Influencers micro or macro – What is the most effective for your brand?
Brands are projected to spend $15 billion on influencer marketing during 2022, but where they invest that money is unique to the campaign targets. There has been a long-term debate over the influencers that brands work with, and 61% of marketers admit they struggle to find the right influencer for a campaign.
There are many deciding factors to consider when starting an influencer campaign. Still, one of the most important things brands must decide is whether a macro-influencer with over 100 thousand followers is more beneficial than a micro-influencer with 10-100 thousand followers. GottaBe! has worked with both macro and micro-influencers on campaigns with brands as a digital marketing agency. Both are beneficial to marketers due to their unique influence on consumers. We will discuss the differences within this post.
Why is influencer marketing beneficial?
Influencer marketing is a highly effective marketing channel for brands to reach audiences of all ages. What started on social media sites such as YouTube and Instagram has expanded onto many platforms, including LinkedIn. The industry recognises the power influencers have, and anyone can market any product; even B2B benefits from influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing plays on the age old idea of people buy from people. As humans, the greatest decision making factor is the opinion of someone that we trust and see as an expert.
The reach of influencers and the engagement rate with consumers is much higher than what your brand could create alone as they become an extension of your brand and market to their established and loyal audience. Influencers spend a long-time building trust with consumers or are inspirational, so the audience will want what they have and will feel secure in making a purchase. Influencer marketing, therefore, is an excellent brand awareness tool and should be utilised this year!
What tier of influencers is better for my brand?
The tier of influencers your brand chooses to work with should be considered and selected based on your campaign’s goals, as each influencer will deliver different things. But this is where influencer marketing is so powerful.
You can see great success with influencer marketing from all tiers but will be limited by your budget, and more often than not, this will be the deciding factor for marketers choosing influencers from each tier. To help you decide which influencer tier to work with, we have broken down some facts from the micro and macro tiers.
Micro influencer
Micro-influencers are classed as those who have between 10-100 thousand followers. They are well known to have a higher engagement rate as they create personalised content that is more engaging for their audience. As their following is smaller, they can act as the perfect combination of an influencer and best friend. And authenticity always comes first.
To stay relevant, they must continue to engage with their audience and interact with them at a deeper level than a more established macro influencer would need to. This helps their engagement rate stay so high and allows them to build strong bonds with their audience.
Micro-influencers get 47% more engagement on their posts than macro-influencers and your brand will see a better ROI. A micro-influencer is perfect for smaller brands who do not have the budget to pay macro-influencers or a brand looking to run a campaign with several influencers involved. GottaBe! recommend the use of micro-influencers no matter the target of your campaign but feel that if you are trying to raise brand awareness and purpose to create leads, micro-influencers would be the best choice for your brand.
Macro influencer
While macro-influencers have a more significant following and, therefore, a larger reach, this is not always as beneficial for creating high-quality leads. Depending on the deliverables of a campaign, engagement may be better with the micro-influencers. But due to their more extensive reach, they are more beneficial to reaching the explore page and raising discovery for brands.
Macro influencers should be seen as a valuable asset for raising brand association and discovery. With a following of over 100 thousand, macro-influencers are typically a celebrity or household names. Having them onside can add value to your product. Their posts/ pictures are more likely to be reshared by a higher number of people as their following is typically aspirational.
What influencer should I use?
Micro-influencers have the power to drive conversations and consumers into the marketing funnel. You can diversify your reach by using multiple micro-influencers for the same price as one macro influencer. There are also many ethnic influencers within the micro tier, so your brand can directly target specific demographics as the smaller influencers tend to stick with a niche.
If your brand is looking for a higher level of content, then a macro-influencer has more resources, but if you would like to create relatable content, then a micro-influencer is better for you.
Macro influencers, whilst expensive, are an excellent channel for brand discovery as their content has a higher chance of reaching more people through exploration. A campaign containing micro and macro-influencers would be highly beneficial for your brand as it will increase awareness, purpose and discovery whilst pushing consumers into the marketing funnel. By utilising multiple influencers from various tiers, your reach and impact have maximum effect.
How do I start an influencer campaign?
To run a successful influencer campaign, it is essential to be clear on the budget; the unspoken guide of cost for influencers is roughly £100 per 10,000 followers, but this will differ per influencer. There are no regulations on price within the industry. So, use this as a guide when reaching out to influencers. Your budget should be shared equally between influencers based on their following, engagement, and content, not their heritage.
Many brands are beginning to favour micro-influencers as the power they have over macro-influencers becomes more apparent. As this trend continues, micro-influencers will become more popular for advertising, and macro-influencers will become brand ambassadors with collaborations. Due to the competitive nature of the industry being oversaturated, it will become even more challenging to break into the industry. Your brand must start with an influencer campaign to stay up to date with the market.
“A growing number of marketers are taking a back-to-basics approach, scaling back their use of celebrities and mega-creators for so-called “micro-” and “nano-” influencers who have smaller audiences but may actually use a product and can speak authentically about it.” – Global Influencer Marketing 2019 via emarketer.com.
A study by Statista found that the engagement rate of Instagram influencers decreases as the number of followers increases. The same study also found that influencers with 1,000 social media followers or less get likes on their posts 5% of the time. But posts from influencers with over 10 million followers only get likes 1.6% of the time. If the stats continue to show such trends, then it is likely that other tiers, such as nano-influencers (under 10,000 followers), will come into consideration for larger brands expanding their reach.
Finally, choosing an influencer from the relevant industry is essential, as a beauty influencer will not have the same impact in the tech world and visa versa. With so many influencers to choose from, your brand will be able to find the right one for your campaign. But if you are struggling to do so and need a hand, then GottaBe! are here to help. Our digital marketing experts know what consumers want and can connect you with the right influencer for your brand.