Many organisations have predicted that more brands will seek to work with micro-influencers in 2024 and beyond. Micro-influencers will bring new opportunities and new challenges.
What are micro-influencers Micro-influencers are influencers with a smaller following, typically with a niche or focused topic. The defining metric is that micro-influencers have 1000 to 100,000 followers. A micro-influencer may only talk about a single subject or a sub-topic of a broader topic (t-shirts in fashion, laptops in tech).
Micro-influencers with a niche focus can drive higher conversion and engagement rates. Statistics from Statista back this up; they show a 1.6% drop in engagement rate by the time you get to a million followers. Using working dog trainers as an example, their engagement amongst their followers overall should be higher than that of general dog influencers because their 25,000 followers have a specific interest in working dogs.
A smaller follower count means more interaction for influencers. It's like dining at a small restaurant where diners focus on the environment and experience versus a large chain where people care about the food only.
A smaller following and more interaction provide the influencer more credibility. That creates a genuine and authentic tone, and higher engagement drives a high sales conversion, albeit on a smaller scale.
Influencers charge fees based on followers and engagement. Smaller reach means lower cost, which is additionally suitable for small marketing budgets or experiments.
Does your campaign fit the influencer? If you're launching a product and your marketing budget is "put this in front of as many people as possible", then no. There are better and more efficient ways to reach a mass market.
In April 2023, Coca-Cola launched a campaign called 'A recipe for Magic'. In that campaign, they worked with 750 influencers. The idea behind the campaign was to connect people at meal times and the drinks they had.
That message only works when you have a certain level of intimacy. There are only a few people at the dining table, not millions, and Coke wanted to use that to create that sense of connection.
The Coke campaign's brief was to "cook or show some food at a mealtime and tell people you like Coke". Each influencer implemented that in their way. Some did it with a family rugby win; one guy did it with a sandwich at the beach.
That works well with authenticity and credibility. The influencer's followers saw them cook in their kitchen, with their food, and they drank a coke or saw the influencer watching the football eating a curry with a coke. It was genuine.
There are several challenges. The first belongs to the influencer itself; they have a small market reach compared to their larger counterparts. They do not have, by definition, a million followers.
You may need to deal with more influencers to reach enough people. That comes with its issues: people are hard to organise, and schedules must fit with everyone else. Have you tried to arrange a birthday party or a wedding?
To work with 750 influencers like Coke, 750 contracts, invoices, demonstrators, and agreements must be organised and confirmed with those involved. Your team then needs to prove that 750 people honoured the contract. You must prepare for packages not arriving; if 1% of packages are lost, eight people must have their demonstrator resent.
That's a lot of work to do and many people to organise. Suppose you need to seek confirmation on creative for legal reasons. That's 750 individual digitals to give the okay on - assuming it's one post on a single platform.
Working with micro-influencers can be rewarding and suitable for brands looking for that personable feeling. If the campaign is correct, you can work with Micro-influencers to build a sense of community and dialogue.
Can we help with some of that?