The term “micro-influencer” is not a totally accurate one, as the influence they have on consumers is anything but small.
In this 25-minute micro-webinar, we look at the rise of the micro-influencer in today’s world of hyper-stimulation and information saturation, to see how they’ve cleaved out a niche for themselves, and how they can help your brand.
In this on-demand webinar, you’ll: hear how fast and far micro-influencers have come, see them in action, and grasp just how much influence they really have, understand how they operate and why they’re so darn effective, and learn exactly how to approach micro-influencers and get them working for you.
Webinar Transcript:
hello everyone and welcome to micro
influencers a micro webinar presented by
Bulldog reporter and brought to you by
agility PR solution just like micro
influencers themselves we’re keeping
this webinar super focused and efficient
by covering the most relevant content
for PR professionals in 25 minutes
joining us for our webinar today’s guest
presenter Shane Barker Shane is digital
marketing consultant who specializes in
influencer marketing he has consulted
with fortune 500 companies in a number
of a list celebrities Shane also has
extensive experience and working with
micro influencers and today he’ll be
sharing his best secrets with us on how
to leverage them so without further ado
let’s get started talking about the
biggest trend in influencer marketing
okay so before we dive in let’s start by
defining the term micro influencer since
there are almost as many definitions as
there are micro influencers themselves
we’re using the most widely accepted
definition that we found in our research
a micro influencer is a social media
user who shares passionate and informed
content about a particular vertical and
to as no more than 1000 followers are no
fewer than 1000 followers and no more
than 100,000 and the stats behind these
small but mighty influencers are
impressive 82% of consumers are highly
recommend to trust their micro
influencers recommendation
better yet micro influencers offer on
average a hundred percent increase in
engagement over macro influencers with
approximately 8 percent engagement rates
compared to just 4 percent for macro
influencers and lastly when it comes to
revenue micro influencers have been
known to help brands increase their
sales upwards of 300%
so now that we’ve looked at the data
that shows how effective micro
influencers are let’s explore the
reasons behind what actually makes them
that way so for starters one of the
things that makes micro influencers so
influential is that they are extremely
focused they have carved out a niche for
themselves in a certain area and they
build an audience that really cares
about that topic they’re experts
expert recommendations are golden for
example if you are buying a bike would
you rather take the advice about a
certain product from a friend who does
triathlon or a friend who doesn’t know
the difference between the Shafter and a
shifter and a shaft drive if you’re like
most consumers you’re going to go with
the expert another reason that micro
influencers are so often are so
effective is because of their
authenticity micro influencers have
direct personal connections with our
audience
they’re also seen as and indeed are
genuine and honest and these things
matter a 2013 study from the Boston
Consulting Group found that consumers
identified authenticity as one of the
top qualities that would attract them to
a brand another good point is that micro
influencers are also extremely cost
effective one thing that’s important to
note about celebrity influencers is that
they’re huge fees won’t always deliver
the engagement that they imply micro
influencers offer a lower-cost
alternative since their fees are a
fraction of the price or in some cases
are free this makes micro influencers a
great tool for startups and growth
hackers too and lastly my friend
fluencies are affected because they are
extremely engaging studies 5 influencer
marketing agency mark early have shown
that there’s a clear downward
correlation between follower sizes and
post likes I’ve shown in the charts on
this slide Instagram influencers with a
followership of 1000 to 20,000 have a
like rate of 4% compared to just 1.6
percent for those with follower accounts
between 5 and 10 million as rates for a
brief reach increases common rates are
also likely to significantly decline
those with 10,000 to 100,000 followers
are four times more likely to get a
comment than those with 5 to 10 million
followers on top of all of this micro
influencers are experts a natural
conversational engagement when follower
tweets back at them or comments on their
Instagram post chances are that the
micro influencer will respond openly and
healthfully so while the total
engagement of 1 micro influencer is
still not ultimately going to equal the
engagement that someone with a mass
following may have brands will often
leverage a community of micro
influencers in the place of a single
celebrity influencer for a stronger
overall impact
so speaking of macro influencers this is
one of our favorite cases that shows the
difference of effectiveness between
micro and macro influencers the
cosmetics company was releasing a new
line of all natural vegan cosmetics and
they were looking to increase both
awareness with their products as well as
online revenue they wanted to experiment
with influencer marketing so they
selected a celebrity influencer and the
micro influencer to see who could help
them better reach their goals the macro
influencer had over 600 thousand
followers across Facebook and Instagram
whereas the micro influencer had about
18,000 total across these two platforms
the company sent each influencer product
for them to review and photograph and
then have them each write a blog post
reviewing it and combine that with the
Facebook and an Instagram post the
results are quite interesting the macro
influencer delivered more shares and
likes overall compared to the micro
influencer which makes sense given their
much larger following so when it came to
the sales
it was the micro influencer that proved
to be more effective driving over a
hundred sales compared to the macro
influencers 5 sales this is great proof
of the influence that micro influencers
