Andy Warhol once said back in the 60s, “In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.” 50 years later, it’s almost true. With the spread of social media, micro-influencers are on the rise. These people don’t have as many followers as celebrities do, but they foster a community of committed followers who are engaged and connected to their niche interest. This could be an interest in travel, fashion, beauty…the list goes on. This changes the way marketers work. We don’t have to allocate a huge budget to work with just a few big celebrities anymore because we can break down the budgets and distribute smaller sums of money to a large pool of micro-influencers. After all, having many people or in this case ‘micro-influencers’ talk about your brand in a similar time frame can cause a larger impact than having just one well-known influencer do the job.
Nonetheless, working with micro-influencers is not the same as working with celebrities. They are individuals, therefore collaborating with them and the process of approaching them is different compared to celebrities.
Here’s what you need to know to successfully get micro-influencers onboard with your campaign:
1) IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS
Forget the followers. The first thing you need to know, and to always remember, when you’re looking for micro-influencers is that numbers don’t matter. Having a small list of followers doesn’t mean that he or she is not influential. One could have only a few thousand followers and still be substantially influential if those followers are highly engaged. So, look past the numbers and focus on how engaged their audience are because that’s what matters.
2) LOOK FOR COOL FACTORS
If followers are not the focus, then what exactly should you look for? The answer is the profile. Using micro-influencers is about covertly shaping people’s opinion. Therefore, the micro-influencers you pick should look ‘cool’ enough for people to want to listen to them. Examples of this includes the influencer being able to set trends and have compelling visuals on their social media. Moreover, they should have a lifestyle that synchronizes well with your brand’s personality or that people dream of to promote your brand’s image to be wanted among audience.
3) CO-CREATION IS KEY
To control or not to control, that is not the question. When it comes to content creation, the key is to work together with respect. As a brand, you need to recognize that micro-influencers are also brands themselves and people follow them for who they are, so it’s important that they maintain their own style of story-telling. Don’t force them to do something that is clearly not their way. Instead, create a guideline for them to follow so that the heart of the message can remain the same.
4) ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH
By this point, if you decide to use micro-influencers, you have to start thinking about how many you want to engage with. There’s a study suggesting that a message should be heard at least three to five times before the listener feels confident in the idea. Keeping this in mind and the size of the audience, you should be able to calculate how many influencers you need or how many posts are required. But whichever way you choose, it’s important that the message should be heard more than once.
Kanokwan Chaocharoen is a Junior Brand Journalist at Vero. She supports the account team in content development and strategy.