Micro-influencer marketing guide: Facts and uses

Micro-influencer marketing can be an excellent strategy for businesses with smaller marketing budgets. And because micro-influencers take up 91% of the influencer market, there’s no shortage of creators to work with.

But why would brands want to work with micro-influencers…and what even is a micro-influencer? We’ve created a complete guide to micro-influencer marketing so your brand can easily get started.

What is a micro-influencer?

A micro-influencer is an influencer with a follower count within the range of 10,000–100,000 followers. Influencers are typically broken down into four main types based on their follower count:

• Nano-influencers: 1K–10K followers
• Micro-influencers: 10K–100K followers
• Macro-influencers: 100K–1M followers
• Mega or celebrity influencers: 1M+ followers

Why work with micro-influencers?

There are several benefits to working with micro-influencers that your brand should consider. We’ll walk you through those benefits and cover why they’re a valuable part of your marketing strategy.

Micro-influencers charge lower rates

If you want to work with a macro- or mega-influencer who reaches hundreds of thousands or millions of people, you’re going to be spending big bucks on that influencer campaign. However, micro-influencers can also help your business reach a wider audience at a much more affordable price point. This means you can work with more influencers for a smaller budget to increase your reach.

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, here are some price points you can expect when working with micro-influencers:

• Instagram: $100–$500/post
• YouTube: $200–$1,000/video
• TikTok: $25–$125/video
• Twitter: $20–$100/Tweet
• Facebook: $250–$1,250/post

When working with influencers with bigger follower counts, those costs can easily go up to $10,000+ for one single post. You’ll reach a huge audience, but at a much higher cost. That brings me to the next benefit of working with micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers tend to have a more engaged following

Because micro-influencers have a much more intimate audience than macro-influencers do, they often see a higher engagement rate. This means that their posts are reaching a higher percentage of their followers and a lot more of the people seeing their content are actually engaging with it (i.e., liking, commenting, sharing).

One study found that micro-influencers see a 6% engagement rate on Instagram, while mega-influencers see engagement rates around 1.97%.

Micro-influencers have a more targeted or niche audience

Micro-influencers often target niche communities, making it easier to reach a more specific audience that’s interested in your product. For example, you could work with a cake-decorating influencer to promote your new line of piping tips, or a Dungeons and Dragons influencer to promote your new Dungeon Master kit.

Being able to target a niche audience can make sure that your product is getting in front of the exact people who will be most interested in buying it, which is a massive perk of working with micro-influencers.

How to work with micro-influencers

If you’re interested in starting your first influencer campaign by working with micro-influencers, we’ve got the ideal four-step process for you. Start with understanding your overall goals, find the right influencers and get started with content creation.

Let’s walk you through how to work with micro-influencers and see success in your campaigns.

1. Pinpoint your goals and objectives

As with any new marketing campaign, your first step needs to be outlining your overall goals and objectives. What do you hope to achieve with your micro-influencer marketing strategy?

Many common goals of influencer marketing include:

• Increase brand awareness
• Increase the total number of brand mentions
• Increase your social media followers
• Improve website traffic
• Generate new sales

Decide what is most important for your brand at this point. And it may change over time. For example, you might start your first influencer campaign with the goal of improving awareness and social following, then eventually change course and decide your goal is to ramp up sales and conversions.

Keep in mind that the content and promotional materials your influencer partners create will have your objective in mind. So you’ll need to create an entirely new campaign and contract with each change in goals and influencer content.

2. Find the right micro-influencers for your brand

The next step is to start your search for influencers. There are a few different ways to do this.

First, search manually through each social media platform you plan to run your campaign on. Search by keyword(s) and then filter your search to look only for accounts. For example, if you’re looking to partner with a health and wellness influencer on Instagram, head over to the search tab, type in a keyword like “health” and go to the “Accounts” tab.

You’ll get results that you can browse through like these:

Click through the profiles to see if anyone aligns with your brand’s mission and your product(s). Scroll through the list of results, search for various keywords and compile a list of influencers that you could reach out to.

Another tactic is to take a look through your follower list. There might already be some micro-influencers that are following you, meaning they’ve already been introduced to your brand, that you could easily reach out to about a partnership.

And the last major strategy for finding the best influencers for your next campaign is to work with an influencer marketing agency. Many of these agencies or influencer marketing platforms are well-versed in pairing up the best influencers for the job to each of their clients.

If working with an agency is in the budget or you want to work with an expert for your first campaign, searching for an influencer marketing agency is a great idea. Many agencies specialize in different industries as well, creating an even better match.

3. Choose the best types of content for your influencer partners to create

The next step is determining the platforms and types of content you’ll have your influencer partners create. While the influencers are responsible for creating the content itself, having suggestions and existing ideas put into a kit or your contract agreement can be a great jumping-off point.

Micro-influencers can be found on a number of platforms, but the most common for influencer marketing campaigns tend to be Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Here’s an example of an Instagram post where Toyota partnered with a travel micro-influencer in order to promote their 4runner.

Here’s a quick video from a micro-influencer on TikTok that was sponsored by a beach town in order to attract tourists:

And finally, take a look at this example from YouTube where a beauty micro-influencer reviews a product:

These are all great examples of what working with micro-influencers can look like. Some additional content ideas you can use are:

• Send free product that can be showcased in an unboxing video
• Partner with Twitter influencers where text posts can really shine
• Have them tell a story about your brand/product/service using Instagram carousels
• Create branded hashtags that each influencer you partner with can use
• Offer affiliate promo codes that help increase sales
• Ask influencers to share a product tutorial with their audience
• Partner with a micro-influencer to hold a giveaway
• Have influencers create micro-videos that can be shared on TikTok and Reels

Get creative when coming up with ideas for your influencer campaign. The options are endless—just make sure your content ideas work towards your initial goals and objectives. For example, getting featured in an unboxing video is a great way to increase brand awareness while providing discount codes helps increase sales.

4. Tell your brand story through micro-influencer content

What is your brand’s story? What is the why behind the business and what pain point brought you or your founder to create the business? Use this story in your overall messaging, but especially when working with micro-influencers.

Having micro-influencers leverage your story when they share your brand and its products/services with their audience can appeal even more to their audiences, making them even more interested in making a purchase. Because influencers—micro-influencers especially—are considered more authentic and trustworthy, their audience is more likely to trust their recommendation of your brand and appreciate your brand story.

Put together documentation with marketing messaging, background on your company, your brand story and/or mission and other pertinent information or talking points that your influencers can use when creating their promotional content.

Create your own micro-influencer marketing strategy

Get started on your first micro-influencer campaign. Manage partnerships and keep track of social media fluctuations by enlisting Sprout Social’s help. Use Sprout’s social listening tools to track and analyze conversations, brand mentions and industry trends to identify influencers and brand advocates. Enlist our robust social media tool to help kickstart your search micro-influencers and track performance on your influencer campaigns. Learn more and check out our pricing to find a plan that’s going to work for your brand and its needs.