Influencer marketing guide—how to work with micro and nano influencers

Influencer marketing has become an essential tool in today’s digital marketing toolbox. While the term brings up images of influencers with millions of followers, micro- and nano-influencers offer advantages. They’re the ones with follower counts of under 100,000. Keep reading to learn why influencers with small audiences are trending and how to work with micro-influencers and nano-influencers.

First, let’s get on the same page. What do we mean by “micro” and “nano” influencers?

They are social media personalities with follower counts that are way below 1 million. Nevertheless, they’re known for their expertise in their niche. Although small, their following is engaged and loyal. They follow the personality because of their engaging content and authenticity.

Micro-influencers are defined as social media personalities whose follower count is from 10,000 to 100,000 followers. Their reach is starting to grow, but their audience is still small enough for them to continue engaging them on a more personal level.

What is a nano-influencer? Nano-influencer follower counts are even smaller: between 1,000 to 10,000. With an audience this small, a nano-influencer can respond personally. Followers can feel seen and not lost in a sea of audience faces. Nano-influencers may have small audiences, but their recommendations and endorsements can have a big impact.

Increased engagement is one of the benefits of working with micro- and nano-influencers, and even bringing them in as an employee influencers. Their audiences are more invested and more likely to respond with likes, comments, and shares. And they’re more likely to follow through on the call to action.

For example, Envato Tuts+ partnered with YouTube micro-influencer Dena Nguyen to produce this video on redesigning an energy drink logo, which got plenty of positive comments and likes:

Another benefit of working with smaller influencers is their perceived authenticity. Without a team behind them, these influencers usually are one-person content creation teams who produce content off the cuff. They produce highly relevant and personal content. Their followers feel a connection with them through shared interests and commonalities. They’re perceived as trustworthy, genuine, and relatable. Their endorsements come across as more convincing.

This personal connection is what makes nano- and micro-influencers more credible. Their followers trust their content and recommendations. In fact, their followers may feel that they have a personal relationship with the influencer. Hence, they’re more dedicated and loyal.

Finally, another benefit of working with smaller influencers is the cost-effectiveness. With smaller audiences, nano- and micro-influencers have budget-friendlier fees than large influencers. They charge less for their services, making them more affordable to smaller businesses and nonprofits.

There’s also no telling when a small influencer will become big. Today’s nano-influencer could be tomorrow’s mega-influencer. So investing in relationships with them now will pay dividends down the road, when their audiences have grown. Also, while larger influencers provide a wide reach, nano- and micro-influencers allow brands to go deep into a specific niche.

Are you ready to work with a micro- or nano-influencer? Keep reading. 

The first step is to find the right influencers for your brand. Having a clear and focused target audience for your influencer marketing campaign is key. This defined target audience will serve as your compass to help you find influencers whose following matches your ideal audience.

Naturally, the first places to look are the various social media platforms: TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Search the keywords relevant to your product or campaign, and see which influencers come up. You can also search for hashtags relevant to your niche or campaign. Here’s an example of searching Instagram for graphic designers—people whose posts show up here may be good matches for you if that’s your niche.

Since you’re looking for smaller influencers, remember that their content may not come up on the first page of the search results. Dig into the search results to find content by influencers with smaller but more engaged audiences. 

You may also want to use influencer marketing platforms. These applications make it easier for brands to discover and connect with influencers. They also offer features like campaign tracking and analytics. Examples of influencer marketing platforms include AspireIQ, Brandwatch, Tagger, and Upfluence.

When you have a list of potential micro- and nano-influencers, you’ll want to evaluate them based on specific criteria. Go beyond follower counts to get a true sense of the influencer’s values and relationship with their followers. Read the comments to see how people are responding to them and how the influencer, in turn, interacts with their followers.

Here are a few criteria to consider:

Based on your assessment of the above criteria, make a shortlist of nano and micro-influencers you’d like to work with. You can now move on to the next step.

Never assume nano- and micro-influencers are falling all over themselves to work with brands. They may not be celebrity-level yet, but they still deserve to be treated with the same respect. Remember, you’re working to build long-term relationships. This means doing the work to present your best foot forward when approaching influencers.

Here are some tips that will increase your chances of getting a positive response:

1. Personalize your outreach. Tailor your outreach email or message to show you’ve done your research. Address them by name and make a specific comment about their content. (As a content creator myself, I can tell you it’s a big turn-off when a brand obviously has not looked through my content, or worse, gets my handle wrong.)

2. Highlight mutual benefits. Be explicit about how the collaboration will benefit both your brand and the influencer.

3. Be clear and concise. There’s no need for long-winded messages! Be straightforward and concise about your goals and expectations.

