How brands are turning to micro-influencer equity to increase sales
Influencers are no longer just celebrities. Many are people just like you and me who happen to write and post about things that interest them. They’ve managed to build an online following of likeminded people who are interested in what they have to say and the subjects they are posting about.
Influencers are a growing trend in marketing. Brands have realised for some time that influencers can connect with their followers as trusted peers in a way that traditional advertising is unable to. Influencers are seen as authentic and knowledgeable; whose views and opinions convert followers into loyal customers. It’s almost as good as being given a word-of-mouth recommendation by a close friend.
When a brand connects with an influencer both enter into a paid partnership, whereby the online influencer will post authentic content about their experience with the product or service. This could be a blog, a website review, an Instagram post or a YouTube video on their channel. The trust the influencer has built up with fans reflects on the brand and, if the brand/influencer affinity is right, all the evidence proves that this can have a significant impact on product sales.
An account with over a million followers can earn upwards of $50k for a single sponsored post (depending on its engagement)[1]. However,But marketers have noticed that it’s no longer just about size – the ratio of likes and comments to followers peaks when an influencer has around 1,000 followers and starts to flatten out at 100,000 followers or more. This is because micro-influencers tend to have a deeper and more intimate relationship with their followers, and this is a critical component to affect peoples’ purchasing decision.
Marketers are investing more of their resources into influencer marketing
A 2018 report from Linqia found that 63% of consumer brands in the US typically used more than 10 influencers per campaign, and 39% plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2019.
But as with anything, success comes down to the planning, which comes down to choosing the right influencers and measuring the metrics.
74% of marketers are using influencer content on other channels, and it’s easy to see why. 57% of survey respondents reported that influencer content outperformed brand-created content.
39% of digital marketers surveyed with a digital marketing budget above $500,000 plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2019
Engagement is still the most important way marketers are measuring influencer marketing performance, with 89% stating this is the way they measure success
More than 68% of marketers cite Instagram as the most important social network for influencer marketing, followed by Facebook (51%); while Snapchat remains the least important social network for influencer marketing in 2019
50% indicated that measuring ROI continues to be the biggest pain point in influencer marketing
Finding your perfect influencer match
Micro-influencers with brand affinity are hidden away so you’ll need to do some digging to find them. Here are a few ways to root them out:
Research hashtags related to your industry and search for accounts mentioning those hashtags. Sort by number of followers and engagement levels, select the top ones and DM them with your request
Use a social media listening tool to
Consider your existing followers – identify those with the required following and engage with them
Automate the search. Manual research can be time-consuming and tools such as BuzzSumo, Klear and Ninja Outreach can help you form an initial list of potentials for you to vet
Finally - watch out for fake influencers, or influencers that are fudging the numbers. Consider the quality of an influencer’s previous work, look at engagement rates, validate comments to ensure they are genuine and not bot driven generic phrases and monitor activity over the course of a couple of weeks. You will soon know if their followers are genuine
[1] Forbes
