Have you ever heard of the term micro-influencers? It’s those people trying to be insta-famous but aren’t quite living in beverly hills as a result of there Instagram following just yet.
However, this does not mean by any stretch that they aren’t valuable. In fact, these micro-influencers may be even more valuable to a business, given the fact that you don’t have the same price tag (if any at all) with this level influencer, to still reach your audience (granted, a smaller portion of it).
Highly targeted micro-influencers can help your small business gain visibility, engage an audience, and promote your products.
#1: Search Amongst Your Fans for Micro-influencers
If you already have a small fortune of a following on social media, chances are you’ll find a couple of micro-influencers. They are already amongst your fans and hence probably interested in your brand. Promoting your business through micro-influencers who are also fans can be much more effective because they are already fans, so probably already interested in working with you.
Instagram is probably going to be the best place to start looking for your influencers. Go through your list of followers, and check for people with between 1,000 and 50,000 followers.
To engage with micro-influencers, you should offer them something which is inline with the experience they will have with your business. Free meals, discounts, sample products or an invite with free entry into your locale. In return, he would post images of his experience at their establishment.
#2: Leverage Hashtags to Find Micro-Influencers
The first point is the easiest because you have a relationship to a degree with these individuals.
Hashtag research can help you identify influential users who are already interested in products or services similar to what you offer.
However, many micro-influencers probably have never heard of your business. This doesn’t mean they won’t be interested in your products or services, but just that they haven’t heard yet.
In order to find the most relevant influencers, ensure your hashtags choices are very specific to your brand. For example #dinerfood instead of #food.
When your search on Instagram, you’ll get a list of top photos using the hashtag #dinerfood. The top posts are usually the ones with the most likes, so it’s a good idea to choose start here. Once you choose the images, you’ll be able to identify who posted the image. By going through the list, you should be able find some key people who would be great to help promote your brand to their community.
#3: Find Micro-Influencers with Social Media Tools
There are some fantastic tools available in the market to help you identify micro-influencers on various social media platforms.
BuzzSumo and Ninja Outreach are just a few that will allow you to find valuable individuals in your community. With these tools, you can search on platforms for individuals by keyword and check out their stats. Remember, you are looking for micro-influencers, not people who have 100,000+ followings or look like they are taking themselves too seriously. Another important metric which you may see available in these tools is page authority, which is a good indicator of expertise on a particular subject.
#4: Use Google Location Based Searches to Source Local Bloggers
Depending on the product you are selling, you may find that local bloggers are your best bet to reach your audience. Local bloggers often engage readers from a specific area. Whilst there readership may be smaller, they have often stronger followings.
The Google search is as simple as “[insert brand theme] + bloggers + [insert city]”.
By searching through the various listings on Google, you should be able to find relevant bloggers, and obviously their details too.
All you need to do from here is reach out to the ones who you think are the right fit!
Conclusion
Hopefully these 4 ways to find micro-influencers in your businesses field have been helpful. Top influencers can charge $5,000+ per post on each social media channel! For many businesses this is just not a viable option. Micro-influencers are like having your cake and eating it too.