The accessibility and reach of social media has made it a powerful platform in today’s marketing landscape. On social media, personalities and influencers are valuable instruments because of their vast followings and the creative content that they put forth. But realistically speaking, not all companies and brands can afford these social media celebrities and their steep fees.
Think Kim Kardashian and the hundreds of thousands of dollars she demands just for one #ad on her Instagram page. According to the 2018 Instagram Rich List compiled by Hopper HQ, an automated Instagram scheduler, Kylie Jenner makes an estimated $1 million per sponsored post on her Instagram.
But there is hope! Brands can still capitalise on influencer marketing through smaller-scale personalities known as “micro influencers”. Though they have fewer followers, micro influencers are more favourable for brands to work with. For one, they're still able to command a sizeable reach (up to 50k followers) that brands can use to promote their products and services. Also, they are much more cost-effective and accessible as compared to celebrity influencers, think $50 per post vs $5,000 per post.
Why micro-influencers?
Through influencer marketing, brands can get the word out on their products and services more effectively. According to an article on Medium, micro influencers provide a more fruitful cost-per-engagement rate than big-name influencers with mass followings.
Micro influencers are less detached from consumers and their content feels more genuine and more authentic. Their followers are more willing to engage and interact with their content as well due to that. Being less detached also means that they are more likely to reply to you personally when you interact with them via social platforms. This itself drives trust, which is lacking nowadays with all the #ad and #sp content in the social sphere.
Credit : Medium
Engaging the right crowd
While we have established the importance of micro influencers for brands, how should one go about sourcing for the right ones?
1) Know your consumers
Often times, micro influencers create content that is highly relevant to themselves. Understanding your target audience and knowing the type of content they consume will aid you in sourcing for suitable influencers.
Credit : Visualcapitalist
Credit : Nogre
2) Know your budget
As with every marketing initiative/campaign, budgeting is crucial. Knowing how much you're willing to spend will determine what you have to work with and the estimated outcomes of the campaign.
Some factors that affect how much an influencer charges -
- Content medium - is it on Instagram or Facebook, is it a post, a video or a story etc.
- Number of posts/videos
- Difficulty of campaign mechanics
These are just some of the factors that affects the cost.
With the same budget, depending on the tier of influencers, the outcome will also be different. What might allow for one macro influencer, might allow for 50 micro influencers. This itself will have a direct impact to the influencer campaign metrics such as reach and engagements.
Credit : Visualcapitalist
3) Know the type of content you want
Each micro influencer has their own unique style and creative outlook. From a brand's perspective, having influencers that are aligned with the brand's image will help to strengthen the message being sent across.
For instance, for F&B brands, micro influencers with a social feed highly focused on food would be very relevant. After checking that off the box, the next thing to look at would be the style of feed - curated photos vs photos taken by your everyday joe. Beyond the aesthetics, is the micro influencer a representation of the target audience as well? All of these will have an impact on the success of the influencer campaign.
(Content style for event, food, #ootd, selfie)
Examples of different types of content our micro-influencers have posted for our various campaigns
4) Use the right tools
If sifting through Instagram profiles and #hashtag feeds for your ideal micro influencer takes up too much time and resources, you can always work with influencer platforms and networks. Companies like Partipost provide brands with an extensive network of micro-influencers that they can engage with for their advertising needs. Brands can leverage on the Account Manager’s expertise to create campaigns that will help meet the marketing objective.
Expand your brand’s reach with Partipost
For brands looking to engage with micro influencers and to tap into crowd marketing, Partipost is the perfect platform. With an established community of micro influencers and nano influencers, in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan, that truly enjoys sharing about the brands they love.
With no strings attached, the platform allows anyone and everyone to become an influencer in their own right, amongst their own social community, and be rewarded. With a base of 18,000+ influencers across the various tiers and across Instagram and Facebook, brands can tap into this network to speak to its target audiences.
Like what you see? Want to find out more?
Partipost aims to make influencer marketing accessible to all brands. We are always looking to connect our network of influencers to brands and to expand the Partipost community. If you are looking to run social media campaigns with influencers, get a free consultation with our team of experts. We look forward to having you onboard with us!
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Get a free consultation with our team of experts to find out how your brand can leverage on the fastest growing network of influencers in Asia. Reach your potential customers and experience the power of crowd marketing today!