Wondering how to become a micro influencer?
I don’t blame you!
The market for micro influencers has never been bigger, and believe it or not, brands are queueing up to work with micro influencers!
In days gone by, it was all about the mega influencer.
You know, the hot girls with over 100,000 followers who use their platforms to promote fit teas and Fashion Nova?
However, as you’re probably all too aware, it is so difficult to grow on platforms like Instagram these days, and even if you’re doing everything right, you still may struggle with organic growth on Instagram.
Luckily, you don’t need a million followers to reap the benefits of being an influencer anymore.
Many brands have noticed the huge potential in micro influencers, and it’s not as difficult as you think to snag brand deals and sponsored posts with a smaller following.
In this post, we will dive into how you can become a successful micro influencer in just 5 easy steps.
From understanding how to become a micro influencer to determining your motivation for starting your journey and narrowing your niche, you’re going to learn how you can kickstart your career as a micro influencer today!
How to Become A Micro Influencer in 5 Easy Steps
The Definition of Micro Influencer
What is a micro influencer?
What is considered a micro influencer?
Well, the term ‘micro influencer’ refers to an influencer who has a smaller, yet dedicated audience, usually within a very specific niche.
Like the name implies, you don’t have to have a huge following to be considered a micro influencer, and you can actually begin working with brands with as little as 1000 followers.
Technically, anything under 10k is considered a nano influencer, but to most smaller brands, a ‘micro influencer’ is anybody with a following above 1000 who creates intentional content and has an engaged following.
Why do brands want to work with micro influencers?
These days, brands are looking for an engaged audience who trusts you and will be interested in the things you recommend rather than big numbers.
It is estimated that 60% of higher engagement rates in campaigns are driven by micro influencers due to their niche focus and closer relationship with their followers.
The trust factor just isn’t there with mega influencers, whereas smaller influencers often have a deeper connection with their audience and as a result, their audience look to them for recommendations.
It is also heaps more cost effective for brands to work with micro influencers, as many micro influencers are happy to create content in exchange for gifted products rather than asking for a monetary payment.
If they do require payment, it won’t stretch into the thousands of dollars that top influencers often charge.
What do you need to be a micro influencer?
In order to become a micro influencer, you will need 4 important qualities: creativity, motivation, drive, and consistency.
Let’s take a closer look at each one.
- Creativity – The best micro influencers provide quality content with unique perspectives. Creativity is important for anyone looking to be an influencer because it sets your content apart and helps you stand out from the crowd. Without creativity your posts will lack fresh ideas and may not entice potential customers. Ana from Faded Spring is a great example of this.
- Motivation – Having a strong desire for what you’re doing is key in becoming a micro influencer (or a successful one at least). You’ll need motivation to keep going when things get tough or when you don’t see the results you were expecting from your content creation efforts right away.
- Drive – In order to create high-quality posts for your audience every week or every day, you must have drive. While motivation is the willingness to do something, drive is the act of putting a plan in motion – in other words, and, getting sh*t done.
- Consistency – You can’t just show up when you feel like it and expect results if you’re trying to become a micro influencer. Set up a content schedule that you can stick to, and don’t deviate. This may be every day at 6pm, or it may be once per week. Whatever you decide, make sure you provide your followers with consistency. My BFF (Rebecca Ore Coaching) showed up on Instagram every day for 2 years and as a result, she has amassed a following of over 80,000 people at the time of writing.
How to Become a Micro Influencer in 5 Easy Steps
1. Define your niche
It isn’t enough to just be a ‘lifestyle’ or ‘food’ influencer.
These days, having a narrowed-down niche is everything, and brands are way more likely to work with you if you cater to their specific niche.
For example, rather than having a general ‘food’ account, your niche could be raw vegan food, crock pot cooking or everything chocolate.
If you are interested in becoming a fitness influencer, focus on a specific element of that, such as yoga, or HIIT.
If you’re unsure of how to define your niche, think about your core values.
If you like to travel, are you passionate about solo female travel, or off-the-beaten-path destinations?
If you’re into fashion, are you passionate about body positivity and mid-size fashion or are you more interested in campaigning against fast fashion and promoting small business?
If you’re into beauty, is it important to you that the products you use are cruelty-free and ethically produced?
By having a specific niche, you will attract a community of super engaged followers that are more likely to buy the things that you promote.
This is not only good for brands, but it can also be good for you if you decide to get into affiliate marketing later down the line.
2. Know your audience
Before you can become a micro influencer, you need to know who your audience is.
You’ll need to identify the platforms your audience spends time on and what kind of content they like. Once you know this information, you’ll be able to tailor your social media posts to reach out specifically to them.
For example, if you’re trying to become a micro influencer for fashion-related topics, then you would want to focus on Instagram and TikTok because those are the two most popular social media channels that are used for fashion-related content.
It’s also wise to think about the age of your perfect audience.
While TikTok is the home of younger people, Facebook is still super popular with the older generations, and Twitter is a great place to find young business professionals.
With that being said, in his book Crushing It! Gary Vaynerchuk stresses the importance of having a presence on every platform there is, even if you dedicate most of your time to 1 or 2.
Sidenote: if you’re trying to become a micro influencer, you might find my list of The Best Books for Influencers interesting.
3. Engage with other influencers
Micro influencers often start out by engaging with other influencers.
This is an invaluable practice, and one you should absolutely be doing to grow your account.
Influencers will often help each other out by sharing and engaging with each other’s content, so this is a great way to boost your engagement, as well as making a few new friends in the process!
