Micro-Influencer marketing is a fairly new subset of social media marketing. The concept is the same as influencer marketing, operating in a more focused manner.
A Kissmetrics study suggests that the so-called Micro-Influencer power consisting of influencers with between 2.5K and 25K monthly visitors can provide about 16 times higher engagement rates than paid media alternatives.
In Micro-Influencer marketing, essentially, brands team up with people with a focused and niche following on social media, in order to run promotions for products using regular, everyday, visual posts rather than sponsored ads.
Surge in social media subscriptions, increase in web traffic, and increase in readership of specific web posts – everything is doable with micro-influencer marketing campaigns.
Micro-Influencer marketing carves out a unique niche amidst the influencer marketing landscape. Here, we present a guide on how to find more Micro-Influencers and partner with them to reach more B2B customers on social media.
Locate Micro-Influencers from among your fans
Micro-Influencers may be found from a surprising base – your own fans and followers. When you look through your list of followers, there is every chance that you will find a couple of prospects from your followers who are already interested in your brand, products and services.
Some of the businesses may already be retweeting and sharing your content to express their connection with your brand. There are a couple of reasons why micro-influential followers can be a great fit for you. It may not take much effort to convince them to work with you and the partnership is automatically authentic.
Research hashtags
Another way to find Micro-Influencers is by researching hashtags. Hashtag research is a great way to identify Micro-Influencer who could be interested in products and services that you have to offer. These people are typically already following and tracking products and services similar to yours.
For this reason, they are more likely to be interested in promoting your products and services. Given the fact that their audience is also relevant, the level of connection with your business increases.
For instance, suppose you are in the business of selling SEO tools, doing a search for #seotools or #seo can turn out to be a fruitful endeavour.
Search for local bloggers
This is particularly relevant if you are a small business serving a particular geographic area. Searching for bloggers located in your vicinity can be a great way to find Micro-Influencer with a high degree of relevance.
Local bloggers present fertile ground for finding Micro-Influencer because they focus on a specific geographic area.
For example, if your corporate gift business is located in Los Angeles, run a Google search for “Top business bloggers in Los Angeles”.
Use other tools
There are several tools that can help in your search for Micro-Influencer. A popular research tool Influence.co allows you to search for Micro-Influencers using specific categories. The number of followers gives you an immediate sense of where the influencer is placed. The likes and comments ratios give you additional information about the person’s engagement level.
How do you tap Micro-Influencers?
These are a few ways in which you can actually tap Micro-Influencers:
Ask for a review
Once you connect with a Micro-Influencer, establish is an arrangement in which the Micro-Influencer can try out your products or services and publish a review. This review would be similar to the reviews that the Micro-Influencer has already been doing.
Ask for a retweeting arrangement
You may ask for a retweeting arrangement. What this would involve is: The Micro-Influencer agrees to a certain number of retweets for your content (based on samples). This need not be an exact number but can be a range. For example, you can agree on a retweeting ratio with the Micro-Influencer. In such a scenario, the Micro-Influencer would agree to provide between x and y retweets for every 10 tweets that you put out.
Set up a collaboration at a trade show
The Micro-Influencer may be interested in partnering with you to appear at your booth at one of your relevant trade shows or fairs. While this is more immediately appreciated for a local blogger, this strategy could be relevant for other types of Micro-Influencers also.
Micro-Influencers represent a unique, niche approach to social media-aided marketing efforts. When done right, Micro-Influencer assisted marketing can be remarkably effective.
Feature image source: Jennifer Evans
