Whilst influencer marketing is a fairly new concept overall, it is nonetheless still a constantly-evolving industry. In the earliest days, most marketers were aiming for the most popular influencers on social media, i.e. the ones with the furthest reach and the strongest selling power.

However, with Instagram constantly changing and updating their algorithm, and social media users becoming wiser to marketing tactics, the landscape has changed considerably over recent months.

It is now thought that it may be smaller influencers who have the most impact on their followers.

What Are Nano Influencers?

Influencers in recent years have been broken down into categories, based on the number of followers they have.

Macro influencers are the big guns – the people that have hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. These would be celebrities, YouTubers, pop stars and social media personalities.

Micro influencers are smaller influencers, commanding a following of between 10,000 and 100,000. These influencers are often reality stars, famous makeup artists or some sports personalities, smaller YouTube stars and models.

Nano influencers are Instagram users who have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers. These users are ‘Insta-famous’ – they have a lot of followers and have some influence, but have an unpolished account and a real sense of personality to their profile, making them feel like the ‘girl/guy next door’.

Most brands will not work with those who have less than 1,000 followers, although some more niche industries are not averse to it. A number of leading brands are already using nano influencers, including Always, Gillette and Remington, but for the most part this is an untapped resource for marketers.

Why Not Just Use Micro Influencers?

It seems to make sense, when trying to reach a large number of people at once, to work with an influencer with more, well, influence. But the fact is that consumers don’t really take the advice of celebrities and semi-famous people that they don’t know when deciding on purchases – they’d much rather hear from people they know or are accessible to them.

These people are far more accountable to their followers, meaning that their opinions are trusted.

Why Work With Nano Influencers?

There are lots of great reasons to choose a nano influencer over a micro or macro influencer for your marketing campaign, not least because this is the perfect time to get hold of them before everyone else does.

Close Relationships With Audience

Nano influencers tend to have actual relationships with their audiences, either knowing them in person or tangentially – through belonging to the same groups, teams and demographics. They will usually have a highly engaged audience, thanks to being active on their pages and responding to comments, questions and so on.

They Are Still Humble

Nano influencers haven’t yet reached a stage of fame or notoriety where they feel able to demand huge payments or benefits in order to market your product. In fact, if you target the right influencers, they should be fairly happy to market your item in exchange for some freebies and cross-promotion.

Their advertisements will also feel more authentic, as they don’t have the polished media feel that bigger influencers start to take on, so audiences will be more receptive.

People Trust Small Influencers

As mentioned previously, nano influencers feel like a friend to their followers, and in some cases actually do know their followers in real life. It doesn’t matter how great your marketing campaign is, it is a well-recorded fact that people trust their friends far more than they trust a faceless brand, or a celebrity.

More Receptive Audiences

Nano influencers command audiences that are less used to being sold to. Although you are reaching less people, you have a huge untapped and unsaturated audience to promote to, who haven’t been made cynical by influencers that promote constantly and don’t put personal or engaging content online.

Competitive Edge

Businesses, at this point, tend to underestimate how much power a smaller influencer holds over their audience, preferring to go with big influencers with millions of followers. This means that you have a wide pool of nano influencers to choose from, easily hundreds within your own industry that you could work with and gain endorsement from for nothing more than a few free products.

If your ad is one of the first or only on your nano influencer’s page, this also ensures that their audience will pay more attention to it, and place more trust in it.

Risks Of Nano Influencers

Of course, there are challenges to working with smaller influencers, otherwise brands would have started working with them a long time ago. Some of the things to look out for, so that you can avoid them, are:

They can be unprofessional. It is the very thing that makes nano influencers feel so natural and engaging that can make them difficult to work with. Often smaller influencers with no experience can struggle to communicate effectively, may deviate from brand guidelines or miss deadlines. This is why it is critical that you are prepared to work closely with the influencer to ensure that things run smoothly.

You may not get great brand awareness. Obviously if you are working with smaller influencers then you are not reaching very large audiences. If you just want brand awareness and aren’t too bothered about engagement, a micro or macro influencer might be the way to go.

They may not have access to social tools. Methods and tools for measuring success and driving traffic are usually the preserve of more professional social media users, so you’ll have to take on as much of the campaign management and assessment as you can using your own tools.

How To Approach A Nano Influencer

One of the things that you do need to be aware of with a nano influencer is that they are very new to the marketing world and will need a little more instruction and help than someone who is used to promoting. When you approach an influencer, remember that they are doing you a favour, so only ask that they promote your product and don’t ask them to do anything too complicated or difficult.

You could give them a detailed brief about what you need them to talk about, but make sure there is no script and you’re not putting words into their mouths. If they simply repeat your marketing spiel, it will come across false and unnatural to their followers, and the ad will be wasted. The best thing to do is offer to send them a free product in return for a review of the product on their social media channels.

More Information

If you need help with your online marketing efforts, then the team here at MaxWeb can help. We have experience of creating and managing social media promotions for clients large and small and can help your brand get the exposure it deserves.

To find out more call us on 0151 652 4777 or connect via email at info@maxwebsolutions.co.uk.

Posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2020 in Social Media.