How Working with Micro Influencers Can Help Your Brand (& Your Budget)

Social influencers are flooding the digital universe – and for good reason. Influencers, whether they are micro influencers, macro, or celebrity, are one of the most powerful social media trends (especially on Instagram), because they are able to grab the audience’s attention and add that much-needed dose of authenticity to the branded content.

The idea behind this marketing tactic is simple: influencers build a base of loyal followers who trust them much more than businesses, brands, and companies. This is exactly what makes influencer marketing so productive and able to return as much as $6.50 for every $1 spent.

However, there are some substantial differences among digital opinion leaders that force us to divide them into different categories: micro- and macro- influencers. In this post, we want to concentrate on working with micro-influencers and explain how they can help your brand on a shoestring budget.

Micro-Influencer: Definition and Statistics

Who are micro-influencers? They are digital thought leaders who build an audience ranging from 1,000 to 50 thousand followers. The numbers are not set in stone because some marketers believe that micro-influencers can go all the way to 100 thousand fans, while others believe that 30 thousand is the limit.

But the point is that micro-influencers are experts on a specific topic whose audience is loyal and engaged. Unlike their macro counterparts, who can reach hundreds of thousands, micro-influencers address fewer people but generate better results.

Plus, micro-influencers with fewer than 100k followers are responsible for the majority of posts on the platform meaning there is definitely a mirco-influencer in your niche to collaborate with.

According to one study, micro-influencers deliver seven times more engagement on Instagram than their more popular colleagues. Many other reports confirm the power of this marketing tactic:

• 70% of teens trust social influencers more than traditional celebrities.
• 40% of consumers have bought products based on recommendations coming from social influencers.
• Micro-influencers are able to generate 60% greater engagement than other marketing campaigns because they create a stronger bond with their followers.
  
  

How can it be? What makes micro-influencers so efficient?

Well, the secret lies in the fact that they are dedicated professionals who create authentic and trustworthy content. This is the source of their power, but we will analyze the advantages of working with micro-influencers in the next chapter.

Benefits of Micro Influencer Marketing

As we already mentioned, micro-influencer campaigns can almost guarantee amazing results. You can expect a lot of good things to happen during your cooperation with micro-influencers, including the following benefits:

• Affordability: Firs of all, micro-influencers represent an affordable marketing solution. A report reveals that 97% of influencers don’t charge more than $500 per post, while the vast majority requires no more than $250.
• Awareness raising: This is one area in which celebrity endorsers perform better than micro-influencers, but the fact remains that the latter grants you exposure to the right audience. Micro-influencers can help you get in touch with verified leads instead of irrelevant audiences.
• Authenticity: Greg Monroe, a CMO at Australianwritings, says that people trust non-celebrity influencers because they sound authentic and create content that looks real and credible.
• Accessibility: It’s often difficult to reach celebrities, but this problem does not exist with micro-influencers. They communicate clearly and openly and you can reach out to most of them 24/7.
• Engagement: You’ve probably figured out by now that engagement is the biggest benefit of micro-influencers marketing. Their fans are very loyal and willing to test new products or services based on well-crafted recommendations.
  
  

7 Tips to Help You Launch a Better Micro-Influencer Campaign

Now that you know the background of micro-influencer marketing, it’s time to focus on practical tips and tactics that can make your campaign better. But before you rush into it, we recommend you design a plan of activities, which will make it easier to follow each step in real-time.

You don’t need more than a simple five-step mechanism to cover every aspect of the story:

• Make a plan: Make a plan: Understand the goals and determine your influencer marketing KPIs.
• Find the right person: Try to identify an influencer who suits your brand’s style and vision.
• Reach out to your micro-influencer: Make sure to follow and get in touch with this individual.
• Make an agreement: This is a technical process where you need to discuss issues such as campaign objectives, compliance, influencer pricing, and so on.
• Track results: Measure the results based on the planned KPIs.
  
  

This is how micro-influencer campaigns look like in general, but there are many other details to consider here. The most important thing is to help micro-influencers create high-quality content on your behalf, so you should pay attention to this process in particular. For this reason, we prepared a list of seven tips that can make micro-influencer campaigns much more productive. Let’s check them out!

