Micro-Influencer Marketing: The New Word-of-Mouth Marketing

If you have been following any marketing trend reports lately, you have definitely heard the phrase "micro-influencer marketing." What I find funny is that this is nothing new. In fact, it is probably the most primitive form of marketing.

Micro-influencer marketing is the concept that when someone tells their friends about a product or service (digitally or in real life), that their friends are going to be more likely to try that product or service – a.k.a. word of mouth marketing. 

Now I understand that the term micro-influencer marketing is used to describe how this same concept has been updated for digital era, but when it comes down to it, it should not be a foreign concept. Understanding this is important if you want to start micro-influencer marketing for your business. 

What is a Micro-Influencer

A micro-influencer is the social butterfly of the online world. They are not celebrities, but they have a large group of online friends and followers that respect what they say. To put it in numbers, they typically have 2 to 10 thousand people following them, and they have an extremely engaged audience. This means you should see a very high number of likes and comments on their posts. Studies show that micro-influencers have 4x the engagement rate of their celebrity counterparts, which means at-scale you can get WAY more exposure. 

Is Micro-Influencer Marketing Right for Your Business

The answer is almost always yes. And yes even if your product is very niche or B2B. Actually, the more niche that your product or service is, the more cost-effective it can be. The hard part is finding the micro-influencers for your industry. Start by thinking about who you go to for advice on your industry on social media. Click here to check out my full post about how to start influencer marketing for your business. 

How to Compensate Micro-Influencers

Learning how to compensate micro-influencers is more of an art than a science, and depends on many factors such as: how many followers they have, what posts you want them to complete, the cost of your product/service, turn-around time, the length of commitment. For example, if your product is very expensive, you might be able to have the influencers complete their posts for the cost of the product, and if it is ridiculously expensive you might even get them to complete it for a discount. Every influencer is different so you will typically have to negotiate with each one. If you use a platform or company, like Statusphere, we will do most of this work for you.