Why you should work with micro influencers

Influencer marketing is the newest trend for marketing, taking over from programmatic. There’s been a huge shift towards making full use of this form of marketing, developing it into a fully-fledged channel over the past few years.

It’s not hard to see why. On average, businesses are said to generate 6.5x ROI on an influencer marketing campaign. Studies have also shown that marketers also believe that the quality of customers obtained through influencer marketing is better than traditional channels.

No wonder more and more brands are investing in influencer marketing. But are they doing it correctly? Too many brands are aiming to work with Zoella, or Deliciously Ella, when actually they should be aiming a bit lower – for good reason.

So, why is it that micro influencers are better than bigger names?

Authenticity 🕵️

In a lot of cases, micro influencers will be a lot more relatable than bigger name influencers. Celebrity influencers can seem very detached from the average, everyday consumer. Their problems aren’t the same problems that most people will face in their day-to-day lives.

However, micro-influencers seem more attainable and more relatable. Their followings tend to be based on their direct approachability and everyday personism. Many consumers trust these micro-influencers much more than they would trust larger, celebrity endorsements.

Priced out 💸

In the previous era of influencer marketing, when we were restricted to Zoella and Alfie Deyes, you either stumped up the huge amount of money required to work with them, or you didn’t do influencer marketing.

However, now you can work directly with micro influencers, you’re not priced out of influencer marketing as a channel.

This means that your marketing budget not only stretches further but also that you can engage with multiple influencers during a campaign, instead of hinging all your focus on one influencer in particular.

Easier to work with 💘

Working with huge, borderline-celebrity influencers can be tough. It can be a real challenge. Influencers who have followers in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, tend to think of themselves as celebrities, with all the negative connotations that are attached to that.

Demands can be made, egos can be inflated and handling can be difficult. All of this can lead to a less than ideal working situation, as well as friction on projects.

Micro-influencers tend to be free from these sort of behaviours. They’re still at the point where they rely heavily on word-of-mouth and their reputations, so they’ll ensure that they’re pleasant to work with in order to get more work (obviously this isn’t true for everyone, but the majority are).

Better metrics 📊

One of the biggest reasons to work with micro influencers is that the metrics tend to be better than macro influencers.

Whilst micro influencers do have a smaller amount of followers, many studies (here and here) have found that influencers with smaller amounts of followers actually have higher engagement rates.

This means that you’re getting more actual engagement with the posts that you’re spending your money on, and a bigger bang for your buck.

Tap into a niche 🍰

Most micro-influencers have smaller followings for a reason because they appeal to a specific niche. Identifying the correct micro influencer for your target market and for your niche is key.

When you engage with the followers of specific niches, you can be guaranteed that they all like the particular topic, such as interior design. Even if the influencer isn’t a household name, you can be assured that their followers will all really care about interior design and therefore be more engaged with your design brand, for example.

By tapping into these extremely targeted follower bases, you’re more likely to drive better engagement and overall better results.

Brand safety 🔐

There are some arguments that say micro influencers also have an element of greater brand safety than macro influencers do.

Larger influencers have subsets of followers within their followers. All their followers may not follow them for the exact same reason.

However, micro influencers have smaller but, as previously said, more targeted audiences. Their expertise on a particular topic means that they will partner well with the brand, and typically they already produce safe, contextual content.

Overall, working with micro influencers is ideal for any brand, of any size. You’re not priced out, the content is more authentic and you get higher engagement. What’s not to love?