Nano and Micro-Influencers in the Spotlight
By Raja Anjana Kothapalli
Do you have questions on nano and micro-influencers? Congrats! you found a good place to get precise answers. Let’s delve into the hows, whats, and whys. But first, let’s get a good understanding of who is an influencer and what is influencer marketing.
Influencer and influencer marketing
An influencer is an active social media personality with a loyal follower base. The influencers have the power to influence the buying decision of their followers. Influencer marketing is a popular marketing strategy used by many businesses. It helps to promote their brands by collaborating with relevant influencers.
Based on the total number of followers, influencers fall into different tiers. They are elite, mega, macro, mid-tier, micro, and nano. You can find more insights into the powers of influencers here.
Who are nano influencers?
Nano influencers are social media influencers. They have a loyal base of around 1,000 followers. The profiles of the nano influencers generally give a ‘person next door’ feeling. They enjoy a closer relationship with their followers. Nano influencers often share one-on-one communication with them. They can be someone who has an influence within their locality or community. They are in a process of strengthening their niche.
Who are micro-influencers?
Micro-influencers have a loyal base of around 1,000 to 1,00,000 followers. They have an established niche and focus on it to generate engaging content. They are usually regarded as niche specialists or industry experts. Micro-influencers enjoy a large base of followers. But their size is not too large to make an active engagement with their followers a difficult task.
How much do nano influencers get paid?
Most nano influencers get paid with free samples for sponsored posts. These can be free products, free services, product discounts, and service discounts. They can also be rewarded with shop credits, coupons, gift cards, etc.
Nano influencers can also try and negotiate monetary payment based on a few factors such as:
- Quality of the content
- Reach of the influencer
- Engagement rate
- Social media channel
- Influencer marketing agency fee
- Type of the campaign content
A nano influencer can earn $10 to $100 per post on Instagram. $20 to $150 per video on YouTube, $5 to $25 per post on TikTok, $2 to $20 per post on Twitter, and $25 to $200 per post on Facebook. In India, a nano influencer can earn ₹2,000 to ₹10,000 per post.
How much do micro-influencers get paid?
The factors mentioned above also influence the payment of a micro-influencer. A micro-influencer can earn $100 to $500 per post on Instagram. $150 to $1,000 per video on YouTube, $25 to $120 per post on TikTok, $20 to $100 per post on Twitter, and $200 to $1,000 per post on Facebook. In India, a micro-influencer can earn ₹10,000 to ₹30,000 per post.
How to become a nano influencer?
For a wannabe influencer, a nano influencer is the first step to climb up the influencer ladder. Getting there is no easy task. Find define your niche and start generating content. Ensure that your content is creative, engaging, coherent, and relevant to your niche. Use relevant and trendy tags to boost your content.
This will be your first step in building a career in influencer marketing. So it is preferable if you build your follower base organically. Do not go to buying followers online. Despite it being a quick and easy means, it will not help your engagement rates in the future. Get on a social media platform and choose a niche. Then publish engaging content and grow your followers.
How to become a micro-influencer?
To become a micro-influencer you don’t have to be a famous person. 1,000 followers is a benchmark for most brands to begin a collaboration with an influencer. To distinguish yourself from nano influencers, a follower base of 3,000 to 5,000 is preferable. You can start earning more with 5,000 loyal followers and publishing quality content. Once you collaborate with a brand, post sponsored content. Be transparent with your followers by clearly specifying that the post is an ad. This retains and enhances the trust and loyalty of your followers.
Expert opinions on nano and micro-influencers
“Real life micro and nano influencers who are passionate about what they are recommending have significantly more buying conversations, and consumers are more likely to act on their recommendations.” -Research by Brad Fay, Co-Founder, COO, and lead researcher of the Keller Fay Group
“As an Instagram influencer’s followers rise, the rate of engagement (likes and comments) with the follower base decrease.” -Research by Markley
“I’d rather have 10 influencers with 10,000 followers each than a single 100,000 follower influencer any day of the week” -Kurt Elster, Senior Ecommerce Consultant
“Consumers today are targeted with information at every step of every day. They know the difference between an advert, a personal recommendation, and an advert masked under a personal recommendation only too well.” -Priyanka Dayal, Content Marketing Manager, Centaur Media PLC
Why are nano influencers better?
