At What Point Do You Become ‘Micro’
Sometimes the whole “oh, you’re an influencer?” question is a bit overwhelming. To some people, it’s a shock to hear that word associated with themselves. To others, it’s their job title and main source of income. In the digitally obsessed world we live in now, it’s almost as if your follower count says something about you to some people. Crazy, isn’t it? But, there are some people out there who are new to the traction of followers and are in the beginning stages of growing a large scale social media presence. Some people in this category just post for the love of sharing their lives online, and others post with the intent of one day massing a following worth money, notoriety, and fame. Regardless of the intent, the voice these people have online seems to have influence over. Now, they might not be seen as the next Kardashian prospect, but they still are an influencer. The degree of influence? That’s up to them. But, as we categorize this, they’re ‘Micro-Influencers’.
To understand the power of the micro-influencer, we must identify what qualifies someone to be a micro influencer. At Glew, we spend a lot of time examining which accounts have true influence, even on very macro levels. On a surface level — anyone that is growing a following larger than 5,000–10,000 users begins to have influence over others. When a user starts becoming someone that people look to for advice, tips and tricks, and brands they love then they implicitly start to influence their followers. A person doesn’t need to break the 5 digit follower count to be considered a micro influencer, but the majority of micro influencers have anywhere from 10,000–50,000 followers across their social medias. Once a user gets to this point it is clear that the ball is already rolling and the followers will continue to grow from there.
Some may not know, but there are tons of pros to being a micro-influencer. Brands love to send free products to micro influencers because they know that they’ll truly appreciate the products instead of just throwing them in a closet on top of hundreds of other brand-sent goodie bags. Micro-Influencers are teetering on the line between being a person who posts online about their life to posting online because it’s their life. The content calendar may not be booked months in advance. Managers aren’t calling and saying what an influencer can and can’t do when it comes to brand deals. Not everyone knows them yet, and it’s the calm before the storm.
At this stage in the funnel to becoming famous, micro influencers see their highest level of engagement rates. In the chart below, it shows that as accounts increase in follower count; they decrease in engagement rate:
Engagement rate is a great indicator of influencer. If you are posting content and a percentage of your followers larger than 4% is engaging with it, you are doing great. With a higher engagement rate means a higher ability to be paid more for brand deals. Many brands are curious to see your exact engagement across single social media account, as well as accumulatively across all social channels. With a higher engagement, you can be charging more for brand deals as well as getting products you love in exchange for posting about them.
Since micro influencers are still in the stage where the internet is not necessarily consuming their life, the content we see made for branded posts by micro influencers is fantastic. Many times, brands will want to work exclusively with micro influencers because of their drive and ability to create stunning content. By creating a campaign with various micro influencers, brands get to skip the process of having an agency create content that might not hit with the audience, and just let the micro influencers be their own creative agency for the campaign. These smaller influencers know what their followers like and what they want to see, therefore they’re able to cater the content towards that eye.
If you are someone who is just breaking into the influencer field and considers yourself a “micro-influencer” then we are really excited for you to begin this journey online. It’s a very fun one, and it’s such an interesting game because at the end of the day there is no handbook to online success. It’s different for every person. But, what we do know is that as you grow there are great tools out there to manage your account, track your engagement, and get new brand deals to generate revenue off your social accounts. If you’re looking to be a part of Glew’s exclusive Micro-Influencer database, you can apply to do so here!
