5 Reasons Micro Influencers Have a Better ROI

Dean Thomas

We all know one.

Micro Influencers are every day social media users who rarely exceed 10k followers. Their content is consumed by people who actually know them personally. Micro Influencers post organically about things that make them happy or interest them, and they post about brands whether they are getting paid for it or not. We all have that friend who posts foodie pics, or the car guru who Snaps you pics of his rebuilds, and the adventure couple who are always traveling. Micro Influencers are every day mavens and, though small in followers, typically see 3–5 times more engagement than macro influencers.

Today people are creating and sharing more content than ever on social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. It’s as if every person is their own media company posting about their weekend getaways, favorite restaurants, and things that matter most to them. At Gnack, we call these people Micro Influencers If you can assemble and inspire enough of them, they are extremely valuable for spreading branded messages.

Why they are important:

• Trust- If you only have a few hundred followers they are most likely all your friends and family. When you post something, it holds more weight with that audience. They are in your circle of trust, not random people who ran across your account and accidently started following you.
• Engagement- Because their circles are smaller, Micro Influencers have higher engagement rates and have more time to respond to every comment. Which means more engagement with branded content and stronger brand recognition.
• Efficiency- A Micro Influencer’s audience shares a higher percentage of similar interests and activities. The more followers, the more broad the audience gets. Spend influencer dollars more efficiently and use Micro Influencers to reach a more relevant targeted audience.
• Content- Use an influencer with 1M followers and you will get one piece of UGC. Find two thousand people with 500 followers each, you still reach 1M people but you get 2000 pieces of user generated content. (and don’t think Micro Influencers can’t create quality content)
• Location- Micro Influencers allow you to tap into a hyper local audience. Most of their audience is concentrated in one geographic area which is extremely important to measure if you are doing a retail activation or for brands that are not nationwide.

A Better Return on Investment

So what this all boils down to is that Micro Influencers exist within a trusted community. Because their circles share a high percentage of similar interests, their message has more weight and attraction, which translates to higher engagements. A concentration of their audience in a geographic area means better targeting. Brands also get a higher volume of user generated content by using more influencers to find their target reach. All of these things together equate to much higher ROI.

Influencer marketing takes time, and the process of recruiting, qualifying, and negotiating with potential social media influencers can be grueling. Not to mention trying to recruit and negotiate with a few hundred, or even a few thousand Micro Influencers.

If you need to scale your influencer efforts without onboarding a dozen staff members, try looking into a programmatic option like Gnack.

I am happy to answer questions or help with anything social media marketing. Feel free to email me at dean@gnackapp.com or for immediate response snap me at dt.tv