By partnering with carefully picked social media content creators, companies can use influencer marketing to promote products or services on an influencer’s social media pages. As a critical component of a powerful growth strategy, influencer marketing’s popularity continues to surge. Leading industry experts predict that influencer marketing will reach nearly $10 billion by the end of 2020. Companies can harness the power influencers have over their audience to expand social proof and word-of-mouth marketing.
What is a Micro-Influencer?
If you think social media influencers need 1 million followers to help your company see results, you’re wrong! Micro-influencers – social media accounts with 5,000-10,000 followers – have already built a strong, loyal audience. A micro-influencer’s near-constant engagement with small audiences makes any marketing undertaking in which they’re involved 60% more effective. Once you identify a micro-influencer that you feel aligns with your company’s goals, you should keep track of your interactions.
What are the Benefits of Recruiting Micro-Influencers?
Still not convinced of the sheer power micro-influencers hold? If you find a micro-influencer who matches the mission of your product, they can provide a plethora of benefits to your company and your social outreach.
1) Niche Audiences
Since micro-influencers create niche content, followers will value their opinions and are more open to suggestions about new brands to follow and products to try. Partnering with a micro-influencer in the right niche market will increase the likelihood of expanding your reach to an audience of potential customers with heightened interest in your brand.
2) Authenticity
Compared to influencers with larger followings, micro-influencers have frequent, genuine, and meaningful interactions with their followers. Most celebrity-level influencers probably have an agent or social media to handle online interactions. But with fewer followers to manage, micro-influencers can respond to quickly respond to comments or direct messages. Moreover, micro-influencers typically come off as more relatable, which establishes a deeper connection with followers. The close-knit relationship that micro-influencers have with their followers creates an unmatched level of trust.
When an influencer interacts with their followers, the followers will be more inclined to learn more about the brand they are endorsing. This means that authentic, quality content gets prioritized over promotional content from big brands.
3) Affordability
Celebrity-level influencers can charge astronomical fees for a single post on Instagram. Meanwhile, the majority of micro-influencers charge maybe $100 to $200. Some newbie micro-influencer with smaller followings may even accept a free sample or vouchers for your product or service as payment to post an honest review. Considering how much less expensive a micro-influencer campaign is – and the extent to which the right micro-influencer can boost sales – the impact on ROI of a micro-influencer campaign is much better than a macro-influencer campaign.
How Do I Determine the Value of Using Micro-Influencers?
When working with micro-influencers, pay attention to your company’s growth and analyze how the partnership has benefitted your company. As a business owner, you want to know that your marketing strategy is working and delivering results. Make sure you pay attention to these three important metrics:
- Engagement: This is typically measured in new followers, likes, comments, shares, mentions, and all other forms of engagement with your business as a result of working with a micro-influencer. The return here is in brand awareness and growth. You should see a spike in engagement each time the micro-influencer shares your brand. This allows you to visualize the impact your micro-influencer brought to a campaign.
- Content: Don’t forget about comments, shares, and likes of paid posts. This helps establish whether the content fits with the audience and the main goal. This may be a sign to try a different type or style of content that may resonate better.
- Sales: You can track this by providing affiliate URLs, influencer exclusive discount codes and monitoring Google analytics so that you can measure the sales each micro-influencer has brought to your business.
Using Micro-Influencers In Your Next Campaign
If you’re a small business owner, micro-influencer marketing can offer a lot of value and certainly has the potential to drive sales in your local market. It just takes the right research, the right influencer, and the right partnership. To learn more about how to incorporate micro-influencers into your marketing strategy, connect with Premiere Creative’s team by dialing (973) 346-8100 today!