Micro-Influencers
The Real Power of Engagement!
By John Feng

社交媒体中的意见分极已是不争事实。人们愿意关注意见相同的人，对意见相左的人却避之不及。这种意见分极使得互动在博主和粉丝之间更加密集，也产生了比名人或网络大V 更好的效果。小影响者通常拥有1000 至10000 个深度互动的细分市场粉丝，因为信息具有高度相关性，粉丝数量不断增长。在这个信息冗余、广告满天飞的时代，传统广告已普遍失去公信力，而小影响者替粉丝过滤信息，只说其想听的，只发其想看的，从而赢得粉丝的信任和忠诚度。对于这样的小影响者，粉丝自然也是趋之若鹜、惟命是从了。小影响者的效果为什么会比明星好呢？这是因为传统营销观念中的“广撒网多捞鱼”是极其低效的。只有触及目标客户，才能打赢这场“注意战”，并且客户越细分，成功的几率越大。这一点在小影响者身上得到了完美的体现。此外，小影响者更富激情、原创性、真实性和可得性，能够随时与粉丝互动，而且性价比更高。明星一出场，就已经给人“拿人手短、吃人嘴软”的印象了，况且没有任何参与度，观众自然不买账。

They might be called “micro” but their results are mega!

Polarity of thought among social media platforms is already a fact. Not only do people try to follow other people that have the same points of view, but they also do not like to see or read something they do not agree with or simply never thought about. This polarity makes the interaction between owners of pages or channels and their fans much more intense, leading to much better results than celebrities or the average couple-million-fans. But what are these micro-influencers that are on the mouths of every marketer?

Micro-Influencers

By definition they are “brand advocates who have a deeply engaged, niche audience”, normally between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, and produce highly accurate content. More than this, they are people that started creating posts, videos, pictures and articles only for their friends, and increased their fan-base just because their content was relevant! In a digital environment where our attention is being “attacked” by almost every brand in the world, it is almost a “gift” that we can give our attention to people that are saying what we want to hear, so we will give them all our attention and love. Before we see it, we are the most loyal fans, advocating all products and services that the person “suggested” to us.
 

Besides this, and according to Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Report, 92% of people do not trust traditional ads, as they clearly prefer word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family. The point is very simple: if I tell you I am the best marketer in the world, you do not have many reasons to believe it as I am completely biased in my own opinion. However, if your best friend recommends my services to you when you need them, we are much more likely to engage in talks to discuss your situation. This is exactly how brands and influencers work and the results are astonishing – for example, 40% of Twitter users claimed they purchased a product or service as a result of a direct tweet from an influencer.

Reach vs Engagement

The idea that if more people see your ad, the more you will sell is so old-fashioned that I am not even sure it ever existed! This is one of the reasons why traditional ads, even if they are presented on social media or YouTube, are very ineffective.
 

Reaching millions of followers might be completely irrelevant. If you have Cristiano Ronaldo making an Instagram post about women’s shampoo, you are wasting your precious marketing budget – even if you will still have conversions. By now it is known that getting your target right is the only way to succeed in the current “attention war” and the more specific you are, the better results you will have. Well, this formula fits perfectly with the concept of micro-influencers. Their audience is small but they are so loyal that any post is almost regarded as an order.
 

So, it all comes down to engagement.
 

The passion, authenticity and accessibility that are visible to the public from “less-followed” people is much higher as it almost feels that they are there for you, not only because their speech comes from their hearts and reflects that they feel what they say but also because they will answer your questions and maintain conversations with you. Majority of large (>1Million) fan-base influencers will make you think immediately after they post that they are being paid to talk about certain brand or product and do not even know that you exist.
 

Final Thoughts

If you want to promote your products or services, micro-influencers are one of the best options regarding social media promotion. Besides all the engagement advantages that you saw before, they are also very cost-efficient. Vast majority of micro-influencers will charge you less than 250$ per post and deliver much better results – 60% more engagement and over six times more cost-effectiveness.
 

Now, go out there, find your favorite micro-influencer and either ask him to post or talk about your product or lose yourself in his recommendations…