Once upon a time, an influencer’s ability to ‘influence’ was judged on their follower count alone.
From celebrities to actors and athletes with huge audiences, the ability to partner with a megastar to reach a wide audience was considered a marketing masterstroke.
But times have changed.
Today's influencers can move the needle on purchasing behaviour with as few as 1,000 followers. They’re known as nano-influencers. And they’re a big deal.
Nano-influencers aren’t Hollywood stars, headline-grabbing athletes or former Married At First Sight contestants. Instead, these small but agile influencers are your neighbours, your co-workers, and even your friends. Most importantly, they’ve got highly engaged audiences who look up to them and take their recommendations seriously.
If you’re looking for an affordable marketing strategy with strong targeting and ROI potential, here are 5 reasons you should already be working with nano-influencers.
Hold on, what *is* a nano-influencer? Nano-influencers, or ‘Nanos’, are social media users with 1,000 to 10,000 followers.
These influencers aren’t chartering private jets or living life in huge mansions. They’re the guys and gals next door who live life just like you. With small but highly loyal followings, nano-influencers don’t always have the most polished or glamorous content, making them powerful collaboration partners.
In an increasingly cynical marketing industry, consumers seek brands they trust. Seeing through traditional advertising strategies, it’s no surprise people are turning to their favourite social media users for product and brand tips. Influencers earn the trust of their audience. And when they talk about a brand, their followers listen.
That’s why 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertiser or traditional celebrity endorsement.
Put simply, nano-influencers have built relationships, credibility and trust with their followers. When a nano-influencer is passionate about a brand, they share their authentic experiences, recommendations and endorsements - and their followers notice.
5 reasons you should work with nano-influencers Brands often approach influencer marketing with a “bigger is better” mentality.
The numbers tell a different story.
Studies show nano-influencers have the highest engagement rates of all influencer tiers at 8.7% compared to just 1.6% for celebrity influencers (sorry Kardashians!). In delivering the highest average engagement rates, affordable nano-influencer partnerships offer a cost-effective collaboration to help increase the value of your marketing dollar and drive ROI.
It’s true that you may not unlock the same name recognition as larger influencers or celebs, but here are 5 undeniable reasons you should include nano-influencers in your next campaign.
#1 - Nano-influencers have built genuine, authentic connections with their audience Alright, imagine you’re thinking about buying a new pair of shoes…
Are you likely to take a recommendation from a friend? Or, do you place more value in what a random stranger says online?
If you’re like most people, you value the opinion of your friends and family over everyone else. And that’s what makes nano-influencers so effective.
Nano-influencers feel like friends. Their small size allows them to reply to comments, engage with their followers, and build genuine connections. This connection is intimate and real, unlike the one-sided relationship of ‘liking’ a celebrity’s latest IG post or TikTok video. Due to their size, nano-influencers have a strong connection with their followers that helps sway purchasing decisions.
Let’s go back to the example above…
If you’re looking to buy a pair of shoes and your favourite nano-influencer just bought a pair and posted an awesome unboxing video, followed by a review of how damn comfy they are, chances are you’ll want to grab a pair for yourself.
TAKEAWAY: Nano-influencers have typically built authentic connections with their followers. This can bring followers further into the sales funnel than celebrity influencer counterparts who can create awareness but can’t get people truly interested in your products and services.
#2 - Nano-influencers address small but highly targeted and niche communities It’s common for nano-influencers to have a specific niche which makes them highly in tune with their audience. This could be parenting, fitness, food, travel… you get the idea.
Compared to macro-influencers who have followers with diverse interests, nano-influencers tend to have small but highly targeted audiences. And if your niche aligns with a nano-influencer’s niche, you can tap into a highly engaged demographic that suits your brand.
Supply, meet demand.
Partnering with a nano-influencer means you can connect with like-minded social media users instead of a huge but diverse audience that isn’t interested in your products or services. Typically, influencers with a larger audience will have a casual follower base on top of their fan base. These users might not buy into their influencers the same way a small but like-minded group does with nano-influencers.
If you’re looking for a hyper-targeted audience, chances are there’s a nano-influencer that built its audience around it. When you partner with the right nano-influencer, you have a niche thought leader with a built-in audience keen to learn about your brand.
TAKEAWAY: As more traditional media becomes fragmented, nano-influencers can help you cut directly through to a specific demographic. Whether you want to connect with fitness fanatics, foodies, parents or another niche, you can.
