Battle of Influencer Vrs Micro-Influencer 2019
Updated: Mar 31, 2020
Are you thinking of how you can use Influencer marketing to boost awareness or drive conversion rates? then your in the right place.
49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations
67% of marketers promote content with the help of influencers
Micro-Influencers can achieve over 20% conversation rates
This article will give you food for thought when setting your influencer / micro-influencer marketing strategy for 2019, no matter if you are a small organisation or a multinational.
There are 5 key groups I recognise as influencers so you can start building your own influencer teams to help improve your engagement, awareness and conversation campaigns. Each influencer group has been scored out of five in six categories:-
Reach
The range of exposure or influence one can achieve.
Engagement
Rate at which content receives interactions such as clicks, views etc from followers.
Cool Factor
Represents the popularity and recognition the influencer has in society.
Cost
Spend / outcome, a low score means spending a lot to achieve rewards which is becoming less favourable.
Segmentation
Can the group target a specific audience.
Authenticity
Trustworthiness of information or endorsement 'are you just doing this for the money?'
Is effective influence as straight forward as you first thought?
Does higher reach necessarily lead to better long-term marketing results?.
Is it time to cut your big budget spend on celebrities and use a collection of micro-influencers?
lets compare...
1. Celebrity: the most known and talked about people in our societies. They are the traditional form of influencers when compared to the other groups having been involved with brands since the evolution of endorsement deals and sponsorship agreements.
They have mass market recognition, loyal followings, tip of tongue recall and a broad power of command in society that has the ability to transcend ages and genders. If you were looking to blast your entire industry with a single message celebrities can achieve this. They tend to have trendsetting abilities so your message can quickly go viral.
The return on investment is still difficult to quantify yet we do know that without doubt this group carries the largest price tags to attain A lister collaboration deals.
The major criticism super celebrities are facing is with their brands is authenticity; are they just promoting a product because of the cash reward and do they really believe in the product. It is very possible to gain amazing results with celebrities influencers when relevant stories can be established.
Celebrity influencers work with very experienced and professional teams that will help you achieve your brand online aims.
2. Online Celebrity: known as people having gained recognition from the internet explosion. First movers in creating attention and awareness for their talent through online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snap Chat to name a few.
Due to the variety of channels online, these celebrities have carved themselves a very unique niche in their respective industries.
They have followings who are willing to share and chat about topics online, fans are widely associated with the catch phase's millennial & Gen Z 13-38 years old.
Failure to analyse this groups target market in detail could lead to budgets being blown as collaboration fee's are not far off traditional celebrities. This group however, offers loads more quantitative data making targeting and connecting with the audience folds more effective.
With so many brands fighting for this audience you will need to be mindful that your message achieves the required exposed and not just lost in the blur of on-going promotions. This group of influencers have been known to boom and bust sometimes over night so high risk for long-term campaigns; be sure to be riding the wave.
There behind the scenes team here tend to be smaller which can offer more specialisation but be sure to detail your brands expectations in advance.
3. V/Bloggers: These are your go to people, normally the diamond in the ruff or the equivalent to customer co-ordinators at a theme park (full of information, advice and directions). Bloggers stick to articles and still pictures whilst Vloggers use video to tell their stories.
They tend to be more like critics or experts in packaging and presentng experiences, products, activities. Generally they find 'stuff' people are likely to really interacting with and re-produce it for online website, social media, magazine, journal or news distribution.
Their content is highly visual and this makes it extremely appealing. V/bloggers have become trusted points of reference in the decision-making process. V/bloggers have become the point of call for validation, alongside online customer reviews.
Some have been accused of publishing favouritism and others also can be swung by a sight of a big cheque. Great bloggers are just like best friends they will tell you a story from their point of view. Bloggers are great for promoting specialised and niche topics as they tend to have highly engaged followings.
Great influencers for new brands looking to enter a sector.
4. Active Micro-influencer - This is an individual who participates in the activity they promote, for example a food critic, semi professional regional sports person, local TV or radio presenters.
This group has built a loyal following because they tell stories from the perspective of experience. Active influencers have become popular in fields such as health and wellness, food and cuisine, entrepreneurship, fashion and beauty just to name a few.
Their opinions are valued and trusted, they tell personal stories and share with their social circle. Campaigns involving this group have the potential to have very successful engagement figures however due to their lower reach it is suggested to work with multiple groups of micro influencers.
Active micro-influencers are likely to be long-term or even life-time patriots to your brand making them a fantastic group to build lasting relationships with.
5. Inactive Micro Influencer - These people are likely to be socialites, popular kids in school or university boy/girl next door type, its possible they have more than one hobby or interest.
This group shares very similar reach and engagement characteristics as active micro-influencers but are slightly less authentic since they are not specifically specialist in a single topic. I suggest these people can have as low as 500 followers, importantly post engagement should be over 50%.
Micro-Influencers can be useful to test your product or service in a target market.
Inactive micro-Influencers are great for brands with targeted objectives within varied regions.
If you are a big brand planning a campaign and looking at incorporating influencers then you would be right to consider splitting your budget between the groups listed above, each influencer has its own strengths and weakness. You can gain geographical advantages from using local micro-influencers over global celebrities to create awareness.
If you are a smaller brand bloggers and micro-influencers will play nicely into your budget and provide you with the focus and engagement required to achieve impactful launch’s and help you grow your reach organically.
Don't forget Influencer marketing should be run in conjunction with other strategies such as SEO.
Please contact us on info@nelcoandfuture.com if you would like to set up and influencer campaign.