The rise of micro influencers means better ROI for your brand.

As I had mentioned in my last post about TikTok, my son had posted a video and it went viral with over 2 million views. Shortly after that he used an influencer payment estimator to access his worth and found out that brands may pay him up to $40 per post. To a broke college kid that’s a lot of money but to a brand paying a micro influencer like my son…$40 a post is a huge savings.

Influencer marketing is not going anywhere. In 2019 influencer marketing spend is at $8.5 billion with forecasts for 2020 at up to $10 billion.¹ But lately the micro influencer is on the rise as brands are placing more value on the micro influencer than the celebrity influencer. Here is why:

• Celebrity influencers are expensive! Unless you have $20K + to spend on a post celebrity influencers can break your marketing budget.
• Once an influencer’s following reaches a certain size, their engagement decreases. A study by Markerly ² found that “Those with less than 1,000 followers generally received likes on their posts 8% of the time. Users with 10 million+ followers only received likes 1.6% of the time.” As the table below shows the engagement rate for influencers with 1,000 followers is 4.5% compared to those with 100,000 followers which is at .7%.³ To get more ROI for your brand micro-influencers with smaller followings, between 1,000 – 10,000 people are more effective.

• Fake followers—often found on mega influencer accounts—has cost the ad industry over $1.3 billion in 2019.¹ When payments to influencers are based on cost per X amount of followers many influencers turn to building accounts with fake followers to increase their pay per post. This results in loss to fraud for brands. Until the payment model changes to influencers getting paid for verified engagement this problem isn’t going to go away any time soon.

• Followers for micro influencers tend to feel as if they have a closer relationship with the influencer and trust them more than a celebrity influencer. Using a micro influencer is a great way to build “borrowed trust” with niche audiences.⁴

So the next time you are considering using an influencer for your marketing campaign take micro influencers into consideration for a better return on investment. The costs savings to the brand is huge and the results will likely be better than a higher-paid mega influencer. After all, when it comes to marketing better ROI and an increase to the bottom line is everything.

References:

1. Brown, Eileen. “Fake Influencer Follower Fraud to Cost Companies $1.3B in 2019.” ZDNet, ZDNet, 14 Aug. 2019, https://www.zdnet.com/article/fake-influencer-follower-fraud-to-cost-companies-1-3b-in-2019/.
2. “Instagram Marketing: Does Influencer Size Matter? – Markerly Blog.” MARKERLY, https://markerly.com/blog/instagram-marketing-does-influencer-size-matter/.
3. “The Rise of Micro-Influencers.” Www.mullenloweus.com, MEDIAHUB, 1 Aug. 2017, https://us.mullenlowe.com/the-rise-of-micro-influencers/.
4. Wessel, Kristen. “Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Micro-Influencers, And How To Partner With Them.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 26 Oct. 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/10/26/why-you-shouldnt-ignore-micro-influencers-and-how-to-partner-with-them/#dd2b2433ecc9.