Influencer marketing is booming, with more businesses than ever using this tactic to increase online brand awareness. They’re tapping social media influencers and leveraging their large followings to promote products and services. Through paid promotions, these online trendsetters serve as a relatable face to attract potential customers.
However, not all influencers are the same. It’s important to understand the differences—which are related to follower count—as you look to create an influencer marketing campaign for your brand.
Keep reading to learn about the different types of influencers!
Nano Influencers
A nano influencer is someone with 1,000 to 10,000 followers. They’re the everyday users who strive to build true connections with friends and acquaintances or perhaps are just at the beginning of their soon-to-be social media career.
Pros and Cons of Working With Nano Influencers
Nano influencers have the highest engagement rate because they have genuine connections with consumers. These have established authenticity and are more careful in choosing reliable partnerships tailored to their audience’s taste.
Businesses with limited budgets for marketing campaigns can harness the power of nano influencers. They generally charge more affordable rates, meaning you can increase brand awareness while seeing great ROI.
However, compared to other influencers, creators in this category offer limited exposure. It can take a while for your brand to see significant results in terms of audience reach.
Micro Influencers
Next, we have micro influencers and their follower counts range between 10,000 to 100,000. These influencers specialize in niches, with most of their content revolving around specific topics to attract an audience with similar interests.
Pros and Cons of Working With Micro Influencers
Social media influencers in this category are perfect for growing your brand, especially if they target a specific niche. They make it easier to reach like-minded customers since these authority figures have a filtered audience.
A micro-influencer will often use their creativity and quirks to produce engaging posts that make users stop, watch, and interact. Take Amanda Holtzer’s food vlogs as an example: she incorporates branded products into her recipes to boost her sales!
With that being said, while often quite authentic, the smaller size of their audiences will still limit the reach of your campaigns. This means they might not be the best choice for a truly massive influencer marketing strategy.
Source: Instagram
Macro Influencers
Social media stars, TV personalities, vloggers, and podcasters fall under the macro influencers category, typically with anywhere from 100,000 to 1 million followers. They’re bonafide stars on social media platforms with serious influence.
Pros and Cons of Working With Macro Influencers
A macro-influencer marketing campaign is great if you want to reach a large audience.
Macro influencers also drive purchasing decisions. People trust what they say; when one of them vouches for a product or service, it encourages consumers to support the brand. See how Tara Milk Tea used her platform to subtly market a hotel in Greece.
Their influence comes at a price, though. Macro influencers charge higher collaboration fees compared to micro and nano creators. It’s also often difficult to land an agreement with them since their schedules are typically quite busy.
Mega Influencers
With more than 1 million followers, mega influencers are the most sought-after endorsers by brands and companies for promotions and partnerships. Using their platform will catapult your brand to success due to their immense popularity.
Pros and Cons of Working With Mega Influencers
These big-ticket collaborations create fantastic growth opportunities for established and new brands. Your visibility on social media platforms will be at an all-time high when working with a mega influencer due to their massive follower count.
Another pro is you can generally expect high-quality content from these influencers since they know the ins and outs of evergreen materials. They didn’t get to where they are by accident and likely have everything they need to make amazing branded content.
With all that being said, working with a mega social media influencer is expensive—they’re going to charge you big bucks for a collaboration. This is fine if you have tons of money, but what if they don’t resonate with your target audience? There is risk involved.
Source: Instagram
Beware of Fake Influencers!
Unfortunately, fake influencers have infiltrated the saturated market of digital creators of various niches. These social media accounts are a threat since they use bots and other tricks to scam businesses. Here are some signs to watch out for:
- Accounts that gained a lot of followers overnight
- Having a high number of followers but low engagement on posts
- Not enough information is provided by the account on social media channels (such as affiliate links, story highlights, etc.)
- Most of the account’s followers are bots
Choosing the right influencer is tricky, but choosing a fake one is always the wrong choice. Stay vigilant and be careful with how you spend your marketing dollars!
Let Us Handle Your Influencer Marketing
Understanding the differences between these four types of influencers is a great starting point if you’re looking to run a campaign. Actually running that campaign from the ground up is a whole other story—one that we can help you write!
At The Influence Agency, we have experience creating campaigns that center around all different types of influencers. Whether you’re interested in connecting with a nano influencer’s devoted community or appeasing the masses with a megastar, we can help you conceptualize and execute something that gets results.
Contact us today to level up your digital marketing strategy!