Reports indicating that Instagram influencer marketing has reached billion-dollar territory bring with them a certain level of worry. With rising follower counts and the consequent increase in cost per post, will your marketing budget be able to keep up?
This is a completely-valid question by all means. However, before agonising about blowing half of your budget for a single influencer post, consider this: you don’t actually have to worry about paying the biggest Instagrammers if you don’t have the budget for it.
The Rise of the Micro-Influencer
The rapid growth displayed by the influencer marketing industry can be attributed to this simple fact: it just works. Social Marketing campaigns of this nature have generated some of the highest ROIs achieved by today’s online marketers.
Consider Influencer A: she’s the typical health and fitness Instagrammer with 1.5 million followers. Understandably, she charges around $10,000 per post.
And then take a look at fitness Influencer B: her IG feed is comparable to Influencer A’s in terms of theme and topic. However, either she hasn’t been in the industry for as long or her content is a bit narrower and more focused—that her follower count is significantly-lower at 12,000. Sponsoring a post on her feed costs less than $500.
Small to medium businesses don’t have $100k to throw at a celebrity for an IG endorsement, or probably even that $10k for Influencer A. But with the rise of micro-blogs like those of Influencer B, one can achieve amazing ROI at a fraction of the cost.
How Can Micro-Influencers Elevate Your Business?
Instant communication and hyper-connectivity have dominated the world. Individuals can voice out their opinions on social media, and if the passion is apparent and the insights meaningful, people are bound to listen. Having the combination of a genuine voice and a smaller (but more engaged) audience is what propels micro-influencers to success.
It’s not hard to imagine how these people can help you and your brand. As mentioned before, they typically have smaller audiences and narrower niches, which leads to better engagement with their followers. And since they’re basically still in the earlier parts of their journey to Instagram success, these people tend to be more cautious when it comes to choosing what to promote. This contributes further to their more-trustworthy and relateable image.
This makes them more effective in terms of product recommendation—the most coveted thing for businesses that are trying to reach a specific audience.
All of this holds especially true considering recent scandals that involve big influencers who’d been caught buying followers, likes, and comments. Big and small brands alike are now moving towards influencers who bank on authenticity instead of mere follower count.
How Micro-Influencers Can Protect Themselves and Your Business
As more and more marketers opt to sponsor micro-influencers, it’s easy for them to get caught up in the whirlwind of new attention. To protect their reputation and credibility, self-regulation is key.
Influencers must exercise discipline in regulating their sponsored posts. As an example, posting about several similar products within a few days or weeks of each other can look really bad. Getting overly-excited about sponsorships from companies can make them lose their credibility, which is their main selling point in the first place. When these micro-influencers practice self-regulation, it not only helps their long-term growth strategy. It also ensures that your business is associated only with the most authentic and trustworthy of voices.
Did you learn a lot?
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