Micro-influencers have become a big element of social media advertising today more than ever before. Influencer marketing reach has grown in recent times with companies now looking at it as one of the perfect solutions to their brand’s campaign needs. This has therefore led to a need for businesses to understand the specific pros and cons of using micro-influencers.
A brand that is new to the influencer marketing campaign strategy should consider a number of important factors before partnering with micro-influencers so as to enable them to run successful micro-influencer campaigns that will boost their business revenues and brand name.
Micro-influencers have similarities to word-of-mouth marketing, influencer marketing aims to make a brand more trustworthy and relatable in the market, especially when it comes to platforms with billions of people like social media.
Micro-influencers have a smaller reach than celebrity influencers of about 1000, 2000, 10,000 to 50,000 followers depending on their level of popularity, but their followers are immensely dedicated to the content they publish. In simple terms, micro-influencers in this day and age are growing the influencer marketing brand to another level by creating social awareness and advocacy for a brand to their fellow peers and community that find them much more relatable and approachable than macro celebrity influencers.
Micro-influencers are individuals who have already established a specific niche community that have a liking for the content they publish on their social platforms. The audience they have makes it easier for brands to target potential customers that are interested in similar products and services that the brand is offering. The micro Influencers establish relationships with their followers through the stories they share on their social media platforms and they’re willing to share a brand’s story which their followers will be interested to listen to.
What's the Best Way of Working With Micro-Influencers?
In order for a company to target specific and wider audience demographics to market to, there is a need for the brand to work with multiple micro-influencers to foster stronger brand engagement online for the company.
Not only must a brand look for a group of micro-influencers to increase their reach in the online community, but they should also look for a micro-influencer with an audience that is passionate and interested in the products and services that the brand offers. For example, if a brand is dealing with hair products, they can work with a passionate hair blogger that is constantly sharing hair tips and has a dedicated online following.
A brand can also consider looking through its own followers on its various social media handles too in order to find a potential representative that is interested in telling the brand’s story. This will help the brand find the micro-influencers that are well suited to market the brand.
A micro-influencers personality cultivates audiences since they include glimpses of their lives on their social media. Their content is focused on particular topics and stories that are relatable to a community. They also have the opportunity to build relationships with their followers through direct engagement.
What To Look For When Marketing With Micro-Influencers
There are a number of factors a company, brand or business should evaluate when choosing influencers to be part of their influencer marketing campaign.
1.Reputation
The reputation of a micro-influencer is an important factor to consider for a brand. The history in terms of the content they have published and any previous controversies an influencer has had in their past can tarnish a brand's image. Previous projects with competing brands may also lead to a conflict of interest among the influencer's followers and the influencer himself.
2. Consistency & Legitimacy
There has been a rise in fake influencer numbers and fake virtual influencers in the digital marketing space. Social media platforms like facebook, twitter and Instagram have had issues in the past with fake influencer statistics that have been bought and acquired through third-party applications, internet bots and mass following techniques. These techniques are now being flagged and monitored by the social media platforms themselves to prevent any false engagement or fake engagement metrics, though the vices can all be curbed in one day.it is therefore in a brands interest to consistently monitor and evaluate influencers they plan to hire to ensure that they have an organic following and high-quality content that is worth the value of money they are paying for.
Virtual influencers are virtual characters designed to look like real-life people attending real-life events or situations when in actual sense they are run by completely different individuals.
At the same time, there’s likely to be very little problem with fake followers for micro-influencers. You can know that the followers you’re targeting are real people and the engagement is authentic by cross-checking the engagement, likes and retweets an influencer gets through the social media applications themselves or through verified third party applications like tweetbinder which can be used to track the performance of influencer campaigns and influencer tweets.
3.Professionalism
A brand should be able to assess a micro-influencer's conduct just like any other employee in the company. Attributes like time management, smartness and qualifications do still play a big role when it comes to the success of an influencer marketing campaign.
4. Campaign Goals.
Every brand has an online digital marketing goal. Some brands look to create awareness for their goods and services online, some brands look to generate leads and convert viewers on social media into clients that generate revenue for the brand and some brands campaign goal is to trend and create a social conversation about the services they offer or events that they are hosting among masses of people on social media.
5.Niche and Audience
The niche or audience an influencer posts content about should be an important factor when choosing an influencer. If your brand deals in tourism a digital photographer that has built his online engagement and following on sight-seeing and taking pictures of different scenes around a country should be one of the first considerations. The age category, gender and demographics of the audience your brand is targeting should also be a factor when choosing a micro-influencer to work with to promote your brand. For example, the youth love to attend events so a micro-influencer that is always posting about events they attend will be the perfect match for your campaign.
6. Engagement
Engagement has always been a key factor in an influencer marketing campaign's success. A micro-influencer who is always engaging his followers and community creates commercial viability for a brand. Brands should not only be focusing on creating awareness through social media campaigns but they should also mind the interaction between their influencers and their target audience. Some micro-influencers have even gone as far as direct messaging or communicating with potential customers for a brand that is constantly engaging with their posts in order to convert them into revenue-generating clients.
Benefits of using micro-influencers
In the past brands only focused on traditional mass media advertising mediums like print, newspaper, radio, and television to persuade the masses to purchase their products. Fast forward now to today in the digital era of social media, influencer marketing has become a viable new trend and strategy for brands to thrive and grow considering the fact that the world now revolves around social conversations with over 2 billion people using social media. Taping into social circles of different demographics and age categories has never been easier making it more effective for brands to grow by centering their marketing strategy on social media’s vast users.
Micro-influencers help to sell a brand experience through stories and content that they publish and it is through this content that they in adversely socially persuade their peers to be part of the brand experience or purchase a product or service that your brand offers.
Micro-influencers also give brands an opportunity to thrive on the niched follower community that they have cultivated over time. Since they are more relatable and their content is trustworthy by the people who follow them their niched community will be more likely to be influenced to purchase a product from a brand that a micro-influencer is posting about. For example, a highly qualified tech blogger's recommendations on their social media channels are likely to be trusted and followed due to the content and follower community they have cultivated. This, in turn, will help a brand thrive and raise revenue from the influencer's recommendations.
Return on Investment
A recent study shows that 70% of millennial consumers' purchasing decisions are influenced by recommendations from their peers. Since hiring a micro-influencer or a group of micro-influencers has proven less costly than hiring celebrity macro influencers a brand is likely to reap a lot more from using micro-influencer campaigns to market their business.