have over their followings when it comes
to purchase decisions especially
compared to that of macro influencers
macro influencers they have the reach
but it’s micro influencers that are
ultimately impacting consumer behavior
so at this point I’ll turn it over to
Shane for his expert tips on the best
way to work with micro influencers once
again Carrie hey thank you guys so much
for having me and I wanted to kind of
further define when we talk about micro
influencers macro influencers and what
we call mega influencers micro we’re
looking at you know a thousand to a
hundred thousand macros are going to be
a hundred thousand plus and then mega
influences you’re going to be like
celebrities the Kim K’s of the world and
influencers in regards to that have a
really large following but has a
celebrity status so one of the things
that we look at and we talk about micro
influencers and how they operate is and
you touch on this a little bit care was
on how honest they can be and how the
brands appreciate that how their
influencers are shooting how their
followers appreciate that because
honesty is going to be a key thing when
it comes to
committing a product or vouching for a
product another upside for micro
influencers Inc do reoccurring
promotions which is important you know
you have the Kim K’s of the world and if
we go and do one promotion with her that
might move they need a little bit but
really you want to do like anything in
marketing you want to do one more than
just one promotion you know what you
want to make sure you do multiple and
I’ll explain that a little further in
the presentation and they continue to
focus in which is important continue to
focus on specific niches which will help
make sure that you anyone make sure that
your products is going to be relevant
for for their audience but they also
want to make sure there’s a good
connection as well so before we talk
about micro influencers and the
difference between the different types
of influencers I wanted to touch on that
a little bit for micro influencers so
one of the key things about micro
influencers is that they’re more
affordable you know one of the things is
that you know but more affordable that
means you can do more promotions with I
touched on earlier the idea of just
doing one post or doing one promotion is
going to have probably little effect in
regards to you know somebody wanting to
go buy a product and really you want to
do multiple promotions with them and the
affordability of a micro influencer
makes that possible
and they’re also born tunes or followers
I mean you know the analogy I always
used here is that if you’re a college
instructor and you have twenty students
and then you know another college
instructor has 200 students and
everybody has a question the twenty
students are you’re probably gonna be
able to answer all those questions the
200 you’re not going to be able to and
so you have a the 200 students who like
there may be left out of not quite as
engaged as much there’s not quite the
rapport not kind of stuff that you want
to build with them so that’s an editing
we take a look at regards the following
and they’re more approachable for brands
which is going to be important you go
after Kim K once again her as an example
I think you know nothing against Kim K
but her thing is going to be well how
much money do you want to be out on the
table for this deal right migrant
flinters are a little more hungry
they’re more apt to be flexible with
things that they do with so with the
cost with you know when they’re going to
promote stuff and how they’re going to
promote stuff so when we look at
examples some of the campaign’s that I
obviously been a part of a lot of
campaigns but one of the micro
influencer campaigns that I’ve seen
recently that I was thoroughly impressed
for the results is Khoya Khoya is a what
it is is like a fries drive the
plant-based ingredient they use for
smoothie
and they obviously were looking for some
kind of a like a health influencer or
health food influencer to promote their
products that would align with their
product and they same they found our
Rachel Katz who at that time watching
this time she still has about 50,000
followers and this is the promotion that
they did for it she actually went they
did the campaign was a it’s a two-day
post or two pictures that were posted
over three days and they did a free
giveaway plus a tag a friend and let me
kind of I’m just going to read you what
Rachel X which she actually put up there
hey I’m having a blast trying out some
of these you know Coria life smoothie
flavors it kind of goes into this whole
thing the different ones that she liked
this is all you have to do is follow
call your life and follow Rachel Kass
and then tag refer in the comments below
no winners would be none else tomorrow
so that was the campaign that they did
once again it was only two pictures they
did over three days the results were
great almost over 1,700 engagement
15,000 impressions and 404 new followers
and the cost of the campaign was was
miniscule intense it was only 150
dollars obviously plus the the cost to
send out the the free product to to
Rachel so once again a $150 I think
that’s a phenomenal results and what
they were looking at regards to KPIs and
what they were looking for so some of
the best ways to work with influencers
I’m going to kind of go through a
step-by-step process this is a four-step
process there’s going to be some kind of
some overlap on some of it but the the
idea of it is is working for we’re
looking at one things you want to do is
look at the followers of the influencer
I mean it’s important to know that the
followers are engaged when I get me
engaged I don’t mean just like I mean
people actually writing comments look at
multiple pictures I look at 10 15 20
pictures to see once again if these
people responding how are they
responding you want people that are
responding positively if it’s you know a
fitness model or something then they’re
in something that’s a little risking is
people writing inappropriate stuff
that’s probably not a place where you
want your brand to be so it’s important
to take a look at that search for
branded hashtags to find the content so
that can be and once again if you’re
Adidas if you look at hashtag adidas or
your you know and
