Micro vs. Macro Influencers: Who’s Right for Your Business and Sales?
Not all influencers are created equal — find out whether you should use Micro or Macro Influencers for your business and brand.
Influencer marketing is, without a doubt, one of the biggest marketing trends of the last decade.
With benefits like increased brand awareness, lead generation, and higher conversion rates, it’s clear why companies are becoming more and more interested in influencer marketing to promote their goods and services.
However, where more than 80% of marketers find this digital promotion technique highly effective, most of them also agree that implementing an influencer marketing strategy is not an easy task.
There are several factors that need to be considered before you can leverage the power of social media influencers.
How do you decide which type of influencer should write for your brand?
What are the merits and demerits of working with micro and macro influencers?
And how do you choose which influencers are right for your business?
Let’s take a deeper look to find out.
Who are Macro Influencers?
Macro influencers are highly active and powerful social media personalities who are followed by hundreds of thousands of people. Initially, only television stars were capable of reaching such a wide range of audience, but thanks to social media sites, several people have now built a large cult following and become internet celebrities in their own respective niches.
In other words, macro influencers generally have at least 100,000 followers on their social media accounts and thus are often approached by brands that want to increase their outreach in a relatively short period of time.
Who are Micro Influencers?
As the name suggests, micro influencers are those online personalities that have a relatively lesser outreach than macro influencers.
Micro influencers normally have a fan base of about 10,000 to 50,000 users.
Although bigger might be better, the case is not always applicable to influencer marketing. Despite the smaller number of audience, micro influencers offer a range of benefits for marketers and businesses to effectively advertise their products through social media. Depending on the scenario, micro influencers have the potential to generate better user engagement and give a higher return on investment than employing macro influencers for the same purpose.
The Pros and Cons of Micro and Macro Influencers
If you are having trouble deciding which type of influencer your business should partner with, take note of the main differences between micro and macro influencers as discussed below.
Pros of Macro Influencers
Higher Outreach
Their large fan base is what makes macro influencers the ideal candidates for brands that want a prominent place in the public eye. Whether it’s the launch of a new product or announcing the latest deals and discounts, a single post shared by a macro influencer can help spread the news like wildfire.
Promoting to a Diverse Group of People
Needless to say, the large number of followers of macro influencers means that businesses can promote their goods and services to a larger audience.
According to survey results, macro influencers can touch base with 22 times more people than their micro counterparts.
Higher Level of Professionalism
Marketing agencies or talent managers usually oversee the work of macro influencers which is why they are able to maintain a higher level of professionalism in their dealings. They have a well-defined set of terms and conditions as they work with brands on a regular basis. For the business, this eases the process of finding an influencer that is right for them.
Low to No Risk of Fake Followers
One of the main problems with micro influencers is that sometimes they tend to create ‘fake followers’ in order to increase their chances of being approached by brands for paid promotions. However, the risk of fake fans and forged engagement is almost negligible when working with macro influencers.
Cons of Macro Influencers
Expensive to Work With
While the surely offer huge benefits for marketers, macro influencers are rather expensive to work with. Depending on the target market, product, platform and the influencer themselves, the cost of a single promotional post can vary from $2000 to $50,000 or even more. It might surprise you to know that some companies have to pay as much as half a million dollars per post to celebrities for advertising their brand on the internet.
Lack of Personalization
Though they might be famous, macro influencers are usually viewed as ‘marketers.’ The audience might feel (and sometimes quite rightly so) that the influencer’s views and opinions are ‘staged.’ When they suspect that the influencers don’t use the products themselves, their followers are unlikely to try it out either.
Difficult to Get in Touch
Since so many companies want to work with them, getting in touch or getting the approval to work with top-notch macro influencers can be quite challenging.
Pros of Micro Influencers
Credibility, Personalization and Better Engagement
Micro influencers might have a smaller fan base, but their views and opinions are held in high regard by their followers. They are viewed as common (but well-known) ‘everyday’ people sharing their opinions about different brands, goods, or services. This connects them with their fans on a more personal level and, ultimately, generates better leads for the brand.
Ideal for Niche Marketing
Micro influencers usually cater to specific interests or niche markets which make them ideal for businesses that want to advertise their brand to a certain group of people.
Higher Conversion Rates
Since micro influencers rank high on the trust factor, their fans are more likely to try out the recommended products on their own. This increases the conversion rates and results in higher ROI for the business.
Cost Effective
Even when they charge higher than usual, micro influencers are still far more affordable than those who influence on a macro level. This allows businesses to work with multiple micro influencers simultaneously and double up on the rewards.
Cons of Micro Influencers
Limited Outreach
Micro influencers have limited outreach. So, if your main aim is to create brand awareness, partnering with micro influencers might not yield the desired results.
Hard to Find
Finding an influencer in your target market might not be too difficult. But when you pitch in factors such as the quality of content that they publish, the number of followers, affordability and so on, finding the best influencer to partner with your business becomes rather hard.
Risk of Fake Followers
It is not uncommon for small-scale influencers to use unfair or dishonest means to increase their fan base in order to be hired by companies. This is usually hard to detect until you have already invested in the campaign and see no beneficial results.
How to Choose Which Influencer Is Right for Your Business
Choosing the best influencer for your business is not that difficult if you know the right criteria to follow.
Keep the following things in mind when looking for a candidate for influencer marketing.
What Is the Aim of Your Marketing Campaign?
If the main goal of your influencer marketing campaign is just to increase brand awareness or introduce a new product, macro influencers might be the right fit. But if you want to drive up sales and expand your customer base, then micro influencers are usually better suited for the purpose.
How Much Are You Willing to Spend?
Of course, budget plays an important role in determining which influencers you can hire to advertise your brand. However, there is no well-defined price structure for how much an influencer can charge for a piece of content.
If you want to reach out to the masses and have enough money for it, you can partner with macro influencers because it is bound to yield returns. But if you are low on budget, micro influencers may or may not be the safer option due to their limitations (such as fake followers and lack of authenticity).
Collaborating with renowned personalities in the online world to promote your good and services is one of the highly effective ways to build a reputable brand image. Have a clear idea of your marketing goal and total resources. Also, keep in mind the audience that you want to reach out to and the action that you want them to take as this will help you pick the right influencer that can have the greatest impact on taking your business to the next level.
