5 Reasons I Love Working With Micro-Influencers

Last Spring I was working on a really cool campaign. I had a great product to promote, I had curated a fantastic list of power-middle influencers (confession: the InfluenceLogic software did the bulk of the work) and I was right in line with my initial budget goals.

This campaign was sure to net my product views, buzz and conversions. I was very excited. So, naturally, something went wrong: one of my power-middle influencers abruptly dropped out of the campaign.

With mere days before the campaign was supposed to begin, I had to find a replacement as quickly as possible. I decided to turn to micro-influencers: YouTube channels with fewer subscribers. These channels are valuable in their own way, they are posting on a regular basis and their subscribers grow on a daily basis. I was able to recruit a few of them to fill the void.

Guess what? Micros (as I will refer to them) were awesome to work with. Here are five reasons why:

1) They Deliver Insane ROI

Micros have up to 22.2 times more “buying conversations” that include product recommendations than an average consumer and they have twice the engagement rate as a power-middle influencer – eye-popping numbers for sure.

I saw similar results with the micros I worked with on this campaign: CTRs hovered around 5%, compared to 1.2% for some of the bigger influencers I worked with.

2) They are Hungry

It takes a lot to become a power-middle influencer. You need a niche, a hook and a whole lot of content. It is a grind. I find those currently engaged in this grind to be great partners. The are trying to make something of their YouTube channel and they probably have not had too many endorsement opportunities before. They will go the extra mile and produce a great video – not only to set themselves up for future partnerships but to help grow their channel.

3) They are Easier to Work With

The greater an influencer’s audience, the more brands they are probably working with. This can cause a decrease in response times and increases the likelihood they will pass on a partnership opportunity. It is nothing personal, but I am probably just another brand in a sea of brands they are partnering with to help support their channel. For a micro, I might be their only source of income for the month – they will do what they can to please me.

4) They Don’t Have Agents

Sometimes I think I have found the perfect influencer, only to discover they are represented by a talent agent. Unless I have a large budget, I am going to avoid these situations. Successful influencer marketing campaigns are driven by smart partnerships that produce great ROI. When a talent agent is involved, costs for an influencer escalates and the chances for a campaign to be financially successful decreases.

I will hit a straight flush in video poker as often as I will find a micro with a talent agent. This makes them easier to work with and more cost-effective.

5) It Feels Good

A lot of micros are creating content for topics they are passionate about. It feels great to reward someone’s passion. Top influencers have built a whole strategy out of creating content and finding sponsored placements for it, micros are creating content for the love of the game and a hope to one day reach that level. It is like watching a high school football game versus a NFL game. It feels different, and often times better.

The One Problem With Micro-Influencers

It is freaking hard to scale a campaign focused on micro-influencers.

While they may see a 5% CTR compared to a 1% for a power-middle influencers, they are still going to drive less clicks. 5% of 1,000 is less than 1% of 20,000. In order to make up this difference you need to recruit more of them.

Finding power-middle influencers is one task, you really have to dive deep down the rabbit hole to find micros. Finding them often involves identifying a niche, identifying popular influencers in that niche and then weeding through their audience to find micros. It is time consuming.

I use InfluenceLogic’s influencer identification technology to help me easily find relevant micros for any campaign that I am running. If you are having issues identifying them at scale, we’d love to show you our software solutions.

Happy hunting!