While some brands are trying to decide if influencer marketing is relevant for their long-term strategy, early adopters have moved to the next thing: partnering with nano-influencers. Is collaborating with nano-influencers a new trend in social media marketing or the latest fad?
In this article, we go through the advantages of such collaborations and how brands or marketing agencies can ensure results.
Who are nano-influencers?
Generally speaking, nano-influencers are social media content creators who have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers. Micro-influencers on the other hand have somewhere between 100,000 and 1 million followers.
How else can you identify nano-influencers? The appearance of their social media profiles might have some clues. Generally, the photos in their accounts don't look 'perfect' or professionally commissioned photoshoots. With minimal touch-up, their profile images look "genuine", making them relatable and closer to their audience.
5 benefits of working with nano-influencers
1. Nano-influencers' close relationship with their audience
Due to their smaller number of followers, nano-influencers manage to maintain a high-quality dialogue with their audience. They engage in tags, reply to private messages, and react to all comments. Each follower receives a meaningful and personal answer. Moreover, nano-influencers often ask questions that help them know their audience better.
Such interaction allows nano-influencers to establish close and trusting relationships. Communication becomes fun and intimate. As a result, the audience's level of trust increases.
2. Their higher level of engagement
Research shows that this figure is twice as high for nano-influencers when compared to other influencers. This is extremely important for reach. The higher the audience engagement rate, the more followers will see the post. Including sponsored content. It's a simple and effective way to lower your cost per impression.
3. Their higher level of trust
Intimate communication allows you to form and maintain a direct relationship with followers. Many consider nano-influencers to be almost friends. This provides several benefits:
- people tend to rely on recommendations from friends
- nano-influencers choose the products they advertising carefully, trying not to disappoint their audience
Therefore, if you get the endorsement of a nano-influencer for your products or services, there's a high chance that their audience will approve too.
4. Nano-influencers add relevance to your brand
One of the main advantages that nano-influencers have is their niche. They can talk about ethical cosmetics, sorting out clutter, choosing the right noise-canceling headphones, you name it, giving a personal and detailed account. They bring their unique take and passion about a specific topic.
5. You gain competitive advantage
Many companies continue to be suspicious of nano-influencers. Therefore, by collaborating with them, you will not be competing with many other brands. Your sponsored post will probably be the first.
The flip side of this is the little experience of influencers in advertising. Help them by providing information about your product. Create a brief. Also, many companies practice preparing a package of branded material that an influencer can use to create various content, including, stories, posts, videos. Such a package can take up a lot of space. Make it easy to download using your own or 3rd party solutions, but make sure you're protected from phishing attacks.
How to find nano-influencers?
Such influencers are not very well-known, which complicates finding them, but it's well worth the effort. Find nano-influencers in the following ways:
- Niche hashtags. Social networks allow you to search for them and adding a qualifying word. This function can be used. For example, by searching on Twitter for #nanoinfluencer beauty. On Instagram, you can see the most popular and recent posts. There are also hashtags that influencers themselves often use: #smallblogger, #bloggersunder1k, #nanoinfluencer, and the like.
- Similar profiles. Social channels provide recommendations for similar accounts. Try using this feature. Find an influencer that fits your brand according to certain characteristics, and click on the “Similar Profiles” tab.
- Listening. Many users use your products and have shared their opinions about them. Use social media analytics tools like quintly to find them. For example, our post tagging option allows you to tag public profiles and posts, and develop metrics and dashboards for in-depth analysis (of course for your own accounts too).
How to partner with nano-influencers
1. Send them your products or services
Nano-influencers value audience trust. Therefore, they do not advertise products and services they're unsure of. This makes for a great opportunity to start a long-term partnership. Find an influencer who fits your brand positioning and campaign goals, and invite them to try your product and give their unique opinion.
2. Make them your brand ambassadors
Partnering with nano-influencers allows you to attract new customers who are located to you by default. The solution can be implemented in the following ways:
- Add a link to your company website in the nano-influencer's profile.
- Help them create custom content that you can post on your brand's account.
- Co-create video content with the participation of the nano-influencer.
3. Offer coupons and discounts
Buyers want to save money. Data shows that 93% of people use a coupon or discount code at least once a year. By promoting your offer with a nano-influencer, you make the offer as exclusive as possible. Combined with a high level of trust, this can be an effective purchase incentive.
Another advantage of such a solution is the simplicity of tracking the results of cooperation. Come up with a unique promo code. Every time a person uses it to make a purchase, you will know where it came from. Accordingly, you will be able to assess your ROI.
4. Run giveaways
Everyone loves gifts, and users on social networks are no exception. Running competitions remains an effective way to interact with your audience. Also, giveaways increase user engagement. The latter works so well that Nano-influencers are using competitions as a way to start chatting with followers.
As s influencers do not have a large budget, sponsorship is an interesting option for collaboration. Brands are gaining awareness. Nano-influencers are gaining resources to grow their following.
5. Help them create custom content
Users consider such content to be 2,4 times more authentic than branded content. It's user-generated content where you have a say and it makes a huge difference to your audience. It serves as social proof of the quality of the product.
How to measure ROI when collaborating with Nano influencers?
Key metrics depend on the goal of your campaign. If sales are such, then the nano-influencer should be singled out as a separate source. The use of personal promo codes will help in this.
However, often the main goal is to increase brand awareness. This makes it harder to measure campaign performance. In this case, pay attention to social media reach and engagement. Take into account the impressions of their audience: likes, mentions, reposts, and comments. Pay also attention to moods. What does the audience think of the content?
If you're partnering with a nano-influencer as a brand ambassador, then it makes sense to take site visits into account.
Final thoughts
Nano-influencers are the underrated category of influencers. Brands tend to prioritize reach, therefore overlooking the great opportunity nano-influencers present. It is partnering with such small influencers that will bring high conversions with minimal investment in advertising. Our main advice is to find the right nano-influencer in your niche and establish an effective, long-term collaboration.
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