How to Find Micro-Influencers? Using Smaller Social Media Followings to Reach Niche Audiences
Last update: 5 September 2023 at 11:03 am
5.00/5Feeling discouraged that you don’t have the means to partner with celebrities and mega-influencers to promote your new campaign?
We have good news for you.
You don’t need to work with mega-influencers if you serve a small or medium audience in a specific niche.
You need micro-influencers.
While micro-influencers can’t boast about the same impressive follower counts that large influencers can, they make up for it with higher follower engagement, personal interactions with fans, and genuine relationships with their followers. In fact, according to Statista, hiring micro-influencers doesn’t just cost significantly less.
It can offer similar, if not better, results.
And here’s some more good news for you: Finding micro-influencers for your marketing campaign is more straightforward than you might think.
If you’re ready to link arms with micro-influencers, read on to learn more about who they are, the benefits of working with them, how to work with them, and how to find them in the first place.
What are micro-influencers?
Influencers have expertise and authority in a specific industry sector and related topics. They use social media to demonstrate their knowledge, share value, and build relationships with online fans.
These “opinion leaders” have great influence over their online communities, making them attractive to work with.
There are currently three types of influencers: Nano-influencers, micro-influencers, and mega-influencers. You can distinguish between the three by looking at their follower counts.
For instance:
- Nano-influencers have up to 1,000 followers
- Micro-influencers have between 1,000 and 100,000 followers and
- Mega-influencers have more than 100,000 followers
While mega-influencers may create content around various topics and industries, nano and micro-influencers are hyper-focused on specific themes and sectors.
Their audiences trust their product and lifestyle recommendations, enjoy consuming and engaging with their content, and are likelier to take action.
Here’s an example of a micro-influencer on Instagram that specializes in discussing all things multiples:
As a mom of twins and triplets, Mandi Oldani shares an inside look at what it’s like to parent multiples and the helpful products she uses to make daily life a little more organized and streamlined.
Let’s take a look at some additional benefits of working with micro-influencers.
What are the benefits of working with micro-influencers?
Influencer marketing can boost exposure, encourage brand promoters, and drum up user-generated content.
But that’s not all. Here are some additional benefits of working with micro-influencers.
Budget-friendly
The cost-effectiveness of working with micro-influencers is extreme compared to mega or macro-influencers. For instance, influencers with large followings may charge five to 10 thousand dollars per post, while celebrity influencers may charge hundreds of thousands or even over $1 million per post.
While there isn’t a clear industry standard for influencer marketing costs since fees often depend on follower count, social platform, and engagement rate, micro-influencers tend to charge in the low hundreds to low thousands per post. Some may even do business with you in exchange for free products or a very minimal fee.
Build social proof in niche markets
Leave it to micro-influencers to help you build trust and social proof in niche markets, an especially huge value-add for brands in sensitive industries, such as weight loss and healthcare.
Why?
Simple. Micro-influencers are authentic content creators. When getting an inside look at micro-influencers’ personal experiences, social media users begin forming parasocial bonds with them. In other words, users begin to know, like, and trust these opinion leaders to provide valuable information and product recommendations.
For instance, working with relevant micro-influencers has proved useful for niche products like Wegovy, a medicine that helps with weight loss. Since users have more direct contact with the influencer, they can leave comments or send DMs to ask sensitive questions and learn more about the product’s weight loss benefits from a trusted source.
While any brand can say its weight loss products work, when a micro-influencer tries the product and vouches for it, brands now have user-generated content and an opinion leader backing up their claims.
Let’s consider another sensitive brand.
For instance, for a company like Hims, which sells sensitive products targeting the right audience can be challenging. By reaching out to micro-influencers with smaller but more relevant followings, Hims can build credibility with its audience and encourage more users to engage.
Since micro-influencers are experts in a specific niche or area of interest, partnering with those that discuss sexual health would be ideal for promoting sensitive products.
As we touched on, working with micro-influencers can often be more effective than using mega-influencers, as large influencers don’t have the same personal level of connection with their followers. This can make micro-influencers the go-to choice for personal recommendations.
Accessible to new and small brands
Feeling worried that your new or small business doesn’t have enough of a reputation to work with influencers?
Micro-influencers look for more than just how long you’ve been in business or how big you are. If you sell a product that can make their lives easier or better and aligns with their audience, they may be glad to try partnering with your brand.
How to prepare for micro-influencer marketing campaigns
Before you take the time to look for a micro-influencer, get clear on the campaign you’d like their help with.
Here’s what we recommend:
Outline the audience you’d like to reach
Use a CDP to create detailed buyer personas that represent the niche audience you’d like to target with your influencer campaign.
Using a CDM or a similar tool like a CRM can help you uncover your target audience’s key preferences, needs, and pain points and how your product can help.
