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For brands and small businesses looking to grow quickly, one possible solution could be social media micro-influencers. As their name suggests, these micro-influencers work much the same way as traditional, big-name influencers, but at a much smaller scale. There are at least 3 good reasons why that could be the best option for your brand.
#1: Better engagement
First of all, micro-influencers typically boast much greater engagement than larger influencers. They typically have small, tight-knit audiences, and that means every new post, every new update, gets a lot of engagement. Given the way “engagement” is measured in the social media world, this means more likes, more comments, and more views.
Thus, when you get a micro-influencers to advertise your products on social media, you can be assured that it will be money well spent. Most micro-influencers will only tout products that they strongly believe in, and that builds a lot of trust within their community. So it’s easy to see why your brand or small businesses could benefit from working with these micro-influencers, no matter the size of your marketing budget. It could be the key to you lining up new loyal customers and brand ambassadors in the future.
#2: Better ROI
And that brings us to the second big selling point: enhanced return on investment (ROI) for every social media campaign. At the end of the day, the goal of any campaign should be to generate sales, and not just generate a lot of likes and shares, right? And it’s been proven that using micro-influencers tends to result in better ROI than larger influencers. While it’s undeniable that the largest influencers have tremendous reach, it’s not as clear that they can get people to actually click and make the final purchase.
The ability to generate superior ROI is simply due to the mathematics involved here. ROI can be simplified to just one simple equation: (Net Return on Investment) / (Cost of Investment) x 100. So the only two ways to boost ROI are to (1) increase sales or (2) decrease the cost of your campaign. Since micro-influencers boast higher engagement, they can often persuade their followers and friends to buy your products, and that increases sales. And, at the same time, these micro-influencers also are much less expensive to hire, so that tends to decrease the cost of any ad campaign.
#3: Ability to target smaller niches
Finally, using micro-influencers gives you the ability to target very specific niches of the social media world that might not be readily available if you only target TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. There are plenty of other social media platforms beyond these three, and there are often some very overlooked names who have a solid presence there.
For example, the new president of Shopify recently outlined how he was using micro-influencers on Reddit, Pinterest, and Discord to help promote his Firebelly loose leaf tea brand. As the Shopify exec found, simply reaching out to the big names on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube wasn’t helping his brand, because that wasn’t where his fans and potential customers were hanging out. So it’s definitely worth considering a “Shopify strategy” of targeting smaller niches in the social media world.
Conclusion
Putting all this together, it’s easy to see how micro-influencers can become an important way for you to build brand recognition, attract new customers, and win over new brand ambassadors. Think small, and you’ll end up big.
