For the longest time, influencer marketing was neglected by most brands. Even though the predictions were in favor of it, they were new to most businesses that have been using traditional marketing strategies since the beginning of their business. But that’s all in the past. Today, influencer marketing as a marketing tool is booming favorably.  Although, now the negative prejudice has shifted towards micro-influencers. 

“Are micro-influencers better?” Before we unravel that mystery let’s get to know a bit about micro-influencers. 

Micro-influencers are influencers who have the following anywhere between 1,000 to 1,00,000. They are basically the influencers who are starting out their journey. They are a segment mostly neglected by many businesses. The notion that prevails today is that influencers with the highest number of followers are bound to get better results than influencers with a low following. However, that is not true.  

In fact, if efficiently used, micro-influencers can be a real game-changer for your brand. Influencer marketing can change the way you promote your business. But only if you don’t miss out on micro-influencers. They are capable of improving your ROI of influencer marketing. 

While there are some who believe that micro-influencers are not efficient at all, there is another set of people who think that they are ideal only for small businesses. Another false prejudice. Micro-influencers are good for both big and small businesses. They can help build brand loyalty for businesses of any size. 

Your brand’s public relations can go through a huge transformation with the help of micro-influencers. The importance of PR is that it helps you tell your brand story and eventually helps you build your brand better on a larger scale. It helps put across the message to the masses that in turn get your new customer base. It’s a mere fact that before making any purchase a customer would like to know the brand. They want to know where they are putting their money and if it is worth it or not. You know that your brand is worth it. But how do you put across the message and create a credible image in front of your customers? Simple. You collaborate with micro-influencers. 

Now, one would point out the fact that micro-influencers do not have a huge following. Well, here’s a tip for working with social media influencers, their number of following is not the only factor that signifies their credibility and reach. What you are missing out on to understand is another fact that these budding influencers have a base of trustworthy followers who are inclined towards them for their authenticity and the niche content that they publish. So, if your brand is associated with such micro-influencers you have a high chance of reaching people; it is not a chance of reaching a high number of people. 

The intensity of your reach is the key factor here. The chances are more than the followers of the micro-influencers will take interest in your brand and consider being your customer because this influencer has put out a good word about you. 

Here are some tips on how to use micro-influencers to scale your brand’s public relations.

1. Choose your micro-influencers wisely

Micro-influencers are very specific about their niches. Since they are at the beginning of their careers they do not take the risk to divert from their core subject. Of course, they can extend their interests further when they have grown. But during this stage, they prefer to stick to their niche. Hence, you too have to be careful about which influencer you choose to work with. There are influencers in all different types of influencer niches that you can think of. So, pick wisely. Their niche should match yours. This is the first thing to keep in mind when you are looking for micro-influencers. 

2. Focus on their engagement rate

Congratulations! You have moved past the top myth of influencer marketing and understood that the number of followers is important but not as important as the engagement rate. This not only applies when you are finding influencers but is also applicable to you as a brand.  When you select your micro-influencers, one of the criteria that you should always focus on is understanding their engagement rate. Knowing how many responses they get and what kind of responses do they get will give you more clarity about their performance than just focusing on their number of followers. 

Another aspect of this phenomenon is to see which platform do they have a high engagement rate. If you are open to experimenting with different social media platforms, then you should consider checking which platforms is your micro-influencer active on and which platform gives them a better engagement rate. For instance, there are a lot of creators out there that might have thousands of followers on their Instagram but their YouTube has more subscribers and is more responsive. 

3. Find them at the right places

There are many ways to find influencers for your brand campaign. But as the future of influencer marketing is upon us we can surely say that the only right way to find influencers is by using influencer marketing platforms. An influencer marketing platform that caters to all your needs without being a third-party in the process can give you a seamless experience. WORD marketplace is one such platform. All you need to do is sign up for free, publish a campaign brief and wait for the influencers to approach you. Using WORD Marketplace to manage your influencers and to make the most of our time can become one of your top influencer marketing strategies. 

Moving forward, by using the features of WORD Marketplace, you can contact the influencers, negotiate your deals and make the payment as soon as you receive your final content without any interference from anyone. 

4. Let them be candid

Marketing is planned. But nowadays it also has to be candid and personalized. But you do not have to worry about it because the micro-influencers will do that for you. And the best way to be candid is to create a UGC campaign for your brand through your micro-influencers. They understand the kind of bond they share with their influencers and they always try to be as transparent as possible. So why not encourage the micro-influencers to let their followers do the same?

5. Take their opinions

Always leave a space for discussion. Micro-influencers can give you great insights that you can use to better your campaign. Ask for opinions and suggestions. You never know what information can come in handy to you in the process. 

6. Create your own micro-influencers

What? Create your own micro-influencers? How does one do that? Well, it’s simple. You can always involve your customers to be a part of your campaign and make them brand ambassadors. This is another advantage that comes with UGC campaigns. 

The benefit of creating your own micro-influencer is that since they are one of your customers, you already know that they love your product and will be genuinely interested to collaborate with you. When your audience will know that your micro-influencer is one of your customers, it builds credibility and authenticity. 

7. Aim for a long-term partnership

Micro-influencers might not have a big following in their starting stage but if you look around you will see that they do progress at a fast rate. Influencers gain a new following almost every day. And if you stick with them for a long time, your brand too will be exposed to their new audience. 

Influencer marketing for E-commerce businesses has been a godsend. And if you notice the success stories of brands who have used influencer marketing, they have all collaborated with micro-influencers at some point or the other. All you need to know about micro-influencers is that they are a great source of information, entertainment, and reviews for their followers. And that is a good enough reason to collaborate with them. Stop waiting around and questioning if you should work with micro-influencers. Because you must!