The Growing Importance of Micro-Influencers in Marketing

Ever since social media became a vital channel for brand communication in the mid to late 2000s, influencers have been an essential part of the marketing ecosystem.

These popular individuals may have millions of followers, and they often secure lucrative sponsorship deals while building exclusive brand relationships. According to Goldman Sachs (as reported in eMarketer and featured on the Glewee blog), in 2024, brands are spending an average of 36% of their marketing budgets on influencer marketing.

The most successful influencers include Kylie Jenner, Zoe Sugg, and Huda Kattan. If some of these names aren’t known to you, then you simply aren’t in their circle of awareness (beauty influencer Kattan boasts over 54 million Instagram followers).

Many of these top-level influencers end up developing their own brands or forging alliances with some of the biggest businesses around. They become largely inaccessible to smaller brands, in other words.

There’s a new game in town, however: the use of micro influencers.

What is a Micro Influencer?

As the name suggests, these are people with a notable social media presence, but they’re not at the level of the mega influencers mentioned above. Their follower count may be in the tens of thousands, or even thousands.

Rather than offer a sponsorship deal to one or two huge influencers, smaller brands can secure better value for money by building a pool of micro influencer talent, and spreading brand mentions across the social media ecosphere.

Done cleverly, this strategy can result in a brand receiving more mentions than it might from a time-pressured single influencer. It can be easier to secure commitments for a specific volume of posts and mentions from smaller influencers who will benefit more from the relationship.

Micro influencers often have very specific and niche enthusiasms which align with your brand values, such as environmental concern, an interest in pop culture, or a wellbeing focus (to give just three examples).

They can also be selected to appeal to a particular demographic, linguistic or geographic audience. Lastly, they can be sought on whatever social media platform works best for your brand, whether that’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok.

How do you Find Micro Influencers?

This is the crux of the problem. Though there will be micro influencers who are perfectly suited to your brand, how do you find them?

One key strategy is to use that ubiquitous piece of social media currency, the hashtag. Hashtags, and keywords, are social media’s unofficial filing system. These terms are searchable indicators of niche subject matter, zeitgeisty trends, and social tribes.

Depending on your brand, campaign, or product launch, you can choose to run a keyword or hashtag search across a wide range of markers including:

• Brand names – you can search for mentions of competitor brands, and thereby find enthusiasts within your sector. Click on the “tagged” link above a brand’s Instagram feed and you’ll see all the individuals who liked or tagged a particular post.
• Niche interests – each social media channel has its specialized hashtags, related to the interests of users. For instance, book lovers often use the #booktok hashtag on TikTok or #bookstagram on Instagram.
• Promotional tags – linked to a season, holiday or occasion, tags like #mothersdaygifts or #valentinesday can help you locate influencers linked to these events.
• Location tags – you can search for the geographical markers social media users add to their posts.
• Trend tags – if there’s a current lifestyle or leisure-related tag, you can use that to find the kind of influencers who enjoy responding to the zeitgeist.

You can also search on Google (or rival search engine) with a combination of niche topic, top influencers, and geographical / demographic subset.

There are also several platforms which allow you to search very specifically and easily for influencers who exactly match your primary criteria. Inbeat have produced a useful rundown of the best of these tools, which include their own platform, Modash, Keyhole, and Heepsy.

What Makes the Perfect Micro Influencer?

According to Impact.com, the perfect follower count for a micro influencer is between 15K and 75K. This means the influencer has been producing appealing content but may not be tied into exclusive sponsorship deals that make them inaccessible.

At this level, the influencer will be highly engaged with the attempt to deliver worthwhile content and will enthusiastically benefit from brand partnerships. They will probably be engaging actively with their followers and will go above and beyond to extol the virtues of products and brands they love.

Other than follower count, what other qualities will the ideal micro influencer have?

• Enthusiasm and energy – obviously you’ll want engaged, lively collaborators who post reliably, ideally on a regular schedule.
• Expertise – you’ll want to work with influencers who understand and enjoy your sector. For instance, if you are a coffee brand, could you forge links with restaurant reviewers, cooks, or lifestyle influencers?
• Value-aligned – your micro influencers’ personal values align with your brands. For instance, if your brand produces sustainable eco-friendly products, you may not want to partner with an influencer who boasts about driving a gas-guzzler!
• Demographically appropriate – make sure you survey the influencer’s followers. If your brand sells best to Gen-Z buyers in the US and Canada, does this match an influencer’s follower demographics?
• Professional – if you have very specific guidelines about how your product can be marketed (such as medicinal products or alcohol brands) then you need to ensure your influencers will follow these guidelines to the letter.

Why Work with Smaller Influencers?

HubSpot ran research, as part of their 2023 Social Media Marketing Trends Report, into smaller content creators and influencers. They identified five main reasons why brands choose to work with micro influencers. These included:

• Cost considerations – smaller influencers are less expensive to partner with. (44%)
• Ease of partnering – forging long-term partnerships was more straightforward. (44%)
• Access to niche communities – Smaller influencers can provide access to close-knit, specialized groups. (41%)
• Open to feedback – These content creators are more amenable to feedback and advice. (41%)
• Higher engagement – Micro influencers engage more actively with their followers. (37%)
• Trusted by followers – Followers of these individuals display more trust in their content. (35%)

Another key reason to work with these influencers, is that they are usually accessible. Once you’ve identified who your like to partner with, you can usually send a DM (direct message) on one of their accounts, proposing an initial conversation. Micro influencers are less likely to ignore this straightforward approach than more famous content creators.

Other Benefits of Micro Influencers

There are other, subtler reasons to partner with smaller content creators.

Firstly, you’ll be able to build a relationship with individuals whose success is on the rise. This means that there’s a two-way incentive for each party to provide fuel for great content. A micro influencer’s partnership with a brand can become the assistance they need to take their content and followership to the next level.

Secondly, micro influencers often feel more “authentic” than polished celebrity content creators, who may no longer be in touch with the concerns and interests of their followers. Authenticity is hard to define, but for a follower, it’s generally a sense that the influencer’s posts are sincere, honest, and direct. This value is often important to smaller brands trying to establish themselves in competitive markets.

Thirdly, smaller content creators are usually very empathic storytellers. They must be since a failure to engage can result in a sudden drop-off in followers. This makes them good mouthpieces for a brand’s messaging, without the partnership becoming too overtly sales orientated. The last thing you want to encourage is an influencer simply reading rote ad copy. Instead, allow your influencers to personalize their enthusiasm for your brand.

Lastly, by partnering with numerous micro influencers, you aren’t putting all your marketing eggs in one basket. Should the relationship with one influencer sour, for whatever reason, you’ll have plenty of others to pick up the slack.

Micro Influencers are Here to Stay

A 2020 Forbes article foretold the rise of influencer marketing, and attributed it to several trends:

• The increased trust consumers place in influencers, over advertising messaging, which they often block, avoid, or ignore.
• The use of data analytics to track brand mentions, revealing that social media is a vital channel for product marketing.
• An 11% higher ROI for customer acquisition using social media over more legacy means.

Four years after that Forbes piece, there’s no evidence that influencer marketing is on the wane. Statista reports the market to be worth $24 billion in 2024, a gain of almost $3 billion on the previous year, and more than double the marketing spend in 2020.

Micro influencers, with their unique perspectives, high engagement, enthusiasm, and expertise, are the ragtag armies of small brand marketing. Use them wisely, and their potential to help push your brand to the next level, is huge.