Uncovering these nuts and bolts is crucial to finding relevant micro-influencers and presenting them with the insights they need to promote your brand.
Set goals
What objective are you trying to meet with your campaign? What’s your end goal and how will you know when you’ve achieved it?
For instance, are you looking to generate awareness? Increase sales? Reach a new audience?
Get clear on your goals and set mini targets and social media KPIs to help you there. Be sure to disclose all of this to the micro-influencers you partner with. More on this in a bit.
Map out your campaign
Unless you’d like to collaborate with micro-influencers on campaign ideas, be sure to map out your plan ahead of time.
Lay out any core messaging details you’d like them to include in their posts, including calls to action, value statements, and product benefits. You’ll also need to discuss the kinds of visuals you had in mind and any themes or styles you’d like them to play into or stay away from.
Create an influencer profile
Find the right influencer for your campaign by designing an influencer profile first.
Similar to a buyer persona, an influencer profile describes the qualities you’re looking for in a potential influencer. That might include their audience demographics, such as their follower count, number of high-value followers, and number of fake followers (ideally none!).
You might also note the content type and style you’d like your ideal micro-influencer to use, the ideal cost of working with them, any specific expertise they should display, and which core values they should have in common with your company.
How do I reach out to micro-influencers?
Here’s how to find influencers with small, niche audiences in your industry:
1. Use influencer marketing platforms to locate and communicate with micro-influencers
Yes! There are actual influencer marketing platforms you can use to search for and hire influencers.
A few of them include:
- Collabstr
- Upfluence
- IZEA
- Popular Pays
2. Find potential micro-influencers on social media platforms and send an email or DM
Another influencer search tool you can use is social media. Conduct an influencer search on every social media platform you plan on using to run your marketing campaign.
How? Search “influencers on Instagram” or other relevant hashtags, such as “beauty micro-influencers” or “micro-influencers for hire.”
Using specific hashtags like the ones above, asking your followers, or posting in influencer social media groups can help you discover micro-influencers in your niche.
3. Use Google search
When in doubt, head to Google and type in “your industry” + “micro-influencers.” You never know who you can find with a quick search!
4. Conduct research using a social listening tool
Use a social listening tool to find micro-influencers already mentioning your product or brand name.
If you’re not a new business, you might already have people talking about you. If so, a social listening tool can help you spot brand mentions and visual products. When this happens, review the user’s content, see if they align with your influencer profile, and then consider contacting them by email or a DM to check their availability.
3 Tips for Working with micro-influencers
And finally, to create brand collaborations that are aligned and can help you reach your goals, follow these best practices when working with micro-influencers:
1. Use collaboration tools to stay organized and in sync
Finding and working with micro-influencers is a team effort.
To eliminate information silos across your marketing team and work with influencers efficiently, use team collaboration tools, such as a social media management tool to plan and launch your influencer campaigns and a shared Google calendar to track outreach calls, schedule meetings, and create a campaign timeline.
Here’s what a social media management tool looks like:
And in case you haven’t used it before, here’s what Google Calendar looks like:
(Image Provided by Ioana)
These simple tools are vital to helping your team and brand ambassadors stay organized and in sync across the entire campaign.
2. Provide micro-influencers with campaign briefs and style guides
Create a campaign brief and a style guide that micro-influencers should follow before initiating any brand collaborations.
Your style guide should outline your brand tone, including which terms to use and avoid, and your image policy.
Your campaign brief should outline your marketing strategy, what kind of messaging influencers should include in their campaigns, and any required visuals. It should also outline your campaign goals, KPIs, and any specific sales targets you’d like to hit.
If you’d like your micro-influencers to discuss technical aspects of your product, include charts, graphs, and data in your campaign brief to help them easily digest the information.
For instance, if you’re running a whole foods keto supplement campaign and you’d like influencers to cover the importance of fiber to net carbs in keto-friendly fruit, be sure to supply them with helpful charts, like the following one, which breaks down each fruit’s stats concisely:
You might also include other helpful tips about keto-friendly fruit, such as how to use them in recipes and which ones are generally easy to find at the supermarket. Your goal? Provide influencers with the information and resources they need to succeed.
3. Get everything in writing
Create a contract outlining key influencer responsibilities, their pay rate, when payment will be remitted, content standards, a non-disclosure agreement, and other important company policies.
Rather than shooting over the contract to the influencer and expecting them to sign it right away, consider meeting with them on a video conference call to review the agreement together. If you’re not well-versed in contracts, find someone on your team.
Getting on the same page before beginning work is your best chance at setting your influencer marketing campaign up for success.
Wrap up
And there you have it! Today we covered everything you need to know about working with, finding, and hiring micro-influencers.
What is your next move? Start planning your influencer campaign and lock arms with aligned ambassadors that can help drive your brand goals forward.
That’s it for now.
Best of luck with your micro-influencer campaign!
