Influencer marketing is a kind of marketing tool that one cannot miss to see. Directly or indirectly, it just seeps through the walls. And why not? It has graced many businesses and it still continues to. 

Influencer marketing is all about having credible people on the internet, social media to be specific, promote your brand, its product, tell the world how it is the best thing they will ever lay their hands on. Simple, isn’t it? On the surface, yes! The idea of influencer marketing is straightforward. But it can be further simplified by addressing the types of influencers present in the current time. There are micro-influencers, macro-influencers, mega influencers, and celebrities.  

While they are all the best ones, the one that goes unnoticed sometimes is micro-influencers. Micro-influencers are everyday people. They are individuals who are now big influencers working towards their goals, their interests, and then there are other micro-influencers who are inspired by these established influencers. 

What are micro-influencers or should we say, who are these micro-influencers?

Micro-influencers are social media influencers with followers between 10,000 to 1,00,000. Being an influencer is not a profession that people usually aspired for. But now looking at the wave of this new digital trend, a lot of individuals who are either students, corporate workers, people who wish to pursue their hobby as their profession, retired, or anybody amongst us, desires to be an influencer and being a micro-influencer is the stepping stone to their big dream. 

One primary benefit of micro-influencers is that they are very flexible to work with and adaptable by all kinds of brands, both niche wise and size-wise. Businesses of all kinds and sizes can utilize the impact of micro-influencers. 

Benefits for small businesses

1. Low budget

Small businesses often have come with a combination of great aspirations, enthusiasm, and budget constraint. At the beginning of every business, the risk factor is high and so is the investment. But you can limit that by working with micro-influencers. The modes of settlements with micro-influencers are very flexible and they work with high dedication to establish the results that you aim for. 

2. Direct coordination

With micro-influencers, there’s a huge scope for direct communication as they might not always have a representative or a talent management association to manage them. In either case, the area for clarity, amendments, and experiment is wide open. Micro-influencers are enthusiastic about the projects that they work on and there’s nothing better than the same energy as yours when working with influencers. 

3. Great for experimenting

Trial and error are something that comes along with every business and all you can hope is that is minimal or no loss if there’s no profit at all. Micro-influencers are apt for experimenting when you wish to see people’s reactions, conduct a survey, launch a new product, etc. The added benefit is that the chances of earning a profitable result are more. Since working with micro-influencers is very cost-effective, you can collaborate with multiple of them and engage in small strategies to work. 

4. Highly niche audience

Micro-influencers have a niche or a subject of interest that they are inclined towards and so is their audience. So if you are someone who has a business belonging to a niche that is not very well known, then micro-influencers can definitely help you get started. It is possible to find micro-influencers in almost every niche or domain that your business belongs to. And with them come to their audience too. So you not only have a representative for your highly niche brand and market but you also have a target audience. 

5. Ideal to build a community

Every brand wishes to build a community online and have an ‘online fam’ of their own. When you are starting out, it is ideal if you start working towards it at the beginning itself. Collaborating with micro-influencers from time to time can help you do that. To build a community you need to bring awareness to your brand and have a great content marketing strategy in place. Micro-influencers can help you curate both at the same time. 

Benefits for large businesses

1. Multiple influencers

For large businesses and well-established brands, there are multiple reasons for them to explore new markets and micro-influencers are the best medium to do so. In a general scenario, you can expect big brands to collaborate with big influencers with millions of followers or even celebrities. But, when a big brand partners with multiple micro-influencers, the diversity in audience persona is incredible and helps to explore an untapped market. 

2. Tapping into the local audience

Speaking of untapped markets, there are a lot of big brands that try to target local markets. They are definitely big in metro cities, nationally and internationally, but there’s always a scope to narrow it down to some 2-tier and 3-tier cities depending on the brand’s product and goals. Micro-influencers are very local and connected to the audience around social media on a personal level. Hence, they become the best prospects when you wish to explore the local market of any town, city, or nation. 

3. Targeting different/similar niche

There are some brands that have a very narrow niche while some have a broad niche. For instance, if you are a fashion brand, then you might just cater to ethnic clothes, activewear, or luxury clothes, or maybe all. In the latter situation, you want to promote your brand through influencers who are even remotely related to your brand. Hence, you can target many micro-influencers who are directly or indirectly related to your niche. For a fashion brand, you can target influencers who cater to only one kind of fashion or all. That way, you can reach multiple kinds of audiences and gain potential customers from all walks of life. 

4. Ideal for brand awareness

Micro-influencers have a very highly active group of followers and since they are growing, their content is exposed to many new users on a daily basis. And this makes them an ideal candidate for brand awareness. You can partner with multiple influencers or just a bunch of from time to time and expect your brand to be exposed to new audiences every time you collaborate with them. Their growing following can help you gain new followers and customers on a periodic basis. 

5. High engagement rates

As mentioned above, micro-influencers have a bunch of new users almost every day and most of them are highly active users. Every time the influencers post anything, their followers are very quick to share it, comment on it, like it, and eventually give more exposure to their content. And hence, micro-influencers have a very high engagement rate which can be easily utilized by your brand as you collaborate with them. 

But how to find micro-influencers?

1. Hashtags

Hashtags are a search engine within themselves. Every platform has a bunch of different categories of hashtags that trend on a daily basis. To look for micro-influencers, you can use hashtags relevant to your brand or niche and find influencers on various platforms. Another efficient way to use hashtags is there are a lot of established influencers who run contests to promote budding influencers. You can look up for those hashtags or those big influencers and track down the micro-influencers. 

2. Influencer marketing platform

Influencer marketing platforms are ideal to look for influencers. On these platforms, you will come across multiple influencers who have all of their details present in their description and that saves you a lot of time research. Influencer marketing platforms make it easier for brands to look for influencers that fit their requirements. The data and filter options available on these platforms reduce your efforts and increase your efficiency. Know more about how influencer marketing platforms work.

3. Networking

There are multiple ways for you to network with micro-influencers. You can see them at events, workshops, summits, organized by various institutes or even brands. You can yourself organize one such event or have an open call for micro-influencers. Social media is undoubtedly a great way to network and get connected with micro-influencers. However, it is more credible and professional when you speak to them over mails and start building a connection from there. 

Micro-influencers contradict the idea of the bigger the better and in all its positivity, we tend to agree with it. Business is definitely about numbers but you have to make sure that you are looking at the right numbers. 

The extra tip that we have for you is that if and when possible, try to work with multiple micro-influencers as the scope of reach, engagement and diversity is equally high. Multiple conditions like brand, product, social norms, budget, and bandwidth are to be considered. In such circumstances, if you cannot partner with multiple micro-influencers, you can always make sure to increase the frequency of your collaborations. 

The tips and tricks will never end. But what you must remember is that the authenticity of the influencer, as well as your brand, is what matters a lot for a successful influencer marketing campaign.