The opinions of nano influencers kindle higher reliability from their followers. This evokes a higher level of trust which transfers to the collaborated brand. As a result, nano influencers also enjoy a high level of loyalty from their followers. By creating quality content, they can establish a good follower-brand connection. They have a very strong influence over their small but tightly knitted base of followers. Nano influencers also make a larger pool of influencers to choose from for a brand. So there are many options for choice and good scalability. The cost of collaboration with brands for nano influencers is way lesser than others. So, brands can reduce or optimize their marketing budgets.
Why are micro-influencers better?
The opinions of micro-influencers induce strong credibility from their followers. This evokes a high level of trust. When micro-influencers collaborate with brands, the latter enjoys a similar level of trust. This breeds a higher level of loyalty among the followers than a mega or macro-influencer. Moreover, micro-influencers are available in larger pools than mega or elite influencers. So the brands have a large pool of influencers to choose from. If the campaign yields positive results, scalability is easy if needed. Though higher than nano, the cost to hire a micro-influencer is still far lesser than others. Thereby helping brands to optimize their marketing budgets.
What are the problems faced by nano and micro-influencers?
For many nano influencers and some micro-influencers, brand collaboration is a new avenue. This can lead to legal risks. Moreover, a few of the nano influencers might not be well versed in quality content creation. Nano influencers and budding micro-influencers have fewer followers limiting their reach. In the case of nano influencers, friends and family account for a major chunk of the followers. This section of followers mostly engages due to familial and social obligations. But the value of engagement obtained from such sources diminishes with time.
Additionally, brands need solid metrics to measure the success of their promotional campaigns. These include the percentage of unique impressions and the sentiment of comments. Brands cannot get this information from nano influencers. This is because these influencers usually rely on a single social media platform. A recommendation from a nano influencer or a small micro-influencer has a huge impact. This is due to their higher engagement rate as compared to the other tiers. This is a positive aspect of these small influencers. But it can also turn negative when an unexpected backlash occurs during campaigns. So weighing the associated risks against the expected benefits is vital. You can read more on why brands hesitate to collaborate with influencers here.
How to make money as nano and micro-influencer?
Read on to find out Hobo.Video’s list of top 5 ways to make money as nano and micro-influencer.
1. Approach brands to collaborate
Once you have a decent number of followers, start approaching the brands. You can search for relevant brands and send a proposal for collaboration. For a nano influencer, smaller brands are easier to target than established brands. They can also approach local brands. Micro-influencers have lesser difficulty in approaching brands. This is because they enjoy a higher reach than the nano influencers.
After collaborating with brands, nano and micro-influencers can start making money online. They can earn by posting sponsored content on their social media platform. There are many forms of sponsored content. They include publishing sponsored ads, brand anthems, and hashtag challenges. They also include brand promotional campaigns set over a definite timeframe.
Eventually, nano and micro-influencers can become co-creators and create product lines. This avenue of money-making is not very accessible to nano influencers. By comparison, the micro-influencers have a better shot. But this online money-making avenue is recently opening up to include nano influencers.
The compensation plan for co-creating product lines is dependent on some factors. They are influencer reach, customer engagement, and company policies. They also include the degree of influencer involvement in the creation process.
Read more at The Influencer’s Guide To Land A Perfect Collaboration on Hobo.Video.
2. Linking up with an influencer marketing agency
Influencer marketing agencies work as a middleman platform for brands and influencers. They help brands to fish for relevant influencers from a large pool of influencers. One of the many services offered by Hobo.Video is to provide a platform for the brands and influencers.
These agencies help brands to reach a wider audience. They also help the brands leverage real-time data to optimize the ROI on their campaigns. An agency can help in achieving consistency in customer engagement. This is possible because the agency acts as a single entity to coordinate all the campaigns.
