Influencer marketing has become a popular strategy that many brands are opting to implement over traditional advertising methods. 

One of the key selling points of influencer marketing is that no matter the size of your brand and the target audience you want to reach there are heaps of nano and micro creators that are the perfect fit for your brand’s needs.

The first step to finding out what type of creator is going to work best for your campaign is to understand the difference between nano vs micro influencer.

Nano Vs Micro Influencer: Which One Is Right For Your Brand?

Understanding Influencer Marketing

In its purest form, influencer marketing is a technique used by marketers to social-proof a business or brand. Creators endorse and mention products to create a buzz with their audience, ultimately leading to increased brand awareness, trust, and conversions. 

When planned correctly, influencer marketing can be extremely successful due to the relationship-building and trust that creators have fostered with their audiences. In some senses, it’s similar to old-school word-of-mouth techniques and recommendations with a new and improved 21st-century online spin.

Defining Nano and Micro Influencers

The key difference between nano vs micro influencers is undeniably their audience size. Nevertheless, there are several other factors that differentiate the two which are worth considering if you’re planning a campaign. 

What Is a Nano-influencer?

A nano-influencer is a creator with an audience size of 1,000 to 10,000. Because of the smaller size of their following, nano-influencers are known to have higher levels of trust and relatability with their niche community, making their recommendations extremely successful. 

What Is a Micro-influencer?

A micro-influencer is a creator with an audience size of 10,000 to 100,000. 

Even though a micro-influencer has a larger following than a nano-influencer, they are still known for having personal connections in a tight-knit community which makes their recommendations and opinions more trustworthy than that of macro-influencers. 

Benefits of Working with Nano Influencers

Here are some of the key benefits of working with nano vs micro influencers:

• Higher Audience Trust: Nano-influencers are known for having family, and close friends within their audience and a more authentic and personal approach making their recommendations invaluable and highly successful, especially when it comes to building brand trust and reputation.
• Higher Engagement: According to a study conducted by Aspire.io nano-influencers have a higher engagement rate when compared to macro and micro creators. Their average rate of engagement was 3.69%.
• Lower Costs: The final benefit of nano-influencers is their capacity to reduce marketing costs. These creators charge substantially less than micro and macro influencers because of their lower audience size.  

Advantages of Collaborating with Micro Influencers

Now, let’s take a look at some of the key benefits of working with micro vs nano influencers:

• Niche Authority: Most of the time micro-influencers content is extremely niched. These creators share content aligned with their given topic, meaning that they can blend advertorials seamlessly on their feed if done correctly. They are an authority within their niche and therefore their reviews, and recommendations carry a certain weight.
• Good Engagement Rate: Similarly to nano-influencers, micro-creators also have high engagement rates. With an average of 1.22% engagement on platforms such as Instagram.

Factors to Consider When Choosing an Influencer

If you’re interested in working with a nano or micro influencer for your business’s marketing efforts then there are a few things you’ll need to consider. Let’s take a look.

1. Understand your target audience: First things first, you need to get a clear idea of your target audience. The best way to go about this is to create a buyer persona and take into account data such as location, age, gender, behavioral traits, etc. Make sure to do this step before you start searching for influencers because your target audience will ultimately lead you to the perfect fit of creators for your brand.
2. Pick the right influencer: Now that you have a clear idea of your target audience, you’ll want to ensure that every influencer you consider has an audience that aligns with your desired buyer persona. You can asses this metric by analyzing their content.
3. Study your niche: You’ll want to take some time to research micro and nano influencers who are within your brand’s niche to best match and reach your target audience. 
4. Research influencer’s engagement rates: Before collaborating with an influencer you’ll want to make sure that their engagement rates aren’t fluffed and that their reach fits within your desired campaign budget. This metric includes likes, shares, comments, and views.
5. Ask for their rates: Once you’ve reviewed their engagement rates you can proceed to ask for their influencer rates. Some creators have a media kit where they have all of this information readily available for prospective clients, whereas for other influencers you will have to actively reach out to them via email and ask the appropriate questions. You’ll normally be able to find the creator’s contact details in their bio section on social media.
6. Choose a platform that makes sense: Nowadays, there are so many platform options to choose from. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok all offer varying benefits. You’ll want to figure out where your target audience hangs out, and then asses if it’s beneficial for your brand to focus on one platform or a combination to maximize visibility.
7. Craft your outreach messaging: Once you’ve gone through all the steps above it’s time to start reaching out to your influencer shortlist. To create a strong outreach message you’ll want to include information about your brand and product, plus the mutual benefits the partnership can deliver. 

Finding the Right Fit for Your Brand

It’s important to not lose track of what’s important when you’re researching nano vs micro-influencers for your brand. Ultimately, what’s crucial is that the creator shares the same values as your brand, this ensures that the partnership doesn’t come across to their audience as inauthentic. 

The follower size, engagement rate, and all the other data points are useless if your creator’s vision and audience don’t match up to that of your brand. 

Maximizing Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

As with any partnership, things can go wrong. To try to avoid this happening there are a few red flags that you can look out for that will help maximize your chances of a successful influencer campaign. 

• Bad communication from the creator
• A large number of bot or fake comments
• A low engagement rate but a high audience is normally a sign of bought followers
• Random and inconsistent rate changes
• Misrepresenting previous brand’s products in sponsored posts
• Not disclosing ads or sponsorships. This is against the law and is a violation of terms and conditions on most platforms

Conclusion: Making the Right Choice for Your Brand

Understanding the difference in benefits between nano vs micro influencers can help decide as to which tier would work best for your brand. You’ll want to take into consideration all of the factors we covered in this article from budgets and reach, to content niches and platforms. 

Truth be told, a lot of the time brands have the most success when using a combination of influencers from different tiers. This also maximizes your influencer marketing efforts and allows your brand to reap the benefits of both nano and micro influencers.