Social Media - why the future is micro influencers

I’ve worked with hundreds of influencers over the past few years. Some micro, some macro, some nano and some celebrity/VIP-status. While the majority of the campaigns succeeded, others — especially in the super early years of Influencer Marketing — taught me some tough (and expensive) lessons.

The first and most important? Vanity metrics alone (the follow number and volume of likes and comments) will never be a solid reason to collaborate with an influencer. What may look like an apparent level of fame and influence over an audience isn’t always the whole truth, and those influencers the industry once turned a blind eye to because they had ‘less than 15,000 followers’ may just hold more power (i.e. actual influence) over your target demographic than you think.

Now, while this article is about the rise of micro, I do want to make one point clear before we dig into the 5 pros of using micro and nano influencers for your social media campaigns: The rise of the micro doesn’t directly translate to the downfall of the macro. For example, if your aim is to increase brand awareness in the space of 24 hours or have a celebrity/well-known figure association, then working with a macro influencer makes more sense. Everything requires a combination of sound judgement and a closer look at what your end goal and budget is — it’s just that most consumer brands will see better results without the need to stretch budget with micro-level talent.

Micro-influencers are more niche within their demographic

The more niche an influencer is, the higher chance the influencer’s following is interested in the same niche, and therefore the higher likelihood of followers being interested in your product (important point: this is providing your product matches the niche and similar target market of course). Yes, the same can be said for Macro-influencers who remain strictly within one lane but the chances of this become slim as the influencer grows as it’s natural to scale to what I call ‘sub-niches’. Plus, once you combine the additional benefits of Micro-influencers (detailed below), you’ll find better justification in sticking to a Micro-level talent.

Micro-influencers are likely to have a higher engagement rate and therefore a more invested audience
The reliability factor between micro-influencers and their followers tends to be higher. There is a combination of reasons for this which are both professional and personal — and, admittedly, it’s not always fair on the Macro talent. Firstly, the general user on social media knows a Macro influencer is being paid big bucks to promote a product or service so even if the Macro influencer is being 100% authentic, there will always be scepticism once a follower’s eyes skims the #ad copy. However, with Micro talent, many influencers are creating content on a pure growth and brand awareness basis, so they are likely to stick to products they know and love.

Additionally, the lower following also means the influencer is able to have a closer relationship with followers (replying to all comments, DMs etc). This becomes harder for Macro influencers (at no fault of their own) because of the volume of messages and therefore the two-way communication is more difficult to maintain. You want influencers who can reply to comments about your promoted products individually if they pop up.

Micro-influencers are likely to bring a better Return of Advertising Spend (ROAS)
Due to higher trust level and relatability factor, followers of micro-influencers are more prone to swiping up, purchasing via an affiliate link or buying a product from recommendation. Again, this isn’t impossible from a Macro influencer per se, but when you have 5M followers who follow you for a combination of different reasons (selfies, OOTD, beauty and luxury lifestyle as an example), not all 5M will be able to relate to, for example, a fashion post.

Micro-influencers are more cost-effective
This is probably the number one reason why brands first turn to Micro-influencers (although they should weigh up the other benefits too!). They are far less expensive which means you can spread budget over a number of content creators instead of splashing a whole sum of £15k on just one Macro-influencer.

Micro-influencers have less commitment elsewhere
Macro-influencers tend to have a stricter contract and brief requirements because of a higher level of brand association when they are partnering for campaigns. It’s not uncommon for a brand to request an influencer to not discuss any competing brands for up to three months after the collaboration. There are many reasons why a company may request this, but the main is because they want to maintain a degree of authenticity and exclusivity. They know the more the Macro talent discusses a specific brand and product, the more convinced the Macro talent’s audience will become.