1. Create campaign-specific hashtags

Social media users publish tons of content on a daily basis, so you need a tool that helps your posts stand out from others. This tool comes in the form of hashtags, an element that influencers have to utilize when promoting your brand. Each micro-influencer campaign deserves its own hashtag strategy.

Jake Hudson, a digital marketer at Brill Assignment, says a common solution is to play with the brand name and design hashtags that clearly reveal that it’s your company influencers are talking about: “Such a tactic does not only distinguish your content from the crowd of other posts, but it also improves the discoverability of influencers’ announcements.”

2. Publish product reviews

Some marketers claim that the concept of product reviews is old and obsolete, but we strongly believe that micro-influencers are able to craft content that promotes products without looking too pushy or salesy. After all, they are professionals who know how to create authentic social media posts.

As we already mentioned, the key feature must be honesty. A chosen influencer must be able to create content that is direct, straightforward, and trustworthy. It means they should never manipulate followers because it would jeopardize both sides: your company will lose credibility, while influencers would jeopardize their own reputation.

3. Use the power of storytelling

Storytelling should be a major part of your micro-influencer plan because it evokes emotions and helps people to familiarize with your brand. Product reviews are okay, but sometimes you also need to focus on other aspects of the business and hire influencers who can explain what makes your business different than other companies in the same niche. Let influencers create a story of corporate values and beliefs – it’s a great way to approach the target audience and win over their trust.

4. Build a network of micro-influencers

Cost-efficiency is one of the biggest benefits of micro-influencers marketing, which gives you the opportunity to build a network of endorsers who can promote your products simultaneously. What do we mean by that?

Well, the idea is simple: the vast majority of micro-influencers don’t charge more than $250 per post, so you can hire several opinion leaders at the same time. It’s not a big investment, but it can do miracles for your business.

First of all, they will make an impact on their target audiences and boost engagement. Secondly, the synergy between all those influencers will give you additional exposure and maximize the reach of your campaign.

5. Let them publish content on multiple platforms

When you work with celebrity endorsers, you need to pay a lot for a single post that goes live on one network only. For instance, they will promote the brand on Instagram or Facebook exclusively.

According to marketing analysts at Assignmentmasters, micro-influencers publish content differently: “They usually combine all platforms and mention a brand using multiple channels: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, blog, etc. This sort of functioning means you don’t have to spend more money, while the numbers keep growing nevertheless.”

6. Encourage UGC

Sometimes you don’t even have to hire professional influencers to market your brand. Instead, you can encourage user-generated content (UGC) and let your true fans do all the work. That way, you give followers the power to express their inspiration and creativity, while they also get the notion of fulfillment and acknowledgment.

Loeffler Randall does a great job turning regular customers into micro-influencers. The brand builds a wide base of UGC creators by inviting ladies with “standout personal style and a keen eye for design and originality” to join their team of endorsers. It’s a win-win solution because Loeffler Randall expands the business through micro-influencer marketing, while their endorsers experience a huge popularity boost.

7. Don’t run away from sponsored posts

The point of micro-influencer marketing is to reach a highly specific audience that has the largest conversion potential. However, it shouldn’t stop you from asking influencers to publish sponsored content when you notice the opportunity to make a bigger breakthrough. Doing so, they can reach even more fans without jeopardizing professional authority, especially because it’s easy to target the lookalike audience on social media.

Micro Influencer Campaigns

Influencer campaigns have become a major force in the digital marketing universe in the last few years. Social influencers help brands to raise awareness, boost trust, and drive engagement, but some thought leaders do it better than others.

Micro-influencers are a much better and more affordable solution for marketers who want to encourage potential customers to engage. You can work with micro-influencers even on a shoestring budget and still expect them to deliver the planned results.

In this post, we explained how to work with micro-influencers, discussed the benefits of this marketing format, and showed you seven tips to use while working with mini-celebrities.

Keep our suggestions in mind and don’t hesitate to write a comment if you have any questions to ask about this exciting topic – we would be glad to answer you!

AUTHOR BIO

Scott Mathews is a digital marketer and a content creator at Nerdywriters and Australian assignment help. He also writes guests posts for Paperwritingpro.com and Easy Essays. Scott lives and breathes digital marketing, with his favorite topics being social media and paid advertising. Scott is a semi-professional runner who often participates in long-distance races.