by Kelly Ehlers

Originally Published on Forbes.com

Influencer culture has become pervasive in the age of social media. For influencers, with the internet at everyone’s fingertips, fame and the revenue that comes with it can be just one click or stream away. 

The kids who used to grow up wanting to be an astronaut or president now want to be social media stars. According to a Morning Consult study, which surveyed 2,000 Americans ages 18-38, 54% of young Americans said they would become an influencer if given the opportunity. With instant fame just one viral post away, people are constantly sharing pictures of their food because “the phone eats first” or filming their walk down the street telling their followers about their day.

Influencer marketing has tremendous potential to power your brand’s visibility as more people are finding products to buy, places to eat and even travel destinations from influencers. And now, more than ever before, brands have nearly unlimited choices of partners. With follower counts ranging from minuscule to massive, choosing the right partnerships can significantly impact a brand. 

While many businesses assume that going bigger is better, that is not always the case. In particular, micro-influencers are often an underutilized tool that can separate brands from their competition. There are pros and cons to each influencer level, and depending on follower count, a business can expect different results. According to MediaKix, micro-influencers are defined as accounts with anywhere from 10,000-50,000 followers and macro-influencers as accounts with 500,000-1 million followers.

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Before taking the plunge into running an influencer marketing campaign, there are a few things to consider when choosing the size of influencer to work with.

Going Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Many brands see large follower counts and believe it will enable them to achieve their objectives, but despite the broad reach, there are a few downsides to consider.

Cost: As follower counts increase, the cost to work with influencers rises, creating a situation where brands must go all-in on a single content piece. While many people will see a brand’s sponsored content with a macro-influencer, in the work our agency has done with macro-influencers, the number of those followers who will purchase the product is far fewer, limiting the brand’s ROI.

Availability: Due to their large audiences, macro-influencers tend to be in high demand as brands aim to leverage their massive followings. The increased demand for partnerships with these influencers typically leads to more complicated and long-lead arrangements, constraining brands that need to move quickly. 

Authenticity: As an influencer grows in popularity, more brands want to work with them, but protecting authenticity is critical to the success of an influencer. The more sponsored content an influencer posts, the more likely their followers will distrust their authenticity and wonder if they are just interested in the payout. Brands need to be sure to research influencers, considering how often they post sponsored content and what they say. What an influencer writes for sponsored content can be enlightening and tell if they care about the brands they are working with. 

Small and Focused Can Be Powerful

As the name suggests, a micro-influencer has a smaller following. And in our work with these types of influencers, we have found they have stronger relationships built on expertise and trust with their followers. A micro-influencer serves more niche audiences and can be beneficial to a brand because they provide access to a small subset of a targeted demographic interested in your business. 

Brands should consider the following advantages of working with micro-influencers.

Cost: How much a brand pays an influencer for sponsored content is linked to their following. Micro-influencers, due to their smaller-scale size, are affordable partners for brands. These influencers are typically looking to grow their following, so it is common for them to overserve their brand partners in an effort to build a long-term relationship. All of these factors typically create a strong ROI for a brand’s spending.

Authenticity: Authenticity is an essential trait of an influencer as we continue in 2021. According to the Morning Consult study, 88% of people say it’s important for influencers to be authentic and genuinely care about their interests. Because of their smaller following, the demand for working with micro-influencers is smaller, and often they reach out to brands they want to work with. Therefore, micro-influencers are more likely to partner with brands they actually love, want to support and share with their audience.

Engagement: A common concern with micro-influencers is that their follower count is smaller, reducing the number of eyes viewing sponsored content. However, the engagement and conversion of a micro-influencer’s followers are typically higher because users trust the individual, are more likely to comment and engage, and, most critically, click the “purchase” button. According to Social Bakers, micro-influencers “boast up to a 60% increased engagement rate compared to macro-influencers.” Micro-influencers also have over a 20% higher conversion rate that can help brands boost their e-commerce sales. Therefore, despite their small followings, brands can extract incredible sales value from working with micro-influencers.

Multi-Market Reach: Due to micro-influencers being cheaper to work with, a brand can expand its reach by working with multiple influencers that cover many different market segments. By engaging various influencers of different ages, races and sexual orientations, brands can reach audiences they might be missing if they only worked with a limited number of macro-influencers.

Niche Markets: Micro-influencers have the potential to engage audiences around topics that are specific to a particular interest. This type of micro-influencer tends to be an expert in their area and has followers because of their unique, specialized interests. Brands can tap into these highly curated communities, enabling a degree of targeting that’s impossible with macro-influencers. 

As the age of social media continues to grow, the days of brands looking exclusively at follower counts to make partnership decisions are long gone. There are more options than ever before, but cutting-edge influencer programs revolve around identifying micro-influencers relevant to the brand’s marketing objectives and weaving those accounts into the broader marketing program in a customized and authentic way.