Do you know what type of social media influencer you should be engaging with? With the market breaching billions of dollars in the past few years, this is one area of marketing which you cannot afford to neglect if you want your brand to be out there and talked about.
Are there many types of influencers?
Like every form of marketing, there is no single way involved. In social media influencers, there are in general 4 min types which are mega-influencers, macro-influencers, micro-influencers and nano-influencers.
While they are all involved in similar activities, you should know what each of them entails in order to determine who would be the right fit for your brand or products. Here then is the drill down.
Mega Influencer – Reaching millions of people
With mega influencers, you are dealing with individuals who are usually more famous than influential. Since they have more than a million followers, you are bound to get a lot of views for your brand. In most cases, mega influencers are celebrities like Zizan Razak and Neelofa, who are already successful celebrities in their own fields. However, this means that as much as they try to get close to their followers, they tend to be distant due to social status limitations.
Verdict: Mega influencers guarantee you with vast reach but it would mean high cost as well. That would also mean lower conversion rates as they could reach a mass market with very minimum demographic options.
Macro-influencers – Popular internet figures
In terms of follower count, they usually have less than a million but more than 100,000 followers. In most cases, they became popular through the internet. Macro influencers are extremely well-versed with how social media works as they have been producing content such as videos or through their vlogs.
Verdict: Macro-influencers are perfect for brands that want to reach the mass but with a certain demographic group. This would be a great platform if you want to reach say working females as a whole.
Micro-influencers – Mostly opinion leaders
For brands that are looking to target those who are in a niche or specific area, micro-influencers would be a great channel to explore. They typically have about 100,000 followers and is often seen as the expert in that particular area. Here, it can be safely assumed that micro-influencers are opinion leaders. Micro-influencers are not celebrities in real life but they do have some form of godly status among its followers. If the micro-influencer is a custom-sneakers designer, the followers are constantly anticipatingwhat will be coming out next.
Verdict: Brands can exploit this platform when they are looking to reach a very specific group of audience. Micro-influencers also tend to be personal and close to their followers which could give them a lot of leverage and advantage over mega or macro-influencers.
Nano influencers – Community leaders and figures
This refers to the smallest and a newer type of influencer. They would have 1,000 or less followers and is usually influential in their own community. This refers to those with a common interest where the influencer can be a temple priest, a teacher or a politician of a constituency.
The main idea here is that nano influencers can connect directly to its group they are connected with because they are a known person among them, often regarded in high respect within the community.
Verdict: Brands can expect to enjoy the highest level of engagement through nano influencers where they get more authentic and quality leads. This is because nano influencers have real-life relationships with their followers. The drawback obviously would be that you won’t get a wide reach like the other types of influencers.
