Everybody knows about influencers but do you know about nano-influencers?
Over the last few years, influencer marketing replaced traditional marketing options. Smart businesses are now working with influencers on social media, especially Instagram, to encourage the audience to buy their products.
Influencers combine characteristics and skills such as the following:
- Social media astuteness
- Salesmanship
- In-context credibility
- Targeted audience reach
To become an influencer, you need to have a social media account with a large following (but it’s not always necessary). In some cases, if you want to have an influence, you don’t have to be widely popular.
Simply put, you need to be able to change the thought process or behavior of your fans regardless of how many they might be.
Influencers are categorized by the size of their following. These are:
- Large influencers with more than 1 million followers
- Micro-influencers with tens of thousands to lower hundreds of thousands in the following.
- Nano influencers with 1000 to 5000 followers
Most brands respect quality over quantity when reaching their customers. Therefore, they mostly use nano influencers with a small following but a lot of engagement.
How Are Brands Using Nano Influencers?
Most brands work with nano influencers because there are lower stakes compared to working with larger influencers. The larger brands use fewer resources to reach the influencers. If the posts flop, it will not make a huge difference.
Note that smaller brands have limited budgets so they use nano influencers to test the market. Here, they can learn the type of content, partnerships, promotions that don’t work and the ones that can:
- Allow them to pick better influencers
- Help them decide what they want from influencers. It could be how the products should be captured, presented and the right hashtags or descriptions to use.
Nano-influencers as super fans who love a certain topic or brand. In some cases, these superfans are ready to initiate a conversation with these brands to promote them. They can mix them with selfies, photos, and videos to create an amazing Instagram feed.
Advantages of Using Nano Influencers
1. Approachability
Most brands, whether large or small, feel that nano influencers are actually more approachable than the larger ones. That’s because they don’t have a lot of fame.
These nano influencers are yet to reach celebrity status on social media. In most cases, the influencer will reach out to the brand first as a super fan to talk about their marketing opportunities.
2. Easy Relationships
Nano influencers make things easy for brands. They are easy to work in the first place. In most cases, the influencer will do everything the brand wants in exchange for money or an incentive such as a freebie.
In some cases, working with larger influencers is hard because you can’t get them to do what you want even after payment.
The eCommerce team from Tow and Line explains they prefer working with nano influencers because they are easy to work with. They say, “the last thing you want as you craft the perfect influencer campaign is to run into hurdles during execution.
Nano influencers are much more flexible with their terms. And given the low financial investment, you’re able to choose several influencers to work with which gives you a greater advantage of broader exposure.
3. Cheaper
Nano influencers charge lower prices than the larger ones. As the influencer grows, they will charge more money and demand for more. In most cases, nano influencers are happy with a free product. They are ready to promote the business even with no payment as long as there is some incentive.
4. Trustworthy
Social media audiences trust nano influencers much more. That’s because they feel like they are genuine and their advice is true.
Most people assume that there isn’t much to be gained or lost from a following of 1000 people so there is no need to mislead or lie.
Also, nano influencers are not jammed with a lot of ads like the larger influencers. It brings out more credibility on their part.
The team at Tierra Alma sell clothes in their online shop and say they prefer working with nano-influencers because they have stronger connections with their audience.
They say,
Nano-influencers have established a good dialogue with their followers and their communication is much more intimate and engaging. They really talk to and interact with their followers, which means their audience trusts them and doesn’t feel like it’s a marketing strategy.
5. Dedicated
Nano influencers are passionate about creating social media content. They do it in their free time and on their own.
Basically, they are curating content for their followers. They are not worried that their account will blow up. If the account blows up, they can be happy about being a large influencer.
It builds up into their entrepreneurial spirit. Brands love nano influencers because of their dedication. They love having a hardworking and dedicated marketer on their team.
Conclusion
Based on these benefits, you should be able to decide whether or not working with nano influencers is for you. Give it a shot and see whether it works for you. Note that, in the real world, there are different ways to influence.
For instance, a musician or actor can influence an entire generation. In some cases, referrals by word of mouth work because someone you know went to a restaurant and liked it.
You should be able to ascertain what works and what doesn’t. Thereafter, you can perfect your skills to create a unique marketing strategy.
There is a place for everything in marketing. It’s simply trial and error. If you are a small brand looking to dip your toes into online marketing, nano influencing is the best place to start.
Trying nano influencers is a good place to start when trying to develop your Instagram account. Read further about the challenges of social media today.
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