The Right Mix Between Micro and Macro Influencer For Your Marketing Strategy

Everybody is talking about ”influencer marketing” today. If you are a marketer, blogger, vlogger, instagrammer or entrepreneur, you definitely heard this term – influencer marketing.

And maybe you were curious what is about this new strategy (oh boy! Another new strategy that somebody came up with it in order to sell something) or maybe you are curious of how to be an influencer.

I my believe there are 2 kinds of influencers out there:

1. The one that can drive a sale for a brand;
2. The one that can’t drive a sale.

That’s all a marketer should know about influencers.

Regarding the fact that influencer marketing is a trend that every blog or web publisher is talking about. And guess what? I found myself in this mirage of talking about influencer marketing.

I tried myself to make campaigns with different influencers. Some of them worked and some of them not. Some of them had some results and some of them not. But I’m not even upset about it and I don’t want to blame it. Why?

Because I believe that we should experience marketing and failing throughout this process, it doesn’t make us stupid or incompetent, it make us more experienced.

I was very curious about this trend, this idea and this strategy. I read it, watched webinars and also signed up for some newsletters or ebooks that send me “the best marketing resource I need for 2016”.

And each one of these talked about the same thing, just in different words and different context.

“Influencer marketing is big. You should do influencer marketing. Look at the influencers in your industry. Reach out to them. Give them your product and let them know about your brand.”

The Marketing Department Guy

Now think about this. You are a marketer for a small business. You are doing social media (you post -or at least you try- regularly on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and Pinterest), you are creating content on your company’s blog (let’s not forget about the fact that you are researching for keywords, creating the article, looking for images, optimizing it for blog, preparing the short links), you are running the weekly newsletter, you are preparing the promotion for your company, you are creating the ads in Adwords and you should optimize it and now you should do influencer marketing. And it’s only you.

Because you are the marketing department and your boss told you so, or you just heard in a marketing podcast on your way  to your job.

How on the earth do you have time to do great marketing? How you can engage more on social media? How you can create content that people will get to and start consuming it and your website traffic will blow away?

So let’s not forget about influencer marketing.

Well my dear marketer friend, this is for you and I hope I will get to as many marketers I can get. You are not alone, there are tremendous other marketers who are trying to do their best to make that marketing work. But guess what, if now it’s a trend with a new thing, that doesn’t mean that you need to jump into it and pump resources (time/energy or money) in it.

Speed is a good strategy and today we all need it. But more than speed, we need to be smarter than the industry or let’s just say, then the competition.

And if influencer marketing is good for your business,then get into it!

The Micro-Influencer in Your Community

But I recommend you to start with the one that you already know. The influencers that are following you. What? You don’t know that you have influencers who are following you?

Let me explain.

Maybe it’s not Bieber or Kardashian, but you have a few micro-influencers who are interacting on social media with their friends and family. The ones who are posting regularly on Instagram while they are traveling with their friends. The ones that are posting videos on Snapchat while they are eating a dinner with their family. The ones who have a few hundred, or even a few thousand of followers. The ones that are liking your post, commenting to your photos or even share your content.

These are your micro-influencers.

These are the influencers you should start connecting with. They will see that you are interested in their content, they will see that you are commenting back and guess what, they will love more than before. Why? Because you got them in their game.

And I know that you don’t have enough time and money to look at other influencers that can bring up your brand on social media, but what if you looked at these micro-influencers from your community?

You already won their heart (or they follow) so why not start talking to them and see what you can do for them and how they can help you to promote you brand better.

But please, be careful with the so called big influencers that are telling you about how great they can be for your brand.

Don’t fall in the lie of followers.

For example, if somebody have 10k on Instagram but only 100likes on a photo and ZERO comments on their page, that’s a fraud for me. You won’t get anything, just a few comments like “you can increase your brand awareness on my profile. Here you go! You had 5k impressions on this photo. Now you should pay me, because i’m the influencer”. No.

Don’t get fooled by these people! They are the ones who are breaking the industry.

Metrics to follow for micro-influencer marketing

Maybe the micro-influencer you want to reach out and start a small campaign for your business don’t even know that he/she can be an influencer and win some money (or other benefits) with her social media presence. But here is the difference where you, as a marketer, can see if it’s worthy or not.

You should have some rules that are guiding you in this process.

So, what are these rules (or let’s call them metrics) and numbers you should look when you want to start a micro-influencer marketing campaign?

1. Engagement – How much engagement they can provide for your brand? Just see how they are commenting to their community comments. Look at how they are interacting with their community. Engagement it’s far more important than followers, reach or impressions. Engagement should be your number one asset when you are looking at influencers.
2. Creativity – How creative is that micro-influencer? Take your time and see what content do they create on their platform? Is that a creative one? Are people liking and commenting on their content? Is that something that can suit you brand? I believe that creativity should be the second metric that you should look after at an influencer.
3. Relevant – How relevant is for your brand? Or if I can say, how relevant is that influencer for your industry? And when I say “relevant” I mean how much importance this influencer has in your industry. Does the industry care about his or her opinion? Is the influencer in a constant communication with the industry?

It’s important to have this in your mind when you want to start your micro-influencer campaign for your brand.

Why? Because this will help you measure the campaign and see if it was worthy or not.

Many marketers forget to measure their campaign. And this is one simple mistake that will make you throw your money out of the window.

Conclusion

The funny thing about influencer marketing is that everybody today wants to be an influencer in their industry but a few of them are willing to work hard for it.

So my dear marketer, don’t fall in the lie of influencer marketing and don’t get blinded by the followers or other so called metrics like brand awareness. I’m not saying that these are not important, but not as important as your main priority for your brand – to sell more.

And when you are a one single guy or girl in your marketing department and you are working for a small business, you should know your brand and your community.