#3 - Nano-influencers deliver the highest engagement rates of ANY influencer type Studies show the engagement rate of nano-influencers is TWICE as high as other influencer types.
*Boom* 🤯
For reference, the average engagement rates by influencer tier are as follows:
Nano influencers: 5.6% engagement rate
Micro-influencers: 2.43% engagement rate
Mid-tier influencers: 2.15% engagement rate
Macro influencers: 2.05% engagement rate
Mega influencers: 1.9% engagement rate
Put simply, engagement rate impacts reach. Higher reach means a lower cost-per-impression. And lower cost-per-impression means a more cost-effective campaign.
This all comes down to size where a smaller audience is a feature, not a bug. The larger an influencer’s audience, the tougher it is to respond to every comment and DM. In contrast, nano-influencers can maintain connections with their audience, which helps people see their favourite nano-influencers as personal connections and even friends - not unobtainable lifestyles.
TAKEAWAY: With more likes, comments, replies and shares, a nano-influencer is your ticket to a hyper niche community keen to talk about new products and services - including yours! The more engagement created the more opportunities to show off your brand and attract new customers.
#4 - Nano-influencers offer a highly competitive edge no matter what niche you’re in Let’s be honest, you’re probably on the fence about working with a smaller influencer. We get it; although the low entry cost and proven engagement rates are attractive, the truth is, you haven’t seen many of your competition collab with nano-influencers, have you?
And that’s exactly why you need to be the first.
Plenty of brands underestimate the power of Nanos but forget that they occupy a mostly uncontested space. Partnering with a nano-influencer is a chance for you to develop relationships with a host of brand ambassadors in a newly tapped market.
Think of it this way…
A fitness influencer with 100k followers is highly attractive to brands in the health, wellness and fitness industries. Odds are that influencer has shared sponsored content before. Maybe even a lot.
By partnering with a fitness influencer with just 10,000 followers, you may be the first brand to work with them. With less sponsored content in their feed, any collaboration with you is more authentic and more likely to resonate with their followers.
TAKEAWAY: As small-scale content creators continue to develop relationships with their audience, opportunities for collaborations will grow. While larger influencers may post #sponsored content more often, you can get in on the ground floor and build long-term relationships with influencers and their audiences.
#5 - Nano-influencers are more cost-effective and scalable, so you save money Kylie Jenner has 364 million Instagram followers.
Naturally, putting your product on her feed will expose you to a huuuuuuge audience. It will also cost you an estimated $986,000 (USD) per post.
Ouch.
In contrast, nano-influencers typically don’t consider themselves as full-time influencers. Instead, they partner with brands that they genuinely love, which helps deliver a more authentic partnership AND keeps your marketing costs down.
If you’re dealing with a limited budget (or no budget), you can work with a nano-influencer and scale your presence on a limited budget.
Many Nanos are willing to accept a value exchange (for example, product samples) instead of cash. These small but powerful figures typically don’t have an inbox overflowing with collab requests and are often happy to form partnerships in exchange for gifts. This means you can work with a wider range of nano-influencers without putting excess pressure on your budget (or having your accounts department chase you down with pitchforks).
According to recent figures , only 44% of small influencers prefer monetary compensation. So if you want to work with nano-influencers through gifted collaborations, you can (scroll down to find out how). 👇👇👇
TAKEAWAY: Partnering with nano-influencers is typically more cost-effective than other influencer tiers. This minimal investment means you can increase the content volume and scale your campaign on your terms without pumping more and more money into your campaign.
Ready to tap into the future of influencer marketing? Influencer collaborations are one of the hottest trends in marketing, driving engagement, creating interest and boosting ROI for brands of all sizes.
While choosing an influencer with the largest audience may seem like the shortcut to success, partnering with nano-influencers offers advantages that no brand should ignore.
These advantages include:
🔥 Genuine (and impossible to fake) connections with their audience
🔥 Small but highly targeted online communities
🔥 The HIGHEST engagement rate of any influencer tier
🔥 A competitive edge no matter what niche you operate in
🔥 A cost-effective and scalable way to drive ROI
Remember, audiences are quick to skip ads, but they’ll listen to a recommendation from someone they trust. The right nano-influencer can help you stand out from the crowd and generate new business. And with #gifted, you can partner with leading influencers through the power of influencer gifting at the click of a button.
So, are you ready to start gifting and win big in the influencer marketing space?
