When it comes to the social media landscape and marketing endeavors, Micro-influencer is the new buzzword. Be it Instagram or even Facebook, marketers are currently recognizing the rise of micro-influencers who started off with smaller followings and have now grown beyond expectations.
While studies are actually confirming this popular trend, it is extremely important for businesses to manage these entities— in order to improve the existing hierarchies and amplify sales. A smart marketing approach realizes that attracting and engaging micro-influencers for the business can have a fantastic impact on the results.
In the subsequent sections, we would be looking at a few insider techniques for managing and even engaging the Micro-Influencers. That said, micro-influencer marketing is actually the recent entrepreneurial fad which has the power to grow exponentially. However, running a hugely successful micro-influencer campaign isn’t an easy task and requires a lot of basic plans to succeed. Moreover, for smaller businesses this approach might not be feasible as out of many campaigns only a few would be successful.
So, let’s get started with the strategies that can come in handy for the businesses:
- Don’t Treat Them as Employees
Businesses must stop treating micro-influencers as employees. It must be understood that influencers are associated with a business only for the brand popularity and availability of goodies or other lucrative options. However, they mostly aren’t on the direct payroll of an organization.
Micro-influencers contribute stuffs as a part of the cohesive business cycle that offers them exclusive and private access to information. Once businesses start putting up rules— Micro-influencers might stop enjoying and even stop contributing with a sense of motivation and encouragement.
The best approach, therefore, would be to introduce concepts like competitions, leaderboards and many more. Sudden perks and unique rewards are great motivators and work as positive reinforcements. Moreover, these influencers don’t like working on schedules and applying timings to them won’t be a wise move.
Unexpected shoutouts to active influencers and encouraging messages to newer additions are some of the ideas that work best with this new breed.
- Opting for an On-Boarding Process
It is important to create a lasting impression on the team of micro-influencers. While there can be many suggestions for the same, we would be going through four of the most basic on-boarding strategies. The first objective involves the impression which a business needs to create with a strong call to action. Moreover, there should be a brief which encourages micro-influencers to take part in the quest with utmost willingness.
Once these two objectives are defined, it is important to set across clear expectations without being too demanding about things. There are times when Micro-influencers work without remunerations and being too pushy with expectations might kill off the encouragement. Lastly, it is important to allow these influencers to make the first move.
It must be known that influencers are a part of your team and whoever does something early for the business is most likely to stay involved for the longest period of time.
- Building a Community
Micro-influencers thrive on engagement and motivation and therefore it is important to create a community that involves them— actively. Adding the listed influencers to the Facebook group or enlisting them inthe messaging app are some of the ideas that can keep them in close proximity to the concerned business.
Having micro-influencers added as part of any cohesive group helps initiate fun-filled activities with common agendas and associated perks. In most cases, the association is a part of any closed group over Facebook, WhatsAp, and related platforms.
Lastly, having an active community helps businesses with feedbacks. A company can easily gauge the pulse of the team by looking at the behavior of individuals. Building an interactive community can therefore help any business look at the broader picture.
- Offering Incentives
Everybody likes encouragement and nothing beats monetary incentives. However, getting paid for a passion actually kills the motivation associated with the same. Most micro-influencers are participating volunteers who need not be paid. That said, there are other ways to keep the blood flowing and surprising rewards are definitely the best ideas to work with.
Non-monetary perks include exposure and shoutouts which auger well with the volunteers. Moreover, offering crowd sourced content is certainly one of the better options to work with. Lastly, a lot of thought goes behind the selection of winners. Having an informal database can help a business track the active influencers who are actually doing something for the firm. Companies can either reward the ones with best results or the ones who are being dormant as a token of encouragement or both— depending upon the resources in hand.
- Allowing them to Share Content
Needless to say, Micro-influencers are more than willing to share content and that is why they have signed up with a business in the first place. However, there are some entrepreneurial rules which offer friction and this is where businesses must come to the rescue.
Be it displaying content at all times and offering push notifications for the business ambassadors over Twitter, Facebook and other platforms— businesses must pave the way for influencers to share company’s vision. In simpler terms, if the content is easily shareable, Micro-influencers will surely bring in higher levels of engagement.
Bottom-Line
Micro-influencers are assets to any business and must be handled with care. Be it keeping them interested and motivated with perks and inspirational messages or allowing them to work at will— there are many strategies which can help an influencer marketing succeed without the company having to break the bank.
Do hit us up with questions on micro-influencers and other influencer campaigns— if any.
