Micro vs. Macro; Maximising Your ROI

How to know who to use and when?

Influencer marketing has grown massively in recent years and isn’t going to slow down anytime soon, especially with traditional media now at an all time low. As a relatively new way of marketing, it is still evolving and brands are too. For traditional brands, who are crossing over to the social media marketing world for the first time, it is hard to know where to go and which creators to use.

So, what is the difference between a micro and macro creator?

What might seem most appealing to brands starting out in the influencer marketing world is creators with the biggest followings, who will reach the maximum number of people and help them to engage with a new audience. For a smaller brand the budget for macro creators may not be available. Instead, they could look at using micro creators. A micro creator is considered to be someone who has a following of approximately 10,000- 100,000 people, whereas a macro creator is someone with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. Now it seems micro creators are becoming the hot topic, and are having a bigger impact than some macro creators.

Why choose micro over macro?

Generally, as the number of followers a creator has increases, their engagement rate drops. A creator’s engagement is measured by the average number of interactions they get per post; the more likes and comments a post gets, the higher the engagement rate. Popular belief holds that bigger equals better. But sometimes that is not the case. Instead, more and more brands are choosing to work with micro creators, in order to tap into their highly engaged audiences.

Why are micros more engaged?

A micro creator’s following is likely to be made up of people who are genuinely interested in and inspired by the content they create. If they’re a fashion micro creator, their followers want to know where all their clothes are from; if they’re a fitness micro creator, followers want to know their exact workouts. This contrasts macro creator, who’s followers may be following them purely because they are famous.

Followers may also feel like they know a micro creator personally. Micros tend to post more regularly, giving followers constant updates of their lives. They also often respond to comments and reciprocate likes, creating a strong connection between them and their followers. As this connection grows followers become more likely to trust their opinions and advice.

Which creators are best for your business?

Whether using a macro or micro creator, you need to find someone who is a match for your brand. With so many creators available, finding them can be the hard part, but its always beneficial to find creators who already like your brand or have similar interests, in order to create the most authentic content possible. Check out a creators content and make sure you understand who their audience is. Using an Influencer marketing platform such as Influencer can save time and make the process easier. Having all the information collated into one place makes it easier to search for the exact type of creator you are looking for, and gives you a full insight into their analytics and engagement.

So what about macros?

Using macro creators, is still a great move for brands as they are well established and have a loyal fan base. Macros are excellent for raising brand awareness and reaching huge numbers of people. Some of the strongest influencer marketing campaigns are those that use a mixture of macros and micros, with the macros as the lead. For example:

Daniel Wellington X Kendall Jenner campaign

Daniel Wellington carried out a very strong and successful influencer marketing campaign using a mix of macro and micro creators. They announced Kendall Jenner, who has 86.5M followers, as the face of the campaign. Kendall created huge brand awareness and her followers saw the watch as something they wanted but probably couldn’t have. Daniel Wellington then also used a large mix of micro creators from all of the world to compliment Kendall’s post. The micro creators pushed the content out further and showed followers that they could, in fact, have the watch. Each creator also used the hashtag #DanielWellington and had an individual code their followers could use to give them a discount when purchasing products online. The individual codes also allowed Daniel Wellington to track how many sales came from each influencer in the campaign, giving them an indication of which creators worked well for their brand.