brand you have a specific name of a
product and you just look at that
hashtag and you can go look at
influencers or micro influencers in this
case that maybe you’re already talking
about your product so maybe there’s
already a foundation there they’re
already an advocate for your product
that’s always a good place to start and
then you can obviously use influencer
marketing platforms I mean I’ve been
doing this for almost four or five years
back in the day I used Excel
spreadsheets you know maybe some of you
guys might have heard of those now these
days you have software like the agility
PR solutions which is an awesome
solution that we just started using this
last month you can go and find
influencers and it’s once again a highly
recommended tool you guys should
probably take a look at for Stage two
we’re going to look at connecting with
them so the idea this is to build
rapport you know if you just go and send
somebody a blanket email and said hey we
you know we want this and this is we
want to offer you it’s a cold email
right you want to kind of run that up a
little bit and you want to show that
you’re spending some time to get to know
the influencer that you’re going to go
after so what I recommend is interact
with them on social media posts maybe
write blog comments on their blogs maybe
write comments on their YouTube also
active you can repost their content if
it makes sense and if it’s a good fit
for you once again reach out to maybe
have an issue with me be posting this
obviously they’re going to say no that’s
awesome now you’re kind of building that
foundation get to know them
and after they’ve noticed you then
that’s going to be the time when you
want to send some kind of an email or
some type of a proposal so this point
this is the third stage and we’re
talking about convincing them on where
they should work with you the
communication the email should be very
direct straight to the point a clear
ideas and why you want to work with them
I’m highly the benefits of working with
your brand like you increase reach free
products monetary compensation include a
sentence or two acknowledging the works
that they’ve established so once again
you want to do the research into the
influencer and say hey once again
congratulations on XYZ IPs you just had
a baby or congratulations on I see that
you just moved from Los Angeles to San
Francisco show that you are a fan show
that you understand the influencer room
that you’re following them and that’s
going to be important for them to feel
like this isn’t just an email that
you’re sending out to 500 influencers
and there’s no rapport there’s nothing
there you’re not really caring you just
don’t see who who’s going to jump on and
take you up on the offer operatives in
them free say
that’s really important I mean it’s hard
that vouch for something that you
actually haven’t tried yourself so
that’s something take a look at make
sure you send out samples and make sure
that you don’t want to get that they’re
trying to samples and they they are
genuine in the sense that they’re when
they talk about the product that they
can say true things about it because
they’ve actually tried the product so
the fourth one is maintenance so you
know or it’s excuse me is to maintain so
when you maintain a relationship it’s
important with migraine floaters and
really anybody in life is to make sure
you keep in contact with them right so
you can talk to them about you know keep
in contact with them in the sense that
you know once again things that they’ve
gotten going on you want to continue to
build that rapport because that will be
important down the road you never know
they might start promoting your product
feel free because you guys start to
develop that relationship that’s a good
way to go provide them with sufficient
compensation and reward them for any
exceptional work right invite them to
your local events so if you have a local
event where you’re you have your
products going to be there invite them
to that event you can obviously give
them some type of compensation for that
or maybe trade out her product figure
out what is a will be a win for them and
what they would be willing to take to
show up to the event some provide them
with exclusive offers deals those
affiliate programs there’s all kinds of
stuff you can do there and congratulate
them on their achievements after the
campaign has ended and once again to
kind of build that rapport to continue
to build it into a potentially a second
campaign so now I’m going to kind of
talk about the do’s and don’ts right
when you’re working with with micro
influencers and some of the things to
watch out for
so the do’s make sure you set up what we
call KPIs and that’s key performance
indicators you want to want to get it’s
it’s hard to know that you made it to
the finish line if you don’t know where
the finish line is that right and you
have to talk to the the influencer as a
brand you need to talk to the influence
and influencer needs to talk to the
brand and once again you guys need to
figure out what what are going to be a
win what’s going to be considered when
is it sales is it reach is it you know
brand dimensions what are you looking
for and then what’s going to be funny in
the performance metrics they’re set a
budget right because that’s going to be
a big thing like if you have a thousand
dollar budget and you’re going to go
after five influencers at $200 I know
what that is and understand what that is
and once again I wouldn’t put all of
your eggs in one basket don’t do one
post for $1000 with one insulin sir
because it’s like anything else in
marketing they say you have to you know
take
web seven five to seven times five to
six time for somebody to see something
for them to purchase it so once again in
the influencer space that obviously is
the best accelerated if you probably
don’t have to do it five or six times
but the point is is just putting up one
host is probably not going to have that
much impact you want to develop out of
strategy for that in the long term and
then obviously develop a compensation
plan to benefit your business and the
influencer decide on whether you’re
going to pay them a fixed amount or
there’s going to be percentage of the
performance that depends on whether it’s
a service or a product blueprint winters
