they have very high engagement rates. Here are some of the benefits of working with micro-influencers:
1. High Engagement
Micro-influencers typically have very high engagement rates. This is because they don’t have a massive fan-following and are still able to connect on a personal level with their followers.
This makes their communities more tightly-knit than those of macro-influencers. According to studies, the engagement rate for micro-influencers on Instagram was about 3.6 percent while macro-influencers only managed to get 1.5 percent. The former is higher than the average Instagram engagement rate of 1.73 percent.
2. Niche Audience
As the size of the audience of a micro-influencer is fairly small, their followers are more likely to follow them just because of their interests. Those who’re interested in what the influencers post will follow them. This gives you a chance to reach out to a highly-targeted audience for your brand.
If the content that influencers post is relevant to the niche of your brand, their followers will likely receive your sponsored posts with the same enthusiasm. This means that you’ll be able to get high-quality leads by partnering with micro-influencers.
3. Cost-Effective
One of the biggest advantages of micro-influencers is that they are very cost-effective. This is important for small businesses, which usually have limited budgets, unlike mega-corporations.
On average, micro-influencers charge about $100 per 10k followers. This means that an influencer with 25k followers may be interested in partnering with you for $250 or less. This is in stark difference to a macro-influencer, where the charges go into the thousands of dollars.
Image via Influence.co
For some micro-influencers, you may not need to stretch your budget too. This is because many of them are open to accepting gifts in return for the sponsored posts.
Those with smaller followings might also agree to barter for something such as you giving them a friendly shoutout on your social media pages. This way, they can be very cost-effective for small businesses.
Finding the Right Micro-Influencers
As seen above, partnering with micro-influencers has loads of benefits for small businesses. However, you need to keep in mind that for this to work, you need to collaborate with the right influencers. This is because there are many fake influencers out there who buy likes and followers.
That’s why you need to go through each influencer’s profile thoroughly before you reach out to them for a collaboration. Check their audience demographics, engagement rates, quality of engagement, and more.
It’s also crucial to check their tone and values. They should ideally match those of your brand as the influencer will be seen as an extension of your brand. These things must be highlighted in your influencer marketing strategy too.
It might be a good idea to look out for those influencers who are already writing about your brand. These people might be passionate about the topic and may partner with you easily.
Alternatively, you could use influencer marketing tools to find them with relative ease.
Final Thoughts
Micro-influencers help brands reach their marketing goals with ease. They are especially beneficial for small businesses as they are cost-effective.
Additionally, they have higher engagement rates compared to macro-influencers, which means that more people will notice your brand. Lastly, their audience is very niche, and this can get you more high-quality leads.
Written by: Gaurav Sharma
Gaurav Sharma is the Founder of Attrock, a digital marketing company. He works closely with top marketing influencers and has helped numerous brands, e-commerce firms, and SaaS companies grow.
He is also a certified Google Analytics and Google Adwords specialist and regularly contributes to reputable publications like HuffPost, TechCrunch, and many more. Connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
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