Are Micro-Influencers Better?

Do influencer marketing returns diminish with size?

Influencers are nothing new.

They’ve been around since long before the dawn of advertising.

Within my role I have had to work with the different ‘sizes’ of influencers in multiple countries in Europe, and although the results might sometimes surprise you in the positive sense, there are some things you better account for from day one.

In specific relation to marketing, influencers are people with an audience and a platform authoritative enough to persuade their following — however large — to purchase a product or service.

Despite various false death-knells in the marketing headlines, influencers are pretty much as relevant as they’ve ever been, and in fact, in 2020, there are various different types. A report from Adweek suggests that the influencer marketing market is worth about $10bn, so it’s unlikely they’re going away any time soon.

The Types of Influencers and my take-aways on them:

Mega

These are essentially celebrities and extremely successful (or wealthy) people who have millions of followers.

They have a huge but varied audience, and don’t necessarily enjoy a close connection with fans, but do have massive reach.

They tend to be very expensive, and will not provide much value for money if you’re looking for direct sales. You will want to work with them directly through their media/ad agency.

Think Beyonce and the Kardashians.

Issue I have with these huge ‘global’ personalities is that they are, in all honesty, a gamble that will require you to shift a lot of your marketing budget to a single point of success or failure.

Your impact on the timing, tone and imagery of ‘your’ post will be way less than with the other influencers as they first and foremost support and protect their own personal brand.

Given their global celebrity status, their reach is only worthwhile if you are aiming to take the world by storm with your product. If you are a DTC street fashion brand, just review the amount of brands they pushed with 2 posts before you thought of it and review the P&L’s of those brands a year later.

It will spark traffic, it will make you grow for a week or so, yet I haven’t seen great long term effects from single pushes.

If you however do want to aim big and have the budget to support it ?

Try to bind yourself to 1 or 2 for a series of story arcs, spanning at least a week or 3, and back it up with a good load of macro and micro influencers the weeks/months after. The funny thing about their star appeal is that it will make it easier for you to get better deals from the macro/micro/nano influencers.

Macro

Previously the most popular category, though losing ground to the smaller candidates, these influencers tend to have between 100 thousand and a million followers across their social media profiles.

Typically these people will have found their success and fame on the internet itself rather than anywhere else and will have usually hand-built their following, enjoying closer relationships with their followers.

These can represent a high-quality, specific audience whilst maintaining a high reach.

Think influential business people, yet also a lot of ‘fit-girls’ are growing into these numbers.

These macro influencers are often shifting into using personal managers that you can reach and work with. Some of them are still linked to platforms, although they are quickly outgrowing the ‘gig’ setup and transitioning into working with more traditional publishing agencies.

We use these influencers mostly in Spain/Italy. We handpick the macro’s and then supplement with micro/nano through influencer agencies and platforms. When handpicking the macro’s take a few weeks of reviewing their content, looking at their stories and see if there is a trend in their engagement that is able to convince you that they have a voice that is listened too.

We typically aim at influencers that had some TV/magazine exposure thus are ‘nationally’ famous rather than globally, yet still have a rather niche audience. Think cooking show hosts, fashion gurus, here again a lot depends on the content of your business.

We aim to connect ourselves to these influencers through 12month deals, with agreements on the amount and type of content, yet with creative freedom at their side. It is worthwhile to also create a human connection with them through physical events.

Micro

Far more popular these days, micro-influencers rely on the ‘1000 true fans’ theory of marketing: that’s it is better to have a smaller but more engaged following than a large, uninterested one that lacks loyalty.

These guys have between 1 and 100 thousand followers, and will only operate in one or a couple of niches.

Typically an aspiring influencer will “apply” to become a micro-influencer, responding to ads desiring several of them. A good example of this might be to promote a mobile app.

A recent law in the United Kingdom recognises a person with a following of over 30,000 as a celebrity. Micro-influencers will tend to fall short of that milestone.

Whilst you would hope that these guys charge less, that is not necessarily the case, and it is difficult to know if you’re getting value for money from one of these so do your homework.

Think of these people as novelists or musicians that are being pulled into the ‘influencer relationship management’ platforms and hope to make a side income from their audience. Our results vary a lot in this department.

Risks you need to take into consideration: people are not professionally oriented to this ‘business’.

So expect some people to agree yet not deliver, accounts that ghost for weeks on end, and also look for a platform that handles all the taxes/payment streams. You do not want to engage with an influencer that wants to receive payment solely through goods or payment in coupons with the aim of avoiding taxes as that liability is one I wouldn’t like to bear.

In essence here you aim for a good agency that selects the micro and nano accounts and you just look at their global reporting.

We have had our share of bad results so we are actually cutting down on the micro/nano segment a lot.

Nano

The new breed of influencer, the nano variety tends to have a following of less than 1000, but enjoys the highest levels of engagement with the community they have built around themselves.

A good example would be a local religious figure, or a writer writing exclusively for a specific, highly-targeted niche.

These influencers are the closest to “everyday people” and therefore are more authentic and genuine than the others, and would be a really good investment for local businesses like nightclubs or vegan cafes.

I fully understand the reasoning why these people would make sense. However setting up payment terms and asking them to register a tax number with the authorities is something no-one wants to venture into.

So I would steer away from this through agencies and would rather build a good enough brand that nano’s would like to support through affiliation deals instead.

Which influencer is right for you?

Ultimately the type of influencer you will want to invest in will depend on your desired outcome from the campaign.

If you’re looking to reach as many people as possible, to start your launch with a bang and propel yourself internationally go with the bigger audience of the celebrities.

If you’re looking to make some ROI from influencer marketing I would opt to bind yourself to a few handpicked, relevant to your region and products macro influencers for a longer period of time, supported by some smaller ones that work on a gig basis through Influencer Relationship Management agencies or platforms.