What are Micro-Influencers and Why You Need Them?

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective and sought-after paid marketing channels. Influencers can help you promote your brand, generate awareness, and increase conversion rates. Today almost every individual seeks the opinion of an influencer or expert in the industry before making a purchase decision. Although, the influencer marketing landscape is slowly getting centralized and new kinds of influencers have appeared in the industry; ‘micro-influencers’.

I am sure influencer marketing is not a new term for an avid social media user. Brands and marketers relied heavily on influencers to promote their brand amid the worldwide pandemic. The total investment in influencer marketing was $8 billion in 2019. The number is expected to go up to $15 billion by 2020. Influencer marketing is growing at a very rapid pace and for good reason. New businesses no longer have to wait 6-12 months before they start getting customers. Collaborating with the right influencer can help you reach your target audience and generate brand awareness. But influencer marketing is also going through some changes. The introduction of micro-influencers has opened up new opportunities for brands and marketers.

In this post, we are going to discuss what are micro-influencers and how they can be leveraged to increase your brand’s social media presence and conversions.

A micro-influencer is usually a social media influencer that has between 1,000-10,000 followers on their social profiles. These influencers build their community by operating in a niche rather than aiming at a broader scale of influence.

The influencer marketing space is already crowded with big names. New users have to select and stick to a niche to stand out from the rest. While these influencers have a smaller audience size, they possess a highly engaging audience. Sticking to a specific niche makes them stand out as an industry expert. Their opinions and reviews are widely sought-after by the community.

Friend of Barbour, @SugSean, has shown us how he is styling his Barbour Quilted Lutz Waxed Jacket this #BarbourChristmas with his favourite four-legged pup. Discover our Christmas story: https://t.co/TchD1kGlL9 pic.twitter.com/i0D61HpZmb

— barbour (@Barbour) December 20, 2020

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Micro-influencers try to reach a finely targeted audience rather than the audience worldwide. they offer better engagement and conversions when compared to influencers with large follower counts. The followers of established influencers consist of a wide variety of users with varied interests. Whereas, the posts of micro-influencers are targeted towards niche audiences and derive better results due to followers with very similar interests.

Now that your what micro-influencers are, let’s discuss the benefits of collaborating with micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers offer better engagement rates

Micro-influencers have more engaged audiences compared to mega-influencers. They offer over 60% more engagement than established and popular influencers. Micro-influencers are more quality-driven rather than quantity. They don’t just focus on building an engaging audience, instead, they try to establish personal relations with their niche audience.

Micro-influencers share most of their daily lives with their followers and focus on establishing a personal relationship with their followers. This gives them an advantage as their audience is more engaged and loyal. This is something that brands and marketers can leverage to increase their brand’s social media presence and build trust.

Micro-influencers have more specific and targeted audience

As micro-influencers operate within a specific niche where their strengths are. As a result, more of their followers share similar interests compared to established and widely-popular influencers. This gives brands and marketers a highly specific target audience that is loyal and engaged.

“It’s pleasant and it’s inoffensive, but I’m pretty sure I’ve smelled this wafting off the suit of every second City Boy on the tube…” https://t.co/GE3KfvUHZI

— Robin James (@ManForHimself) January 29, 2021

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Targeting such audiences can help you find quality leads and more prospective customers for your brand. It can also help you generate brand awareness and find users that are interested in your products or services.

Micro-influencers are more connected with their followers

Influencers with a couple thousand or more followers seem genuine and trustworthy. They offer authentic and personalized content that their followers can relate to. This encourages followers to openly converse and engage with such influencers.

Also, micro-influencers share more personal content related to their day-to-day life and are more appreciative towards their followers. This helps them easily connect with their niche audiences and build trust. That is the very reason, why their recommendations are more trusted by their audience.

