Influencers are typically people with a large social following who are hired by brands to endorse their products or services, almost like a product placement on TV, because of their ability to influence potential buyers. The hope is that because you are leveraging this third party credibility, the influencer, and followers of these accounts will see the post thus carrying over into sales. In layman's terms, an influencer's role in marketing is to influence a target audience to buy something.
Many people categorize an influencer by the size of their total following (how many followers they have on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, their blog, etc.), and then typically place that influencer into one of these 5 categories. That said, we recommend that you don't get too caught up on where the lines are drawn because frankly, everybody draws those lines a bit differently. But if you're looking for the right type of influencer for your influencer marketing efforts, the sweet spot lies with micro-influencers who have between 20,000 and 500,000 followers and have a highly engaged community. Why micros? Well...
The most important thing to consider when partnering with an influencer is who can actually influence behavior. People new to the concept of influencer marketing tend to assume they need to partner with influencer who have a massive following, thinking that a big reach means big exposure and big influence, but that's not necessarily true. There's a large amount of data that shows that as reach goes up, engagement goes down. In order to get the maximum ROI, you have to ensure that your influencer has influence. We recommend partnering with micro-influencers because when you start partnering with those who have a following over 500,000, the cost will go up while the engagement of their post goes down causing the value proposition to disappear. But be waned, this can vary somewhat dramatically by category and even varies from influencer to influencer within a certain category.
So when it comes to influencer marketing, stop thinking about the influencers reach and demanding that you only partner with influencers who have over 1 million total followers, and instead start asking yourself "Do they have the ability to change someones behavior?" That is the essence of influencer marketing.
Still not sure who the right partners are for your brand? Contact us today using the form below and we'll get you set with a fully managed influencer marketing campaign guaranteed to reach your right audience!