Many businesses see the benefit of working together with micro-influencers since this collaboration is likely to increase reach and engagement amongst their target audience. It often shows that working together with influencers can help a business with creating higher credibility, more trust, and better ways to promote their product or service. On top of that, influencers often create authentic and relatable content that the target audience resonates with. This often leads to an increase in sales, brand awareness, and customer loyalty. Let’s look at a micro-influencer strategy!
Authenticity is most valued in the world of micro-influencers
When brands work together with micro-influencers they are often seeking authentic people. But what exactly is authenticity? This concept can be quite abstract for some people. Let’s look at what makes someone authentic and how you, as a brand, can spot the ones that will create recognition amongst your target audience.
1. What is authenticity?
Someone is authentic if they are genuine and transparent about their likes, dislikes, experiences, preferences, and opinions. Being transparent and authentic means that influencers only work together with brands that they love and want other people to use as well. This transparency makes the influencer more relatable, compared to if they would promote all sorts of other brands, including the ones that they don’t like or that don’t suit their personality. If an influencer is authentic, there is a higher likelihood for people to perceive the promotion as genuine, which creates an increased chance for them to try their recommendations. These recommendations can then lead to more purchases.
2. Why is authenticity important in influencer marketing?
In the digital world, viewers are becoming savvier when it comes to spotting authentic content as well as fake recommendations. This makes it very important for influencers to stay true to who they are, what they normally promote, and what products and services they would use even without getting paid for it. When this is done right, a genuine connection will be made between the influencer and the target audience. This is important since these genuine connections help create more excitement and positive connotations amongst your target audience.
3. Collaborating with authentic influencers; how?
Now we know the importance of working together with authentic micro-influencers, the following question arises: how do you spot the right ones? There is not a black-and-white answer to this, but there are a few things you can keep in mind before working together with a micro-influencer. First of all, scan this person’s content and see what kind of feeling you get from their content. Are their endorsements in line with their personality and the overall message they are sending out? A big change is that they are authentic.
If you see a lot of content that comes across as inauthentic, this is your first clue to maybe skip working together with this person. If you’re not sure yet; start a conversation with the influencer, and ask about their stance on authenticity. Their answers often provide you with more information.
Micro-influencer digital strategy: a guideline
Working together with micro-influencers can be highly effective and beneficial for your marketing goals. However, it often requires a thoughtful strategy for it to work in your favour. A successful influencer strategy often means careful planning, a strong relationship with influencers, and authentic high-quality content. Let’s look at 7 steps you can take to elevate your influencer-marketing strategy:
1. What are your goals and KPIs?
Before you start your search for the perfect micro-influences to work with, you first have to start with the fundamentals; your marketing goals and KPIs. Are you trying to build more brand awareness? Or are you pushing for more sales? Maybe you want to create more engagement on your social media channels. By identifying your marketing KPIs, you can search for the right influencers to help you reach those goals.
2. Who is your target audience?
Before finding the right micro-influencers; it’s crucial to understand who your target audience is. If you’ve never created a buyer persona, which is a description of a person that suits your target audience, now is the time. Try to base these buyer personas on the demographics, interests, values, and personality traits of your target audience.
3. Which influencers do you want to work with?
Now that you’ve figured out your KPIs and buyer persona; it’s time to search for the right influencers to work with. You can search for people on social media platforms, such as Instagram. Here you can type in certain hashtags that suit your business well. Often, when you have found a few suitable influencers, you get recommended people you can follow; often people with similar content to the one you’ve already liked. This way, you can start your search for the right collaborations. Try to look at influencers with engaged followers and high-quality content.
4. What mutual expectations do you have?
You’ve made a list of people you would like to work with. Now it’s time to get in contact with them. You can discuss their view on authentic content, their way of working, and their availability. When there’s a match, you can now start to discuss your expectations. These expectations can vary from topics such as deliverables, timelines, and compensation. It’s best to discuss everything before you start working together, to create a streamlined collaboration.
5. How to get engaging and authentic content?
As we’ve mentioned before, it’s important to work together with authentic influencers. You can often see if they’re authentic by looking through their content and asking their view on this topic. On top of that, their content must create engagement amongst their target audience. You want to see people responding to their photos and videos. Or maybe the influencer has statistics that show that people often click through to external pages such as websites. This can all add to saying yes to working together with them!
6. Measure the results
You have set your expectations and agreed on deliverables, payments, and timelines. You have sent your product to the influencer and they have promoted it on their social media accounts. What is the best way to measure the campaign that they helped build? Search for tools that can help you out with this. These tools often help you refine your marketing strategy and agreements with the influencers and they often show where improvement is needed.
7. Stay in contact with the influencers
Last but not least, try to stay in contact with the influencers you work with. This collaboration is built on trust, excitement, and transparency from both sides. As a business, it’s very important to keep a line open with the people you work with, this will make them more eager to create an even better collaboration. Sometimes a short check-in can already put you back on the radar, which will create a higher likelihood for them to authentically promote your brand online.
The difference between micro and macro influencers
In this article, we have talked about working together with micro-influencers; but what makes them different from any other influencers, such as macro-influencers? Micro-influencers often have a smaller audience; ranging between 1000 and 100.000 followers, whereas macro-influencers often have an audience that goes beyond 100.000 followers. Despite the difference in followers, micro-influencers who have fewer followers often have a higher engagement rate, since their smaller audience allows for more personal and authentic interactions. This also means that content sent out from a micro-influencer is often perceived as more authentic, which is important.
On top of that, working together with micro-influencers is often less cost-heavy compared to working with a macro-influencer. Lastly, businesses often see that people need to see your content multiple times for them to consider purchasing their goods. There’s a higher likelihood for them to see your content from different sources if you work together with multiple micro-influencers compared to only one macro-influencer. Ultimately, the choice between working together with micro or macro influencers all depends on your budget, brand, and specific needs for your marketing strategy. A marketing agency can help you with creating the right goals and searching for the right fit; to bring your influencer marketing strategy to a higher level.
Do you want to know how to start with influencer marketing?
We can get your business ahead by looking at and defining your marketing goals. Get in contact with us if you want to brainstorm or receive help with implementing tools and techniques. We are happy to assist your business in further growth and a future of new digital possibilities.