An influencer marketing agency shortens the long process of collaborating with brands. The process involves searching for relevant brands, approaching them, and negotiating deals. So the agencies help the influencers save time and money. They also provide a learning opportunity for working with influence marketing experts. This a great benefit for new players such as nano and micro-influencers. Find more on the top influencer marketing agencies here.
The agencies often customize their compensation plan. This is because almost every influencer marketing campaign is unique. They generally charge the brands a monthly management fee for managing their campaigns. At times they may take commissions instead of a management fee. In some cases, they may charge a bulk payment based on the required number of posts by the brands. The influencer marketing agencies may or may not charge the influencers. When charging, the agencies collect the amount as a membership fee or commission.
3. Team up with revenue sharing e-commerce platforms
Most e-commerce platforms give a share of their revenue to the influencers. This happens when influencers influence their followers to take a preferred action. A preferred action can be driving traffic to the e-commerce website. It can be a referral or a new user resulting in a fresh sign-up. It also can be the sale of a product or service. This creates a great opportunity to make money for nano and micro-influencers. You can read more about the top 16 revenue sharing websites for 2021 here.
When you team up with an e-commerce platform, you get a customized URL. You can use this URL in your content to generate a preferred action. Once this action occurs, you get a percentage of revenue generated. This method allows an influencer to sell a product without needing to have a product of your own. This works well for small stakeholders such as nano and micro-influencers. It is due to the low risk involved and the easy process of making money. Hobo.Video is one such revenue-sharing e-commerce platform.
Hobo.Video is an invite-only e-commerce platform. It provides a thriving network for brands and influencers. Hobo provides revenue streams to influencers via making an ecosystem of video commerce. A localized Gen Z community drives this ecosystem. Hobo is the premier global destination for short-form mobile video influencers. Here, the influencers use their best creativity to make viral content. Hobo has an extensive network of over 24,000 nano and micro-influencers in 63 categories. Total followers in the Hobo network is 310 million. Its main focus is on nano and micro-influencers.
Hobo serves as an omnipresent platform to create and share viral videos. You can share these videos on many social media platforms. Some of the compatible platforms are Instagram Reels, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube. Others include Mitron, Dubsmash, Wechat, and 9GAG. On Hobo, as an influencer, you can pick relevant campaigns and ideas. Then you can create and share viral videos with your followers on social media platforms. You will make money when your followers buy a product using that your videos. An influencer can also make money on Hobo by owning a virtual Micro Store. Influencers can add products to their store and share them on social media platforms. They can also make money on Hobo by tagging products on their videos. They can even make money on Hobo by recruiting new influencers as members.
4. Become a brand ambassador
Brands hire active and relevant influencers to be their brand ambassadors or representatives. This option favours micro-influencers than nano influencers due to their larger reach. But this avenue of making money online is now widening to include nano influencers. For example, Ideal Flatmate promoted their brand using nano influencers as brand representatives. Ideal Flatmate is an online platform for finding a room to rent or a flatmate.
5. Raise money online
Nano and micro-influencers can make money online by raising funds through their followers. This is possible to achieve in various ways. One method is by sharing a link to your website that has your bank details on your profile. Another method is to request donations directly from your social media platform. But only if such action is in agreement with the terms and conditions of that platform.
You can also set up a crowdsourcing account on one of the approved sites by your social media platform. YouTube has a list of pre-approved crowdsourcing sites. You can select one that is most suitable for your needs from this list. Connect your profile link for a fundraising platform to your social media platform. Then your loyal followers can donate money via this link.
In the case of crowdsourcing, transparency often boosts donations. You can raise more funds through regular fundraising progress updates to your donors.
To Put It Simply
For the cost of hiring one mega influencer, a brand can hire 60 micro-influencers. The total number of followers in both scenarios being the same. The first scenario yields an engagement of 1.5% and a reach of 200K. The second scenario yields 3.5% engagement and a reach of 1 million. It is no wonder, most brands are shifting their focus onto nano and micro-influencers.
