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Influencer marketing campaigns are great additions to many brands’ digital marketing strategies. However, marketing teams that want to use an influencer strategy to connect with their target audience must consider what type of social media influencer is best suited for their brand and their products or services.
To find the right influencers, brands need to understand the types of influencers and how they could align with their company’s size, budget, campaigns, visibility, and ultimate goals. By doing this, brands give their products and services a better chance of making waves across social media platforms and reaching the intended audience.
This article will give an overview of different types of influencers, and, more importantly, when you might want to pursue a partnership with each type.
When to Search for Nano Influencers
Nano influencers have a significantly smaller reach compared to other influencers, with an average following at or below around 1,000.
Despite the small following, utilizing nano influencers for your brand can be a massive step in the right direction, depending on your marketing team’s goals. For example, if your brand is just now venturing into influencer marketing, your initial purpose might be testing the waters of your campaign strategy or finding a specific niche to target. Nano influencers can also be a great option for marketing teams working on a strict budget, as they’re usually very cost-effective compared to larger influencers.
While your instincts may tell you to find the biggest social media stars possible for your brand, this option is unrealistic for most. Nano influencers, while not the biggest stars, are typically authentic and connect with their close followers on a personal level in a way that some other influencers cannot.
Smaller brands commonly use nano influencers because of the low cost of partnering with these influencers as well as the passion they can bring when showcasing your products or services. However, it is essential to remember that nano influencers are likely new to showcasing products for brand partnerships. Because of this, your marketing team needs to perform due diligence to ensure that the content being posted by a nano influencer is effective.
The Time for Micro Influencers
Micro influencers and micro-content creators are generally considered to have between 1,000 and 100,000 followers. While a micro influencer is not suited to the products and services of every brand, many companies work with these influencers when gettings started with this strategy. Additionally, brands often employ micro influencers to target a specific audience or location.
Like nano influencers, brands often choose to work with micro influencers to target a specific niche that is not necessarily prioritized when a brand partners with larger influencers. Brands looking to generate more promising leads can benefit significantly from the personal relationship between smaller influencers and their followers. In fact, working with micro influencers is thought to result in higher engagement and conversion rates compared to working with macro influencers.
Finding micro influencers is usually a straightforward (though not always easy) process for marketing teams. For example, Instagram influencers are popular among many brands because marketers can find micro influencers by simply looking through hashtags to find users posting content relevant to their products or services.
Get More Reach With Macro Influencers
On another part of the social media influencer spectrum are content creators with a significantly higher following than nano and micro influencers. Macro influencers have anywhere between 100,000 to 1 million followers and are typically more experienced when compared to other types of influencers.
Some marketing teams don’t partner with macro influencers because they tend to be less cost-effective given their reach, experience, and (often) high demand. Of course, there is no strict guideline for how influencers price themselves, and the cost of a sponsorship or long-term partnership will depend on multiple factors.
Macro influencers are commonly bloggers and vloggers, meaning they have likely gained fame through years of hard work to effectively become internet celebrities. They are in high demand not only because of their large audience but because they’re still small enough to have a somewhat personal connection with their followers, who helped them achieve their current status.
The downside brands commonly face when partnering with macro influencers is a lower engagement rate. Because the influencer has such a large following, they may have an engagement rate of less than 2% on posts. A macro influencer’s audience is typically broader, meaning they may not be the best choice for brands aiming to target an ultra-specific niche.
Though, businesses looking to gain more brand visibility overall or create a greater presence on social media may want to look to macro influencers to achieve their goals.
Going All Out With Mega Influencers
These influencers usually have several millions of followers and are typically well-known celebrities with a dedicated fanbase. Mega influencers often partner with brands looking for celebrity endorsements to gain greater visibility regardless of niche audiences.
Mega influencers are a wise choice for brands simply looking to improve brand awareness and reach people on a broader scale. Companies working with mega influencers need to have the budget to support this set-up as many mega influencers are selective about their partnerships, and it can take a lot to get their (or their agent’s) attention.
While few brands choose to partner with mega influencers because of the cost or other goal incompatibilities, those brands that do often see a massive boost in awareness. For example, 440 Industries noted that FashionNova saw great success due to collaboration with mega influencers such as Kylie Jenner and Cardi B.
Choosing Influencers by Content
If your brand could benefit from any or all of these influencer strategies, then focusing on content becomes the most important thing. For example, a gaming brand might want to target gaming influencers that can recommend their products to people interested in gaming. Regardless of the following size, connecting with influencers by type of content is a great first step for brands with particular goals.
Basing influencer partnerships on content and niche is a wise choice for many brands and is often the best way to target a particular audience demographic.
Final Words
Navigating the influencer marketing landscape is essential to the success of any brand looking to get its foot in the door with this strategy. Though many brands may immediately want to start looking for macro or mega influencers to reach a broad audience, this is not always the best choice.
For brands new to influencer marketing, services like Markerly can be a significant help. Markerly guides brands, big and small, in the right direction for influencer campaigns, providing marketing teams with all the necessary tools to create an effective strategy.
Don’t wait to make strong connections with your target audience—contact the experts at Markerly to learn more about navigating influencer marketing and achieving things you didn’t know were possible!
