Like so many other things, one of the many things the pandemic has greatly impacted is how brands are now working to formulate their marketing strategies. Google it, and you will find plenty of market research studies stating very clearly that influencer marketing is one of the key strategies brands are increasingly leveraging.
Irrespective of product, industry, target audience or geography, businesses now understand the relevance of building their online presence and capturing the attention of their audiences, something that social media influencers very effectively catalyse.
While influencer campaigns are the hot go-to for marketing managers, often one of the common mistakes businesses make is in assuming their best bet is to go for Influencers with millions of followers, which understandably may not always fit the campaign budget.
For a more targeted reach out accompanied by the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of this increasingly pervasive marketing strategy, partnering with micro influencers has become very popular giving extra-ordinary results for associated brands and businesses.
With an increased spike in user engagement over social media, given the last two years, ad impressions have noted an all-time high, working wonders for brands that look to connect with their Gen Z and millennial audiences, through popular influencers with a relatively smaller but dedicated follower count.
Micro-influencers are typically categorised in the 1000-10,000 followers’ bucket. While all the basic influencer marketing principles apply, these campaigns are smaller in scale. Brands partner with micro influencers promoting their services, products and offerings through posts and other forms of dedicated content instead of sponsored posts.
Unlike well-known celebrities or larger scale influencers, experts or other public figures, Micro- Influencers specialize in particular verticals, frequently sharing content relevant to their niche and related interest, resultantly boasting of content with hyper audience-engagement. Conclusively, partnering with micro-influencers can be incredibly valuable for businesses looking to improve or increase their brand awareness, with lower and flexible campaign budgeting.
Some Tips to Scale your Brand with Micro-Influencers
Here’s what you need to keep in mind while designing your micro-influencer strategy to scale your business.
1. Work on creating an Army
As cumbersome as it may sound, having an army of micro-influencers promoting your brand can really help scale your brand awareness, along with the added advantage of being promoted authentically, this helps to establish credibility with your target audience. Anywhere from a dozen to a few handful influencers can do the trick.
2. Create a Campaign framework
Managing your influencer-army without a framework in place can prove to be nightmare quiet literally. To ensure proper collaboration and efficient executions, its best to start from the basics right from figuring out –
- Campaign Goals – Increased sales, Online Presence or simply increased followers or web traffic.
- Content Format and Social Media Platforms – What can possibly be the best form of content to reach your goals- this can include anything from a brand hashtag, to a visual post or video/ written form of content. Determining the right platform fit would also influence your choice of content format.
- Execution Timeline– Determining the beginning and end of the campaign, would also include the frequency of content being shared if not for a one-off post but for campaigns that can last through weeks
- Performance metrics – Having measurable KPIs in place whether through increased engagement (views, comments, increased follower/ subscribers) or as increased sales, its crucial to have a view on the kind of results you wish to achieve and the timeline you wish to achieve it is.
- Associated Budget– As with any other campaign, a realistic budget set aside is a key requirement
3. Finding the right Micro-influencer
With the campaign ground work established, it is necessary to only work with Micro-Influencers that can fit in with your brand like a glove. While a manual search can be time consuming and not as effective,
- Leverage the existing fan: One way to identify the right set of influencers is to search amongst your existing brand followers for all those who match your requirements and have them become your social media spokesperson
- The Hashtag: A more strategic approach would be to research all hashtags relevant to your brand and offerings and connect to Influencers who are aligned to its use. This method may be most effective while identifying Instagram influencers alone
- A dedicated Influencer Marketing Platform like- Wobb: While Wobb helps brands design their end-to-end influencer marketing campaign, the platform is also a great way to get in touch with influencers who match your relevant brand criteria. Simple, easy and effective!
4. Campaign Execution
After all is said and done, ensuring proper execution for Scale Your Brand with Micro-Influencers is the real key to ensuring your marketing campaign is a success. Wobb allows and assists marketers to seamlessly manage their own campaigns with a single platform to monitor, track and analyze real time progress and performance and scale campaigns as necessary.
To simplify this even further, Wobb also offers a full-service option for Wobb campaign managers to run complete campaigns from start to finish – You can leave the heavy lifting to us- the easiest and fastest way to scale and get the results you wish to achieve.
For all small businesses and marketers running a first-time influencer marketing campaign with a handful of micro-influencers or even a single social media celebrity, situations can sometimes quickly escalate to quite an overwhelming experience, specially under tight timelines and even tighter budgets. While identifying, connecting, campaign planning, renumeration through cash or barter can be quite a lot to deal with, Platforms like Wobb can simplify the complexities of running a campaign to a great deal – Let us help you scale your brand and get the results you want- reach out to us for no fuss attached free demo now!
