Why Brands Should Capitalize on Nano-Influencers

When buying fake followers or likes on a picture is as easy as the click of a button, true engagement and conversion statistics are better indicators of someone’s actual influence than their follower count. That’s why brands are turning to nano-influencers — users with 5,000 followers or less — as a more worthwhile way to reach their target audiences.

For years, brands have typically chosen influencers with followers between 10K-10M+ to endorse their products. Lately, though, consumers have started to look at these ads in a different way; they’re beginning to view sponsored posts like commercials, which people tend to tune out and ignore. Followers might feel like an influencer has “sold out”, especially if the product they’re endorsing is irrelevant to the niche audience they’ve built. Once that happens, an influencer’s recommendations hold very little weight.

Brands are noticing this troubling decline in ROI and instead account for an influencer’s engagement statistics rather than their follower count. Bigger influencers often don’t have the metrics to make their cost worthwhile — so brands are turning to nano-influencers instead.

Nano-influencers have ten times better engagement than bigger influencers (Barker, 2020) and their followers trust their opinions because nano-influencers are seen as peers, not celebrities. In many cases, these influencers know and recommend products to their followers in real life too, greatly impacting a brand’s organic reach. Since their endorsements seem earnest, their brand sponsors get more conversions.

Nano-influencers also aren’t as focused on building a glamorous image as some bigger influencers who have the means to strive for an otherwise-unattainable lifestyle and unrealistic beauty standards. In some cases, they professionally improve themselves and their photos to the point where they’re indistinguishable from virtual influencers. How can you trust someone’s skincare recommendation when they might have had professional work done? Are they even a real person with real recommendations?

Nano-influencers look and live like regular people, so followers trust when they say something works.

Working with nano-influencers won’t just get you customers, you’ll also save money on marketing too. On average, they charge $114 for a video post, $100 for an image and $43 to post to their story (Southern, 2019), and some will endorse brands just for free samples and discounts. Depending on their metrics and your expectations, a full campaign is typically $100 to $1000 (Tosone, 2019). Compared to micro-influencers, who charge an average of $1000 to $4000 per campaign, nano-influencers are an efficient and affordable marketing tool (Pring-Mill, 2019).

Though their comparatively low cost is compelling enough, nano-influencers are also a great choice to represent brands because their messages translate as being authentic to other potential consumers. When polished mega-influencers have become a dime a dozen, nano-influencers are one of the best ways to get consumers to stop thinking of sponsored posts as commercials and start seeing them as recommendations from a friend.

References:

[1] Barker, Shane. “Why Nano-Influencers Are a Great Addition to Your Marketing Strategy.” Medium, Medium, 31 January 2020, https://medium.com/better-marketing/why-nano-influencers-are-a-great-addition-to-your-marketing-strategy-6383011a83dd.

[2] Southern, Matt. “New Data Reveals How Much Brands Are Paying Influencers.” SEJ, Search Engine Journal, 16 July 2019, https://www.searchenginejournal.com/new-data-reveals-how-much-brands-are-paying-influencers/316963/.

[3] Tosone, Austen. “Micro-Influencers Share How Much They Get Paid For #SponCon.” Huffington Post, Huffington Post, 24 December 2019, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-much-nano-influencers-make-sponsored-content_l_5df91a01e4b0ae01a1e8df69.

[4] Pring-Mill, David. “How Much Do Micro-Influencers Get Paid?” DMN, DMN, 23 September 2019, https://www.dmnews.com/marketing-channels/social/article/21088255/how-much-do-microinfluencers-get-paid.