Everything Social Marketers Need To Know About Micro-Influencers

Influencer marketing is on the rise every single day with several brands spending huge with influencers (over one billion dollars per year) according to a study by Mediakix. As an entrepreneur, you need to understand that your social media strategy is critical in achieving the needed results. Social media marketing industry continues to evolve and various influencer marketing trends applied to boost the game. You will have to stay up to date with the trends to be able to spark engagements and conversations around your products and services.

It’s been indicated that influencer marketing has the power to influence purchasing decisions, influencing up to 50% of all purchasing decisions by consumers. In this regard, the opinions expressed directly to consumers through the word of mouth are quite critical. Buyers and consumers are more likely to follow recommendations from a known and respected individual in the society as compared to other forms of corporate messaging and ads.

With the modern digital world, influencer marketing is taking over with a research from Twitter showing that close to 50% of consumers seeking purchase guidance from social media influencers and micro-influencers. In the same research, 20% of the buyers are likely to be inspired by a tweet from an influencer to share their own product recommendations.

What are micro-influencers and what can they achieve for you

Micro-influencers are the daily social media users with smaller audiences. It s true that many brands are now aware of the power of influencer marketing using the renowned, reputable, respected and trusted social influencers with a large following on social media. However, it can be noted that not many brands actually pay attention to micro-influencers.

Despite this fact, it is critical to note that micro-influencers, when used in the right way, could be crucial in steering your campaign to success. This is actually one of the easiest ways to find the right micro-influencers that will lead your campaign.

For example, diydrones.com – Ning’s community, specializing in drones. You can understand how valuable will be a word given for such community leader, who united 85K followers under the roof of drones hobby.

Why involve micro-influencers in your campaign?

More than 80% of consumers are said to rely highly on recommendations made by social media influencers, according to a study by Dr. Jonah Berger. The study involved a survey on a number of American micro-influencers who have had brand-related conversations with consumers and how effective the conversations were. They indicated that micro-influences actually drive consumer buying behavior at a much higher rate than many people think.

The outcome from the studies brought fought a number of outcomes as expressed here;

1. Micro-influencers are affordable

While social media marketers have to set aside a huge budget for effective marketing campaigns, micro-influencers could be the best option to get results without such huge expenses incurred when using the renowned influencers. Take for instance the renowned influencer, Kim Kardashian, who demands about 500,000 dollars for a sponsored Instagram post, micro-influencers could cost much less in Instagram marketing. In many cases, small micro-influencers would only cost a free product or service for every shared post.

An interview conducted by Marketing Technology Insights involving over 2,500 micro-influencers actually revealed that more than 97% of the charge less than 500 dollars and about 84% charge less than 250 dollars. From this statistics, it is clear how affordable micro-influencers are as compared to the giant social media influencers that many marketers use.

2. They are more trustworthy than renowned celebrities

Influencer marketing has been perceived to be more effective when celebrities are used. This however is not the case as revealed by HelloSociety, an agency that connects brands with influencers. In their submissions, they reveal that micro-influencers are 6.7 times more efficient and effective in engagement as compared to renowned influencers with huge following. The study indicates that most of the celebrities can’t buy the down-to-earth relatability with the consumers which the micro-influencers do.

Micro-influencers are indeed considered as a trusted source of recommendations for their followers because they are personally invested in their crafts.

3. Micro-influencers drive higher engagements with the consumers

A study carried out by Influencer Marketing Company involving over 800,000 Instagram users and over 5 million posts seeking to understand engagement patterns found out that;

Users with 1million-10 million followers earned likes only 1.7% of the time, users with 1,000-10,000 users generated at a rate of 4% while users with less 1000 followers earned likes 8% of the time.

This study reveals clearly how powerful micro-influencers are in steering your marketing campaign to success. With the ability to build only highly engaged and interested followers, it is easier to sustain only the followers that are genuinely interested in the content shared unlike the case of influencers with millions of passive and disengaged followers. But don’t forget to measure your social goals in such influencer campaigns.

Finding the right micro-influencers for your brand

Now that you know how effective and efficient micro-influencers are in promoting your brand, the following would be the easiest ways to find the micro-influencers;

• Hashtag search

Hashtag search on Instagram and twitter will enable you to find the right social media users who are already interested in the content related to your industry or niche. It is very simple since you only need to search using specific keywords or phrases that are in line with your industry. For instance, if you are dealing with tiles, you could search for kitchen design then pick the top posts that come up. From the posts, you will narrow down the search choosing the best-performing from Instagram users interested in the specific topic. This way, you will be in a position to choose micro-influencers that are more likely to work with your brand.

• Local search

This is more effective with large businesses with brick-and-mortar locations. You can easily find local micro-influencers using Google search or Instagram’s location tags. Localizing your micro-influencer search is crucial if you are looking forward to build stronger relationships with the target audience. You can find influencers on Ning creators – network of all Ning’s social community leaders.

• Use your existing followers

Your brand’s list of existing followers is the greatest asset you can use to find the right micro-influencers. Chances are high that our social media followers are following you because they are interested in your brand. Use some of the followers that may have between 1000 and 10,000 followers.

You can do this manually or simply use such programs as SocialRank which will arrange your followers in the order of follower-base from ones with the biggest following to the least.

• Micro-influencer agency

In case you do not have the time to do a manual search for your micro-influencers, you can employ the available micro-influencer agencies such as ProvenSEO that have a database of highly reputable and engaged micro-influences working with various brands to promote their products and services.

Conclusion:

As social marketers, it is the time that you diverted from using highly reputable and renowned influencer paradigm to micro-influencers who are actually more effective and efficient in brand marketing. Moreover, don’t forget to become influencer yourself. Create your community with Ning!