How Micro Influencer Marketing Can Help Your Business

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You can probably think of at least one thing you purchased, signed up for or downloaded because of a influencer’s recommendation.

Influencer marketing is one of the hottest topics in the marketing space right now.

But micro influencer marketing, which is one segment of influencer marketing, may even be hotter. (Spoiler: studies show that micro-influencer marketing is actually more powerful than using influencers with a big following as well as celebrities).

Budgets for micro influencer marketing are also going to continue to grow. Emarketer, for example, found that nearly 50% of marketers plan to increase their budget for micro influencer campaigns.

Here’s the thing: it boils down to one main thing.

People simply don’t trust big businesses like they used to in the past. When they want product recommendations, they would much rather ask their friends, family or look to micro influencers – those with a modest social media following.

This blog post will take a look at how micro influencer marketing can help your business.

Fast Facts

  • Micro influencer marketing results in twice the engagement (in terms of likes/comments) on social media than popular celebrities. Other studies have found engagement levels to be 60% higher than popular accounts.
  • Micro influencers have 22.2% more buying conversations.
  • 82% of customers are likely to make a purchase based off of a recommendation from a micro influencer
  • Influencers are perceived as 92% more trustworthy than traditional advertisements and celebrity endorsements

What is Micro Influencer Marketing?

First of all, what exactly is micro influencer marketing?

Let’s begin what a micro influencer is.

As you may have guessed, a micro influencer isn’t a major celebrity.

However, they have a very engaged but smaller audience of anywhere between 1,000 to 25K following online. (Keep in mind that this number tends to vary depending on what article you read, but it gives you a general idea).

Some people will classify micro influencers as someone with a following of up to 100K. Nevertheless, you get the point. A micro influencer is someone with a relatively small following.

Companies both big (think: McDonalds) and small are making use of micro influencer marketing.

In short, micro influencer marketing is all about getting micro influencers to advertise your products and/or services on social media.

Benefits of Micro Influencer Marketing

  • They Drive High Engagement Levels

What’s interesting about micro influencer marketing is that those with smaller followings generate higher levels of engagement than influencers with bigger followings.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but a study by Markerly found that, indeed, there is such thing as having too big of an online audience.

Markerly found that Instagram influencers with less than 1,000 have a like rate of 8% compared to a rate of 4% for those with a following between 1,000 to 10,000 people.

The graph below illustrates this point in more detail.

There were also fewer comments, another form of general engagement, as well.

In short, once an influencer reaches a certain number of followers, they reach a threshold. Engagement levels decline.

But, it doesn’t stop there. The bigger the following, the lower the like rate. Those with between 1 million and 10 million followers have a measly like rate of 1.7%.

Other studies have come to the same conclusion. Adweek, for example, found that micro influencers actually have 60% more engagement than popular accounts.

Many businesses make the mistake of connecting with influencers with the highest possible following that they can afford, but the results show that may not be the best investment.

Interesting, right?

What you may be thinking now is, “why would a smaller following garner higher engagement levels?”

Well, it all boils down to two things: trust and the fact that those with smaller followings tend to be highly targeted (more on this to come).

On the trust front, most people don’t really believe that celebrities are real fans of a particular product they’re endorsing; as such, trust erodes and engagement levels decline as well.

Influencers, in general, are perceived as 92% more trustworthy than traditional advertisements and endorsements from celebrities.

  • Big Conversions

When it comes to marketing, you want to see results. Micro influencer marketing delivers those results.

In fact, the first-of-its-kind study by Experticity found that 82% of consumers said they were highly likely to make a purchase by a micro influencer.

The study above by Expericity also found that micro-influencers have up to 22.2% more buying conversations.

As you saw above, a lot of this has to do with the fact that micro-influencers are perceived as being very trustworthy. Secondly, they tend to have established themselves as experts in various fields. They also have very highly specific audiences.

  • Connect With Your Core Audience

Micro-influencers have a following that is much more targeted than those of other influencers and celebrities. Simply put, their audiences are genuinely interested in that particular niche. Their audiences are interested in them and likely what they have to offer and/or sell.

As such, this gives businesses the opportunity to drive more conversions over influencers with larger followings. A large number of bigger influencers, for example, have followings that are not necessarily interested in buying from them.

  • Greater Value

Here’s the thing:

Yes, someone with a greater following may drive more sales than a single micro-influencer alone, but you could partner with many different micro-influencers for the same price and generate even more impressive results.

The fact that micro influencers have highly specific audiences also generates more value for those investing in micro-influencer marketing when it comes to conversions.

  • Affordable (Especially For Small Businesses)

Another benefit of micro  influencer marketing is that it is very affordable, making it especially great for small businesses with a smaller advertising budget to work with. In fact, you may be surprised just how affordable micro influencer marketing really is.

According to Bloglovin’s 2016 Global Influencer survey, 84% of micro influencers will cost less than $250 per Instagram post. Twitter posts have even better rates. 90% of micro-influencers will cost less than $150 per Twitter post.

When it comes to blog posts, nearly 90% of micro-influencers will charge you less than $500 per blog post.

If you think about this in terms of a bigger influencer costing around $25K or more for a single post (and less engagement), and you begin to see why micro-influencers may be the better choice.

  • Quick Results

Another way that micro influencer marketing can help your business has to do with the rate at which it works. Search engine optimization, for example, takes months before you will begin to see an increase in traffic.

Micro influencer marketing, however, can result in quick gains where conversions are concerned. This is often accomplished through personalized discounts codes, which incentivize people to make purchases based on the discount.

Real Life Case Studies

A quick search on the Internet will generate a lot of real-life examples as to the power of micro influencer marketing. Here is one such example:

Sarah Ware, CEO and co-founder of Markerly, hired the Kardashian/Jenner sisters as well as between 30 and 40 micro-influencers on behalf of a weight-loss tea company.

What she found was interesting (but, again, not particularly surprising).

While the big-name celebrities certainly generated hundreds of conversions for the weight-loss tea company, the 30 to 40 micro influencers actually brought in more.

Again, this makes sense. Not everyone who follows the Kardashian/Jenner sisters would be interested in a weight-loss tea;  a large majority of them, for example, may be male and likely following them for their more sultry photos (as one such example).

The Bottom Line

Influencer marketing is on the rise, but micro influencer marketing, a segment of influencer marketing, may be even more powerful

The reason is simple: it drives more conversions and more engagement than celebrities and those with a bigger following. The reasons for this tend to boil down to trust and the fact that micro influencers have very specific audiences who are actually interested in that niche.

This affords businesses with the opportunity to connect with their target audience.

Even better, micro influencer marketing is surprisingly affordable.

Whether your business is small or large, micro influencer marketing is worth the investment.

We’ve talked a lot about influencer marketing on our blog. You might also be interested in the following blog posts:

Yocale is the top scheduling software on the market today – it’s also free. We also offer a free suite of business management and marketing tools. For more information, click here.

We also blog about a lot of other digital marketing tips and tricks on the Yocale blog every single week-day.

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