The Best Ways to Identify Micro-Influencers for Your Brand

Micro-influencers are niche online authorities with relatively small audiences, usually between 10K and 100K followers. Because of their smaller following, they tend to achieve higher engagement rates as they are able to dedicate more time to interacting with their audience. This makes them very effective at showcasing and promoting niche brands. Provided you understand the best way to find micro-influencers for the unique requirements of your brand, that is. You also need to design an outreach strategy that enables you to reach out to them in the right way.

Today’s article will focus on best practices for successfully identifying and engaging with micro-influencers. We will discuss the benefits of working with micro-influencers and share some valuable tips for developing profitable micro-influencer partnerships.

Benefits of Working with Micro-Influencers

Collaborating with micro-influencers on your influencer marketing campaigns can offer you a number of benefits. For one thing, because micro-influencer have smaller audiences, they can dedicate more time to nurturing relationships with their followers. Online users also tend to find micro-influencers much easier to relate to. As a result, their posts tend to generate higher levels of engagement. 

Secondly, because most micro-influencers target specific niche segments of the market, finding someone who fits in with your brand can give you a direct line of communication with your target customers. 

All this helps you generate authenticity, credibility, trust, and brand awareness. Plus, micro-influencers are much cheaper to work with!

Tips For Identifying and Reaching Out to Micro-Influencers

As we have just seen, there are a lot of benefits to working with micro-influencers. However, the success of your campaign will ultimately depend on whether you have identified and reached out to the right micro-influencers for your brand. 

Here are a few tips and best practices:

Identify Popular & Relevant Hashtags

The best way to find micro-influencers who are a good match for your brand is by conducting thorough research on each social media platform that you will be targeting with your campaigns. Hashtags are a great first step for this. They can help you cut through the noise and find micro-influencers working in your specific market niche. You can also use them to see which micro-influencers your competitors are working with and the types of campaigns that they are promoting.

Make sure the hashtags you search with are popular and relevant. Use specific keywords that align with your brand and keep an eye out for trending hashtags that you could use in your own campaigns. You can use hashtag search tools for additional inspiration.

Review Influencer Content 

Once you’ve created a shortlist of popular and relevant thought leaders, the best way to find micro-influencers suitable for your specific campaign objectives and requirements is by reviewing their profiles and timelines. Conduct a thorough audit of each micro-influencer’s content to see what types of campaigns they have promoted in the past.

Is the content they share relevant to your brand? Do they share your brand values? Which other brands have they worked with? Is the content visually appealing, positive, and uplifting? Do followers engage with their posts? Is their audience active and authentic or could they be purchasing fake followers to falsely inflate their audience size? 

This stage of the process can take a bit of time, but it is essential. The more a micro-influencer aligns with your brand and connects with their audience, the more profitable the collaboration will be. 

Reach Out in The Right Way 

Once you’ve identified a micro-influencer who you want to work with, the next stage of your outreach strategy is making contact. 

Here are a few best practices to help you reach out in the right way:

• Establish a relationship with a micro-influencer before you reach out to them. Follow them on social media and comment on a few of their posts. Do what you can to get on their radar so that they know who you are when you reach out. They will be far more likely to respond to your outreach message if they believe that you have a genuine interest in them. 
• When you do reach out, send a clear message explaining who you are, what your brand is all about, and how you think they can help you. Be specific with your goals and expectations and include a clear call to action in your message.  
• If you’re contacting multiple micro-influencers, make sure each message you send is personalized. 
• Once you agree on a partnership and start working with a micro-influencer, focus on developing a long-term mutually beneficial relationship. The longer you work with a micro-influencer, the better they will understand your brand. This is essential for ensuring consistency and authenticity. 

Use Influencer Outreach Software

Finally, the best way to find micro-influencers is by using influencer outreach software to streamline and automate your search. With the right solution, you can find relevant influencers, negotiate contracts, communicate influencer briefs, and monitor your campaigns end to end. 

For instance, Influencity’s comprehensive IM platform provides you with all the tools you need to manage each stage of your micro-influencer outreach process. You can use the platform’s Discovery tools to conduct thorough searches using a variety of filters so that you can find influencers working in your niche market.

What’s more, with our Influencer Relationship Management tool (IRM), you can enhance each stage of your micro-influencer relationships. This includes initial contacts, negotiations, campaign preparation and management, follow-up, and final feedback. All this helps you manage the micro-influencer outreach process much more efficiently so that you understand the best way to find micro-influencers each time you launch a brand campaign.