A few reasons why you should be working with Micro-Influencers

A few reasons why you should be working with Micro-Influencers

We've all heard about influencer marketing, so we know it's nothing new in terms of bring in traffic and getting some sales.  Using an influencer in your marketing campaign dates back all the way to the 1700s, so we know it's worked well and will be here for a while.  How many times have you seen a baseball, basketball, or football player on the front of a box of cereal?  That's influencer advertising at it's best, and I'm sure that cereal sells a lot more product with a professional sports player on front of the box.

Infleuncer marketing is nothing new, we see it all the time on TV and even hear it on the radio.  Commercials will have celebrities talking about how a certain car is amazing or what makeup to use, and they're doing this because they get paid a lot by the product owner.  The product owner knows if they have a big familiar face in the commercial they're going to sell a lot more because if the celebrity they like endorses the product, why shouldn't they be purchasing it for themselves?  Right?

Social media, on the other hand, has given rise to a slew of new influencers and the majority of them are not celebrities.  These influencers are just your average joe posting quality content about a specific industry or niche and letting everyone know what they think about specific things.  They may not even give their opinions on things like products or services, they may just post general information and the person reading has to give their own opinion lol.

The only problem with social media influencers is that some of them don't know how much to charge, which means they usually charge too much.  They figure "Hey, I've got 1million Instagram followers in the fashion niche.  I can sell a single 24 hour post for $15,000!" and they will probably get that money from bigger brands, but they won't usually get a second payment for many reasons such as low engagement, inflated numbers, there wasn't an increase in sales, etc.  This is why a lot of advertisers are turning to micro-influencers, the people who don't have a massive following that could simply be inflated.  They're more trustworthy and the results after an advertising campaign tend to be better than with a big influencer.

Here are a few reasons why you should look into micro-influencers:


They're more affordable
A celebrity endorsement is most definitely the best thing you could get for your business or product, but if you don't have a million dollars to throw at them, you can kiss this dream goodbye.  Celebrities usually have a devoted following and they will make purchasing decisions based on what that specific celebrity says.  If they celebrity says they love this new line of makeup [makeup website URL here] and everyone should try it out, then people are going to flood to that website and purchase what they can get their hands on.  This is a great thing when you can afford it, but most people can't throw this sort of money around and that's why it's smarter to focus on the micro-influencers instead.

A micro-influencer is the same thing as an influencer, just smaller, duh!  They tend to have a smaller following, but that doesn't mean they are less devoted.  In recent studies it actually shows you get a better ROI when working with a micro-influencer compared to a big one that has millions of followers.  This is because their posts get seen more often by their followers and the posts are more genuine.

Since the influencer is smaller than a celebrity, you don't have to pay as much to get a promotion running.  A celebrity may charge you a million dollars for a shoutout on social media, a massive influencer may charge you $15,000 a post, but a smaller influencer with 100k or less followers may charge you $150 for a post.  So by working with the one small influencer, you're saving an exponential amount of money.  You could pay 100 micro-influencers $150 and get in front of 10,000,000 people or you could pay 1 major influencer $15,000 and get in front of 1,000,000 people.  Which do you think is a better option for your advertising budget?  lol

Obvioulsy my numbers are just for example purposes.  You could be paying $40 a post or even $750 a post.  But the studies have shown that working with a micro-influencer, or multiple ones, is always a better investment in the long run


People see micro-influencers as more authentic
I touched on this briefly in the beginning of the discussion and it's very true that people will see a micro-incluencer as more authentic.  This is because they see the influencer as someone who is just posting quality content about a product or service and not getting paid for it, even though they very well might be.

Micro-influencers tend to have a more hands on approach with their posts, unlike celebrities who have a team doing it for them usually, and this shows when someone is building up a profile.  The styles and trends tend to stay the same as well as the writing styles of each post.  People can tell when someone is being authentic, and this will build trust over time.


It's easier to engage with a micro-influencer
How many times have you thought "Hey, I can just PM this celebrity on their Instagram account and get a response within 24 hours!" probably never, because it won't happen lol.  With a micro-incluencer you can actually talk with them via private message or email and they will likely get back to you in a reasonable time frame. 

People like to ask questions about a product or service before they decide to purchase.  This is one of the reasons that big brands are turning away from celebrities and working with micro-incluencers, because the influencer actually responds to the people asking questions.  A celebrity already has a full work load and can't get on social media all the time to engage with their following, an neither can their social media teams.  This only results in the followers loosing trust with the celebrity and moving over to a micro-incluencer who does respond to questions.


Micro-influencers don't require a contract
If you're trying to work with a celebrity and having them be your influencer vis social media or any other outlet, you'll have to go into a contract with them over the course of a year or longer.  They require contracts because they want to be guaranteed a certain amount of income over an undetermined amount of time.  You might have to do $750,000 in advertising with them each year for them to even think of working with you, and many smaller companies can't do that.

With a micro-incluencer, you don't need a contract like this because they are more than happy to do a one time business deal with you.  You can pay them $XXX for a single post and be on your way if it doesn't pan out.  You'll likely have to post multiple times to the same influencers profile in order to build up your own trust with their following, but that's pretty normal. 

A micro-influencer doesn't require a contract because they aren't usually in the business to make money through social media.  They post quality content and people flock to them, they're not doing it to get rich.  This means you can save money if you work with micro-influencers since they aren't trying to take every penny you have in order to post something for you



In Conclusion
Micro-Incluencers tend to be a friendly bunch of industry semi-leaders and will only grow over time.  It's smart to start working with them now, and building a business relationship with them now will help out immensely when you go back for another wave of advertising with them   Micro-Influencers tend to have a more devoted following because they are genuine when posting and engage with anyone who is commenting and messeging them, so stick with the micro-incluencers and watch the profits rolling in



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Razzy