have the expertise in developing the
kind of content you need for your
campaign
that has to be a good fit you don’t want
to go and and have a certain product
that you bring to an influencer or
Europe a yoga instructor and but you’re
bringing something or you’re bringing
bikes or whatever it is something that’s
outside of what they usually would post
if it’s not a good fit it’s not going to
be good for the influencer the brand is
going to know or the to the influencer
or the followers are going to know that
hey this is kind of a weird campaign you
just want to make sure there’s a good
fit there and then promote transparency
ensure that you know that the
influencers phone FTC guidelines you can
obviously get on Google and take a look
at that FCC is cracking down on if you
don’t put hashtag ad or sponsors or
something like that you just want to
make sure that you’re in compliance with
everything that you do so now some of
the don’ts so don’t let an influencer
size fool you I mean that’s important
it’s going to touched on it earlier just
because they have lights and they have
two or three comments that’s not a big
deal you want to take a look at
everything as I can go and go on
you know websites and get ten thousand
followers in one day but are those
that’s not building a community right
that’s forcing a community and those
people aren’t going to be they’re not
going to identify with my brand I can go
get a million people but if those people
aren’t liking and commenting on my stuff
comments are the keys
lights can be boxed so just be careful
of that and another don’t is don’t
assume that influencers will a work for
free or they’ll just work for free
product right so you’re what you’re
saying is if you go into you know some
type of relationship and say hey I would
love it if you did this for me for free
how how willing do you think that
influencer is going to be to want to be
your campaign you want to talk to them
build that relationship build that
rapport and say hey what would be a
win-win can I send you some product but
you need compensation let’s talk about
how long this deal is going to last how
many pictures we’re going to do once
again it needs to be
went on both sides with don’t assume
just because you’re going to send out
pretty product that that is going to be
all the influencer is going to want from
a compensation standpoint and don’t
hesitate once again this is a business
relationship of things aren’t working
with that influencer and things aren’t
going well you can dissolve the
relationship there’s no problem with
that there’s millions of micro and
Pulitzers trust me if things aren’t
working there’s no reason to force it
move on to the next one another thing is
as I talked about earlier one of the
don’ts make sure that you have campaign
performances the KPI is in place so you
know what is going to be a big a big win
for your brand and so the influencer
also knows what you’re looking for in
regards to your KPIs thanks guys thanks
Shane those were some early valuable
tips on setting up a micro influencer
program so thanks for sharing all that
with that next up we’ve got some
pointers on where to find micro
influencers for your brand a great place
to begin looking is through your own
follower list you might be surprised at
the hidden gems that you come across
when you’re looking within your own
audience to find those who are
supportive of your brand tactics can be
another really great source for finding
micro influencers especially when
they’re very specific once you determine
the hashtags the best represent your
space you can track them and learn who
among those employing them would be a
good fit for your brand keyword searches
are another great way to identify
potential micro influencers tips for
using keyword searches would be to look
at the number of followers and also look
very closely at their engagement levels
that they’re currently receiving a
Google search is also a great starting
point so it’s never a bad idea to type
into Google and whatever it is that
you’re looking for in terms of micro
influencers to help you find bloggers
and social media mavens in specific
regions and last but not least
leveraging a media contact platform like
the agility media database doesn’t on
the above does once it helps you
identify your micro influencers it will
make it very easy for you to connect
with them the agility media database is
a database of eight hundred thousand
influencers bloggers journalists and
authors from around the world you can
easily come through the database to find
your ideal micro influencer by searching
by topic location and even job role and
better than that you’ll see the accounts
that have a higher than
average social media influence when you
type the term Twitter into the search
bar from your results you can click on
any profile to get their details and
reach out to them directly within the
platform likewise you can compile your
own lists of microsensors and save them
for for future reference
so where the agility database gets
really good for reaching out to your
next screen micro influencer is into
social areas of a contacts card the
Twitter feed gives information about the
influencers handle bio follower numbers
and location while also giving you a
look at their twenty latest tweets this
will give you an immediate sense of
their current interests and also how
they’re crafting their messages and this
is going to help you see if they’re fit
for your brand we also are going to list
their LinkedIn profile and any other
social accounts they may have a simple
click on any of them will take you right
there where you can start interacting
and developing a relationship they might
just end in a 300% increase in sales for
you so that wraps up our our micro
influencers micro webinar thanks so much
to our guest presenter Shane Barker
again for all the great content that he
provided and thanks to everybody for
watching we hope you Lynch the content
and that you found something useful for
you and your brand for any questions on
micro influencers please feel free to
contact Bulldog reporter or Shane Barker
by using the contact information listed
here we’re more than happy to answer any
questions about the presentation
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and have a great rest of your day