While everyone recognises the selling power of a top-tier influencer, many brands are now shifting towards those influencers with a smaller fan base to collaborate with.
Dubbed ‘micro-influencers’, these social media users tend to have a smaller, but more dedicated fan base than larger-scale influencers. Speaking with WWD, Beauty Barrage CEO Sonia Summers made the case for micro-influencers, saying: “What’s really unique about them is that they’re experts.
“They are makeup artists, aestheticians, they’re hair stylists. They understand their craft. And because they do, they post a lot of their opinions, and they guide their followers, so that’s very different than what we see with the way the other influencers came out.”
Micro-influencers also tend to have a higher engagement rate due to their involvement in a specific niche, catering to a highly-specific audience. A study by HelloSociety showed that as the number of followers increases, the engagement rate drops sharply; specifically noting that influencers with less than 35K followers have the highest engagement rate (5.3 per cent) and those with a following over 750K only have an engagement rate of 1.6 per cent.
Summers also noted that one needs to think of micro-influencers by the way of “quality versus quantity”, and that “the intimate ties brands can have with micro-influencers — and the close connections they maintain with their followers — helps establish trust and even long-term relationships.”
