What Is A Micro-Influencer & Do You Need One?

Aspirational advertising refers to a type of advertising in which brands work with high-profile individuals to associate their products or services with certain concepts that the celebrity represents, such as their immense popularity or the lifestyle of glamor and luxury they lead. And for decades, many brands have profited from this marketing strategy. 

However, modern consumers are more savvy than ever and can see through such tactics, making them more wary of this type of advertising. In response, the world of influencer marketing is shifting away from being exclusively the domain of the famous to now encompass a larger pool of creators, who include more everyday people with less massive followings. 

Content creators, with micro-sized communities –  thus, they are named micro influencers – create content that appeals to their smaller, more targeted audiences and tend to have higher engagement with their modestly-sized communities. Consequently, they can succeed in creating stronger relationships with their followings built around trust. 

It’s also quite easy to find the right micro-influencers for your brand, depending on your time and resources; some methods are more manual, but you can automatize this process If you’d like to.

And such micro-influencers can help you reach an audience that more deeply trusts and believes in your brand and offerings. 

Interested? Read on. 

The Decline of Traditional Influencers 

For decades companies have taken advantage of the power of celebrities to sell everything from perfume to vacuum cleaners, and everything in between. Celebs inherently hold an influence on their fan base – the kind of influence that can be used to sway purchasing decisions. For example, their expertise could be related to products they promote within a particular niche ( David Beckham and Adidas) or not (Beyonce and Pepsi). With a high-profile name associated with their brands, brands leverage celebrities’ fame to generate excitement around their products. 

The rise of social media allowed everyday individuals to amass likes and followers in large numbers, leading to the rise of the internet celebrity. Aware of the huge followings internet celebrities had and the immense influence they had on their fans, brands began to hire these  internet-famous individuals as their brand ambassadors. And from the early days of social media platforms like Instagram up until now, this strategy has been very successful. Creators produce content promoting certain brands they have partnerships with and then share it with their followings and thus, create greater brand awareness for these companies while influencing their followings’ purchasing decisions. 

However, in a saturated digital world, consumers are constantly inundated with ads and are experiencing ad fatigue no more than ever before. And as a result they are becoming increasingly disillusioned and wary of the content influencers share on their platforms.

Social media has become a veritable dumping ground for people looking to cash in on their supposed popularity by promoting various products and services, and consumers are tired of it. Recent research consistently highlights that influencers with the highest social media followings are now in actuality the least influential!

Today’s consumers are aware that many large-scale influencers advocate for brands not because they believe in them or even use their products, but simply because they are paid to do so. In this way, this marketing method is no longer drawing upon the power of social proof. it’s merely another form of paid advertising and one that consumers now see right through. Therefore it has become far less effective for generating leads. 

What Makes Micro Influencers Different? 

That’s not to say the age of influencer marketing is dead – far from it. Simply, attention has shifted away from vanity metrics such as likes and follows and more towards other robust indicators that the influencer has their audience’s attention, like engagement rates. These are often far higher among content creators with a sharper focus and a more modest number of fans. Micro influencers develop stronger, deeper relationships with their heavily targeted audience as opposed to your typical influencer with broader followings. 

Micro-influencers are influencers who have social media followings of around 1,000 to 100,000 people compared with that of typical (macro)  influencers, whose followings can run into the millions. Micro-influencers’ audiences are also usually far more uniform, built from a community that has come together based on shared interests and values. Often, individuals within their communities seek advice about the best products for them from someone like them, thus making the possibility of converting their followers far more likely. 

That being said, the influencer’s role is still a vital one. Followers gravitate to micro -influencers not because they are particularly high-profile but because they are creating the kind of authentic, informed content that picks them out as experts in their niche. Beyond that, the way that they engage with their audience inspires much-needed trust. It’s clear that they have experience with the products in question. In that way, micro-influencers strike the perfect note between expert and authentic that makes their voice so persuasive. 

Will This Marketing Method Work For Me?

Several factors make micro-influencers a better investment for brands as compared with influencers with larger followings: 

• They typically cost far less than more well-known influencers. Often they are open to other forms of compensation, such as free products or access to referral programs. 
• Their audience is generally far more concerned with the products than the influencer who isn’t a celebrity, potentially leading to a far better ROI. 
• A more uniform audience is perfect for more targeted products, compared to one shared by traditional influencers, which tend to have a much broader appeal. 
• Inspiring trust with their smaller, more targeted followings based on their expertise within a certain niche means their followers are more likely to be swayed by their recommendations. 
• A smaller number of followers enables the influencer to keep their community hyper-engaged. Your brand message will be getting heard, and your chances of conversion much higher. 

On the other hand, 

• Micro-influencers won’t risk their audience’s trust by recommending products that don’t match their values or standards, making them pickier than traditional influencers. 
• Your target customers’ needs to be precisely aligned with those of the micro-influencers audience. This style of marketing won’t work for a broad range of products or services. 

Adding influencer marketing to your overall marketing strategy could boost sales through word-of-mouth advertising. It could also help build trust in your brand amongst your target audience through social proof. However, choosing the right influencer to work with is key to maximizing your ROI. Quality of content and audience engagement is what you should be looking for. The message needs to not only find the right people but resonate with them – it has to be both impactful and memorable. 

If you are looking for support with identifying your target audience, and finding a micro-influencer to enhance your marketing efforts, or simply for more information about whether or not influencer marketing could be right for you, Firon Marketing can help. 

Get in touch today to see how we can improve your brand marketing efforts and bottom line.