For example, let’s say you start engaging with people who have 10-50 thousand followers on social media. If you engage with them, they’ll be more likely to check out your account and follow you back or like your content.
Once you’ve found a micro influencer in your niche to engage with, look at the people commenting on their posts to find other influencers that you can connect with.
To get started, search for micro influencers on social media that fit into your niche. From there, leave comments on their posts to help them with their own engagement.
If you’re using Instagram, replying to stories is a great way to connect with people and get yourself noticed.
You should also engage with all of your followers.
Reply to every single comment, and return the love by commenting on the posts of people who you see supporting you.
Building a community rather than just putting yourself up on a pedestal is the best way to create a personal brand on social media (another one of Gary Vee’s recommendations).
4. Determine your motivation for becoming a micro influencer
It’s important to identify your motivation for wanting to become a micro influencer before you start taking steps towards becoming one.
Do you want to work with brands and receive free products in exchange for posts?
Do you want to grow an email list where you can eventually promote your own products?
Do you want to get into affiliate marketing?
Do you want to direct people to your own personal website where they can buy your products or services?
Whatever your motivation is, it is important to get clear about it before you begin the process of growing your social media channels.
5. Share your voice on social media
If you want to become a micro influencer, you’ll need to start by sharing your voice on social media.
Social media is the primary platform for connecting with potential followers and people who share your interests, and having an authentic voice and letting your personality shine through is of the utmost importance when it comes to standing out from the crowd.
Posting consistently is important if you’re trying to build your following, but don’t force yourself to post every day just for the sake of posting.
Quality is always better than quantity when it comes to social media, and you need to make sure that every single post you make must be AUTHENTIC, RELEVANT, and VALUABLE.
No matter what the topic is, make sure each post is high-quality content that’s valuable for your audience!
Utilise every part of the platform. Not only does the algorithm like to see you making use of all the platform’s features, but by ignoring certain elements, you’re leaving money on the table.
For example, posting a beautiful picture on Instagram is great, but if all you’re putting in the caption is an emoji or generic inspirational quote, you’re not maximising your opportunity to engage with your audience.
Write a couple of paragraphs providing VALUE, and finish with a clear call to action like a question.
If you’re on Twitter, make use of Twitter chats, spaces and threads rather than just posting simple Tweets.
For TikTok, make sure that you go live so that you can have conversations with your followers.
How to Become a Micro Influencer – A Quick Recap
In this post, we covered how to become a micro influencer and what it takes to succeed.
First, you need to have a clear understanding of what qualifies as a micro influencer. You can’t just call yourself one because you have a few thousand followers on social media. There are specific criteria that qualify someone as a micro influencer, but they include:
- Having anywhere from 1,000-50,000 followers
- Nailing down a niche and making yourself an expert on that topic
- Engaging with others through comments and/or shares
- Producing consistently high-quality content that has been well thought out and researched
How to Find and Work with Brands
As soon as you create an Instagram account and start posting, your inbox will be full of people claiming to represent brands who want to work with you.
Stay clear of these people.
99% of the time, these accounts are scammers who will promise you ‘free’ products but then charge you $30 shipping, or tell you to buy the products and promise that they will issue a refund when you’ve made a post (spoiler alert: they never issue the refund).
The best way to find brands to work with as a micro influencer is by signing up to influencer marketing platforms, and joining Facebook groups.
These apps and websites exist to connect brands with influencers, and you can use filters to find partnerships that work for you.
Some popular influencer marketing networks include:
- Influence.co – sync your social media accounts with Influence.co and it will show you all of the campaigns that you can apply to. This site has a mix of gifted products, paid opportunities and affiliate opportunities.
- The Social Cat – a place where small businesses post what they’re all about and you can apply to collaborate with them. This is my current favourite platform for my travel account.
- Inzpire.me – connects large brands with influencers for paid campaigns.
- Izea – campaigns for all social channels with a large focus on TikTok and YouTube.
- Activate – sleek website where you can negotiate paid deals with brands.
A couple of Facebook groups that I personally have used are:
How to Become a Micro Influencer | Final Thoughts
Becoming a micro influencer isn’t an overnight thing. You have to grow and nurture a community whilst maintaining a consistent brand and posting schedule.
Not only that, but it is sometimes difficult to find paid campaigns as the market for micro influencers is very saturated. With that said, the more specific your niche, the less competition you will have and so the easier it will be to partner with brands who are interested in long term, paid collaborations.
If you want to know more about growing a brand and seeing social media success, you may find Jessie Festa’s Travel Blog Prosperity programme interesting.
While it says that it is for travel bloggers, this multi-course programme with over $2250 worth of course materials inside is beneficial to people in all niches, and some of the best modules for wannabe micro influencers on there include:
- Crafting A Successful Social Media Strategy + Utilizing The Powers Of Pinterest
- Crafting A Fantastic Facebook Strategy
- Understanding Instagram For Blog Biz Growth
- Utilizing Twitter For Engagement & Growth
- How To Profitably Work With Brands As A Blogger
- Your Social Media Strategy Revamp
- How To Create A Cohesive Brand Across All Platforms
- How To Create Amazing Images With Your Smartphone
- How To Confidently Pitch Brands As A Micro-Blogger
- Starting & Growing Your Brand On YouTube
Travel Blog Prosperity is usually $49 a month, but Jessie gave me a special code that will get you your first month for just $9!
Yep, that’s just $9 for all of the courses above and more!
All you need to do is use code JEZEBEL at checkout and you will be able to access the whole library of courses for just $9.
That’s about it for today but please leave any thoughts and questions in the comments below!
XOXO
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