Micro-influencers are affordable and cost-effective

Planning an influencer marketing campaign with a mega-influencer can cost a pretty hefty amount. It can leave a major hole in new or small businesses’ financials. Whereas collaborating with micro-influencers is much more cost-effective.

As the follower bases of micro-influencers revolve around a niche, their followers are more specific and offer better engagement rates compared to mega-influencers for a very low cost. A research study states that the brands pay at least 5.5x more when dealing with influencers with over 100, 000 followers. Another study states that the number of likes and comments decline as the followers of an influencer increase.

Micro-influencers work better with brands

Micro-influencers lean towards creating more personalized content that their followers can relate to. This makes it easier for brands to collaborate with such influencers to increase brand awareness and engagement. Many brands claim that it is much easier to work with micro-influencers compared to micro-influencers.

@TakeHeartUK forever providing that #WeekendReady look…

Shop women’s new in here > pic.twitter.com/RI8V53oH7d

— Matalan (@Matalan) January 31, 2020

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A lot of times micro-influencers go above and beyond to create value, increase engagement, and boost conversion rates for brands. They are grateful for the opportunity and aim to fulfill their clients’ needs. Also, they create promotional content that is more authentic and easier to relate to their followers.

Now that we have discussed the benefits of micro-influencers, let’s explore all the ways you can identify micro-influencers. Let’s dive in,

Look for micro-influencers that follow your brand

One of the most effective ways to identify micro-influencers is by analyzing your Twitter follower base. Influencers that are already associated with your brand can not only promote your products and services. Also, since they already follow your brand, the promotional content will seem more genuine to the audience. Who would you trust? An influencer that just landed a partnership deal from a brand and started promoting it or an influencer that is already engaged to your brand.

Use hashtags to identify niche-influencers

Micro-influencers operate in niche markets, but you can identify them through hashtags. Look for hashtags, that niche influencers often use to increase the reach of their content. Make a list of commonly used and popular hashtags. Tracking conversations related to those hashtags can help you find relevant micro-influencers to promote your brand and services.

Look for top bloggers in the specific niche market

Another way to identify micro-influencers is by looking for blogs of experts in the niche segments. You can easily find influencers and industry experts relevant to you. You can go through their blogs and analyze their engagement type. It can help you identify influential and sought-after figures in those niche segments. Analyze their Twitter follower quality to identify the right micro-influencers to promote your brand.

Use Twitter advanced search

Twitter advanced search is an amazing Twitter feature that brands and marketers can use to search micro-influencers related to their industry. It offers various search filters that you can use to get more relevant results. You can use keywords, hashtags, @mentions, and many more filters to identify the most relevant micro-influencers. You can also track the tweets of your competitors and identify the micro-influences they follow.

Find micro-influencers with FollowerAudit

The above-mentioned are some of the most effective ways to identify micro-influencer. But, manually performing a search for micro-influencers can be tiresome and too time-consuming. At times like these, you need an automated tool that can help you find micro-influencers with ease.

FollowerAudit is a paid Twitter analytics tool that can track, monitor, and analyze Twitter followers’ growth of any public Twitter account. It can help you analyze the identify micro-influencers that actively engage with your brand’s Twitter profile. With FollowerAudit, you can also get instant notification on gaining or losing each follower. You can also track Twitter unfollowers. Apart, from monitoring Twitter follower growth it can identify fake and inactive Twitter followers from any public Twitter account and help you access the follower quality of the targeted users.

Key features of FollowerAudit,

• Identify fake and inactive followers
• Track Twitter follower growth
• Identify Twitter unfollowers
• Identify and track influencers
• Analyze Twitter followers

The basic monthly/yearly plans start at $29.99/179.99$ respectively.

Micro-influencers have proven themselves to be more effective and easier to work with. They are more credible and relatable for the target audience. Brands and marketers can use the reach and influence of such influencers to promote their brand and services. FollowerAudit is an amazing Twitter followers’ tracking tool that can help you identify micro-influencers with ease. Give it a try!