Micro-influencer Marketing: How to Drive Big Results With Small Creators

You don’t always need an influencer with 3 million followers to promote your products.

Because they can be expensive and a bad fit for your ideal audience.

Sometimes, that influencer with 47,000 followers is the best route to reach and engage your ideal audience at a lower cost.

This guide will go into who micro-influencers are, how to get the best results from micro-influencer marketing, and examples of brands doing it right. 

Who are micro-influencers?

Micro-influencers are influencers with follower bases ranging from 10K to 100K followers.

While these follower numbers pale in comparison to influencers with millions of followers, businesses still collaborate with micro-influencers for a few reasons, including their:

• Niche expertise
• Better engagement than mega influencers
• Ability to reach a niche audience
• Ability to promote niche products
• Low cost

Whether you have a tight budget or sell a niche product, micro-influencers can help you reach your ideal audience at a relatively low cost.

How to get the best results from micro-influencer marketing

1. Set your micro-influencer campaign goals 

Before reaching out to micro-influencers, you need to set your campaign goals.

These goals include:

• Brand awareness
• Website traffic
• Lead generation
• Product promotion
• Sales

For example, here’s an Instagram post promoting Everlane summer clothes:

Setting these goals determines your campaign direction and the micro-influencers that can fit into the campaign.

Also, your goals set a benchmark to determine the campaign success.

To set effective goals, use the SMART framework. This means goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

For example, reach 5 million people with posts about our new product in 30 days.

Ensure that your goals also align with your budget and ideal audience.

2. Define your ideal micro-influencer

With millions of micro-influencers on social media, there are many ways to pick the wrong ones unless you define your ideal micro-influencer.

Having a picture of the ideal micro-influencer narrows your focus when looking for one.

So, before searching for micro-influencers, define details about them like:

• The number of followers
• Location
• Gender
• Age range
• Content language
• Content tone and voice
• Content theme

Once you define these details, you can easily weed out millions of wrong options. And if you use an influencer tool, these details will help you find the right influencers quickly.

3. Use the right micro-influencer tool to manage campaigns 

A micro-influencer tool helps you manage various aspects of your influencer campaign, including:

• Finding influencers based on multiple criteria
• Managing communications with influencers
• Managing content
• Tracking influencer campaign metrics
• Paying micro-influencers

With the right influencer tool, you can remove a lot of friction at different campaign stages. 

Using a tool also makes sense if you run an agency, since you may need to run many campaigns and report to clients.

To find the right tool, define your needs during a typical influencer campaign and select a tool that meets those needs.

Search online and read reviews to create a shortlist.

Tools like Sprout Social, Grin, and Julius are great options for managing your micro-influencer campaigns.

4. Explore other ways to find micro-influencers

An influencer tool can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars monthly, which can go beyond your campaign budget.

In this case, you can explore other methods of finding micro-influencers, such as: 

• Studying competitors: Visit competitors’ social profiles to see the influencers featured on their pages or those they follow. You can also click on dedicated partner hashtags to see the influencers using those hashtags.
• Watching your mentions, hashtags, and engagements: Check out users who already mention your brand and use branded hashtags in their posts. Also, look at users who like and comment on your posts.
• Using Google site search: Use Google to search a specific social platform for influencers. For example, you can search for competitor or industry terms to find influencers.
• Using listening tools to find brand or product mentions: Find influencers who already mention your brand or products without tagging you. These influencers will be easier to work with since they already like your brand.

For example, if I’m looking for influencers working with Everlane on Instagram, I can use this search string on Google: site:instagram.com @everlane #everlanepartner

I can also add #ad since most influencers use it in their posts.

In a few minutes, you can find 10-20 influencers. And you can repeat this for other social platforms and competitors.

Once you find influencers through these methods, visit their profiles to see their content and engagement.

5. Share your style guide and campaign brief to guide content

Style guide and content briefs will guide micro-influencers when creating content for your brand.

While the style guide provides an overview of your brand choices, the campaign brief defines the expectations for a particular campaign. 

A style guide should contain details such as:

• Brand voice
• Visual elements (logos, colors, fonts, etc.)
• Target audience
• Brand language and word choice
• Types of content against your brand values

On the other hand, a campaign brief should contain details such as:

• Campaign goals
• Target audience
• Deliverables
• Social media networks
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Campaign timeline
• Campaign budget

If you plan to work with multiple influencers, use these documents to keep your content voice consistent.

However, give space for flexibility so that each creator’s voice can shine through in the content. If you vetted your influencers properly, they should already create content that aligns with your brand.

You can use the style guides of Mailchimp and Duolingo as inspiration to create yours.

Sprout Social has a campaign brief template, which is useful for influencer campaigns. You can also customize Notion templates to your needs.

After creating these documents, share them with micro-influencers to be on the same page.

6. Manage content and communication with micro-influencers during campaigns

Once you have an agreement with influencers, you need a system to manage campaigns.

This system lets you communicate with influencers, collaborate during content creation, and manage created content.

There are 3 common systems to consider for managing your campaigns:

• Social media platforms: Communicate with influencers on the social media networks you want to run your influencer campaigns. Campaigns are more difficult to manage with this, as social networks are not built for it.
• Social media management tools: Add team members to your social media management tool and let them schedule posts. Tools like Sprout Social and Vista Social let you label an influencer’s posts to track their metrics separately. 
• Influencer marketing tools: Communicate with influencers and see all published content.

With the right system, you can manage communications and content during influencer campaigns.

7. Analyze campaign analytics to improve strategy

Campaign analytics show how well your campaign has performed compared to your goals.

Some metrics to analyze include:

• Number of content pieces published 
• Content reach
• Content engagement
• Creators
• Conversions
• Payments

You can track these metrics in a social media management or influencer marketing tool.

You also have the option to download reports to review your influencer marketing results.

Another option is discussing campaign results with influencers. They can sometimes draw more accurate insights from metrics since they understand their audiences.

Micro-influencer marketing examples

Antler Luggage

Antler Luggage collaborates with micro-influencers to show how the brand’s luggage aids adventures.

In an Instagram post, Sarah shows how she packs for trips with Antler.

Samsung UK

Samsung UK often collaborates with influencers, including micro-influencers, to promote the use cases of its products.

In this TikTok post, Fari shows how she used Samsung Galaxy Fold 6 to plan her trip to Seville.

Percy Langley

Percy Langley is a women’s clothing store that features products from 50+ independent British designers. The brand often collaborates with micro-influencers for various types of campaigns.

In this Instagram post, the brand collaborates with Hollie Flower Evans to promote a launch party for some designs.

Conclusion

If you have a small budget or sell a niche product, working with micro-influencers can help you reach your ideal audience.

Use these tips to find the right micro-influencers and manage your influencer campaigns.

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