Nano- and micro-influencer collaborations are most rewarding when they turn into long-term relationships. Here are ways to get that relationship off to a good start:

1. Engage with their content. Even before reaching out, consume and engage with their content: like, comment, and share their posts. 

2. Be genuinely interested. Show that you appreciate their content and creativity.

1. Understand their value. Acknowledge the effort, creativity, and influence they bring to the relationship.

2. Offer fair compensation. Don’t nickel-and-dime; offer compensation that’s fair and reflects the influencer’s value. Influencer marketing platforms are helpful in determining what’s fair and standard in specific niches.

3. Set clear expectations and deliverables. Clearly spell out the partnership’s scope, deliverables, and timelines.

Finding the right influencer to work with is just part of the work. There’s plenty to do in the back end of things to set up your influencer campaign for success. These include:

Set clear goals and objectives. Have goals for the campaign that are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Set targets for reach, engagement, and conversion so that you know what success looks like.

Establish milestones and deadlines. Speaking of being time-bound, create a timeline with key milestones. These will help you keep the project on track.

Balance creative freedom with brand guidelines. This can be tricky, but it can be done. You want the influencer’s content to align with your brand. At the same time, you want to give them enough creative freedom to maintain their voice. This is the voice that’s appealed to their followers, after all.

Communicate and give feedback. Keep lines of communication open. Set up a process for reviewing content drafts and giving feedback. Make sure someone on your team is available to give timely support and input.

Track performance. Monitor engagement, reach, and conversion metrics to see how the campaign does compared to your targets.

Evaluate the campaign. At the end of the influencer campaign, evaluate its effectiveness and impact. Did you reach your targets? Did you achieve your goals and objectives? Were there unexpected benefits? What went well? What could have been better? Get the influencer’s perspectives as well.

Learn from the experience. Based on the campaign metrics and evaluation, draw out key lessons that will help you refine and improve future influencer campaigns. 

If you follow the above steps, then you’ll be getting increasingly better at rolling out influencer marketing campaigns.

Here’s an example of a post from the Envato Instagram channel featuring micro-influencer Dana Itani. It’s a great way of providing useful content, building a relationship, and showing Envato’s products in use.

You may be wondering, “Is influencer marketing worth it?” Or “Can I afford to partner with an influencer?”

The answer is yes! There are many ways to work with influencers, and you’re bound to find one within your budget if you look for smaller influencers. This could be why the demand for nano- and micro-influencers is on the rise, while fewer brands are choosing to work with macro-influencers and mega/celebrity influencers.

Nevertheless, you do have to have a budget for it. Keep reading to get a better idea of how much an influencer marketing campaign could cost you.

Several factors affect how much it costs to partner with an influencer. These include:

The typical cost depends on the social media platform. Based on Shopify’s survey of influencers, these are the influencer pricing ranges per platform:

The generally accepted rate is $100 per 10,000 followers. Instagram Reels typically start at $100. On the other hand, Stories can start at $50.

YouTube videos have a much longer shelf life than other platforms. This could be why the average influencer pricing is higher on YouTube:

Working with an influencer is always a gamble. After all, past performance of their content does not guarantee the future performance of the content they create for you.

But here’s a formula you may wish to use to determine whether the risk you’re taking is an educated one. It was developed by David Gaylord, entrepreneur and former chief-of-staff at Shopify:

For example, a micro-influencer quotes you $1,000 for a YouTube video. You look at their average number of views, likes, and comments on their 5 most recent videos and it’s 100,000. Their CPM is 100.

You can use this formula to benchmark and compare your shortlist of influencers and determine which one could potentially deliver the best return on investment (ROI).

Per-content fees aren’t the only way to remunerate influencers. If you want to reward influencers for conversions and actual results, consider giving them a commission on sales. This is referred to as affiliate marketing. You provide a special affiliate link or code the influencer can share with their audience. This allows you to track the actual sales they’ve driven. Generally, influencers welcome commissions in addition to the content fee.

You can also reward influencers with non-monetary items. Swags, products, trips, and insider-only access are only some ideas to consider. You may decide to give any of these to influencers who’ve delivered beyond your expectations.

If you’re looking to do influencer marketing but don’t have the budget to match macro- or mega and celebrity influencers, then consider nano- and micro-influencers. Their audiences may be small, but their interaction and credibility are huge. They can connect deeply with their audiences, making them invaluable for brands who want genuine engagement and meaningful results.

With careful searching, vetting, and consideration, you can find micro- and nano-influencers who are a great fit for your brand and campaign.

Want to follow up on your success and create professional-looking social media posts of your own? Check out the professional social media templates from Envato to create great-looking posts in half the time. With thousands of templates, plus beautiful graphics, fonts, photos, and more, it’s your one-stop creative solution.

While you’re here, read up on 5 creative ways to use influencers in your advertising and 9 key influencer marketing trends for 2024.