Influencer marketing has become one of the most effective ways to sell your products online or to share your content with your target audience. What's its secret sauce? Who are influencers and micro-influencers? How can they help you? And how do you find the right ones to work with?
We're going to answer all of these questions and more for you right now.
Ready, set, go!Who is a Micro-Influencer?
A micro-influencer is a person with a large following (between 1,000-50,000) on social media.
They are people who inspire their audiences. People want to be like them, and to buy the same products that they like. They influence and connect with people on a deeper level.
How Can Someone Become a Micro-Influencer?
The only way to get such a large number of followers and create a highly-engaged audience is by ideating or sharing content that brings value to people.
There are, of course, numerous tools that can help you hack social media growth and get a lot of followers in a short amount of time. However, if there is no engagement, i.e., if you don't have a steady flow of comments, shares, and likes, then they will not be useful to you.
You need to build an engaged audience that follows your posts regularly in a dedicated manner. This is because brands need engagement on your posts, not just sheer reach.
Micro vs. Micro-Influencers
Traditionally, the word, "influencer," referred to celebrities and famous people. They are often considered, "macro-influencers." Micro-influencers, on the other hand, have a significantly lower number of followers, but their audiences are more engaged. Micro-influencers are even more approachable than macro-influencers and have strong bonds with their audiences.
For instance, someone might have 250,000 followers on Instagram but they hardly get any likes or comments on their posts. On the other hand, another person might have only 12,000 followers but they get 5% engagement or 600 likes/comments on each post.
What Can Micro-Influencers Do for Your Brand?
Obviously, micro-influencers can help market your product, and they can do so in multiple ways.
Here are some of the top ways to work with micro-influencers:
- Create content (videos, pictures)
- Write a review of your product after they use it
- Host a giveaway contest
- You can feature their content
- Referral/affiliate program
- Social media takeover
Recently, the city of Las Vegas hired Snapchat King, DJ Khaled, for the launch of the city's Snapchat account. The famous influencer took two days and traveled around the city making videos of his favorite destinations. As a result, the city got 400,000 views and 25,000 new followers in just two days.
Additionally, micro-influencers charge significantly less than macro-influencers. In fact, micro-influencer rates on Instagram can be as low as $93 per sponsored post.
How to Find The Best Micro-Influencers for Your Brand
Finding reliable micro-influencers may seem like an uphill task, especially due to the sheer number of them, many of whom may be fake influencers too. However, it's not as complicated as it sounds.
Here are the best ways to find them:
1. Go Through Your Followers
If you already have a large following on social media, look through your followers to find people who might already be micro-influencers. They are the ones who already love and follow your brand.
For example, Union Music Store is a small store in England that sells the music of Indie and Country artists and puts on shows.
When you look at their list of followers, you will find Women Produce Music , which has almost 5k followers. This would be a great person for the brand to contact to see if they would like to talk about the brand.
2. Search for Hashtags
Instagram is the best place to search for influencers using hashtags. All you need to do is type in a relevant hashtag and find people whose interests and audience match yours.
You can also do a branded hashtag search. Hypothetically, if Gary Vaynerchuk needed to find some influencers to help him sell his book or help with his outreach, he would search for either #garyvee or #vaynermedia.
By searching for either of these hashtags, you may find profiles such as Hillary Kelly Plauche , who is a life coach and a fitness influencer. She has 15.5k followers on Instagram and regularly gets a large amount of engagement on her posts. She would be the perfect person to help sell Gary's products.
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Final Thoughts: Everything You Need to Know About Micro-Influencers 2019
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your products. By collaborating with micro-influencers, you can get high engagement on your sponsored posts.
Influencers can do a lot for your brand. They can make a video about your product, write a review, tell their story and incorporate your product in it, or do a giveaway, among other things.
The best way to find an influencer is either in your own list of followers or through branded and relevant hashtag searches.
That's all folks! If you have any questions or comments, definitely share them in the comments below.
