Influencer business is not new. The terminology may be, but the concept has been into existence for a long time now. People who had a certain amount of following had the power to influence people and their buying decisions were influencers back then. Infact, celebrity marketing is actually a form of influencer marketing. Dhoni advertising TVS, Amitabh advertising JustDial, Aishwarya promoting L’Oréal are all examples of influencer marketing. 

But these celebrities formed an aspirational association brand while consumers demanded social proof. They wanted to hear and read the experiences of people who used these products and could give genuine feedback. To add to that, social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok gave people the chance to go viral and showcase their skills in a national and international space. People who were only customers to these brands now had the power to drive the sales, perception and promotions for them. 

As influencer marketing only gets popular by the day with almost every big and small brand making it a part of their marketing plan, knowing what type of influencer will work for your brand is the key to having a successful influencer marketing strategy. 

Influencers have a mass following and associating with them directs their audience towards your brand. But with this mass following comes a huge spillover. Not all influencers are niche-specific. Some are content creators who may have followers from varied fields of interests and to solve this problem, emerged a new category of influencers- Micro Influencers. 

Micro influencers do not have millions of followers and aren't regular content creators. You can consider them like experts who talk about, recommend, suggest, influence a certain specific niche. They have a smaller community of followers, maybe in thousands, but this community is strong knit, loyal and simply trusts the influencer’s recommendations and reviews. 

Today, brands are seeking deals with micro influencers for various benefits that they have to offer. Let’s have a look at those- 

1. Loyal Brand Advocates- The authenticity of their content pulls the customer’s attention  and makes it easier for them to gain traction for the brand. Also, since they specialise in the specific niche, forming a brand-influencer relationship and educating them about the product/service takes relatively less time leading to quick campaign materialisation. 
2. “One of us” - Macro-influencers are perceived more like celebrities due to their massive following. However, micro influencers are considered to be more approachable, trustworthy and just like a friend. That is why, people are 82% more likely to follow a micro influencers recommendation. 
3. Cost- effective & highly engaging influencers- Micro influencers cost less due to their low following numbers but have a more targeted audience. They don’t try to address the world, rather their niche which results in skyrocketing engagement rates that can often be a game changer for brands which also leads to higher conversion rates. 
4. Vast pool to choose from- Only 0.32-0.35% of influencers fall in the bracket of 100k to 1M+ followers. Brands are thus limited in their choice of influencers. But more than 30% of the instagram influencers have 1k+ followers that gives a vast pool of variety and number of influencers to choose from. 

Influencer marketing in a real sense is actually word of mouth but on the digital platform. Deriving greater benefits with lower cost leads to higher ROI and therefore, micro influencers should be your next go-to influencer strategy.