Under the Influence: Micro or macro influencers – Understanding the difference

I’m sure we have all come across seeing a famous influencer or celebrity endorsing a brand to promote a product or service on social media. But, my question to you is, from a scale of 1 to 10, how convinced are you that the product/service really works and creates customer value for you?

Allow me to share my summarized opinion between these two options.

Who are they?

Everyday people or micro-influencers are normal people who use social media to express their real thoughts and feelings freely without restricting the way content is portrayed. Micro-influencers have significantly smaller but more engaging following than macro-influencers. I call them ‘devotees’ based on their pattern of high levels of creation and high consumption of content.

On the other hand, for an influencer (macro influencer), they have generally large followers and are known to be market mavens because of their interest and knowledge about a particular brand’s product or services. Brands would generally engage them to feature the brand on their social media platforms for a fee. Now unlike the devotees, macro influencers generally have high levels of creation but low consumption of content – I call them the ‘attention seekers’.

So let’s analyze which one you should use for your social media marketing.

In my opinion, brands should have a strategy and plan when they engage an influencer to feature their products and services. This means identifying the right audience you want to deliver the message based on influencer’s following. It also includes understanding what they can do for you – whether it’s doing a blog post, video, Instagram story etc.

What’s my take on Macro-Influencers?

Engaging macro-influencers works effectively when they act as “celebrity endorsers” to gain brand awareness so that many people will know about your brand. However, they might not necessarily bring in the highest ROI for your social media campaigns.

I would recommend the brand to tap on the business model on the web – Affiliate model. Engage these influencers and using revenue sharing encourages the influencer to promote and talk about the brand by creating unique content to trigger relational and emotional value. It could be based on a video tutorial of how the product or services has impacted by featuring unique selling points.

The demand for Authentic Consumer Reviews

Consumers are increasingly relying on social media as their go-to platform to learn and search for product information, and authenticity matters more than anything. This is where a real, authentic endorsement or recommendation from a friend or family member is trusted and believed, and the others are significantly discounted. This translates into high influence on consumer purchasing decisions.

What’s my take on everyday people - Micro influencers?

Inviting everyday people generally portrays a more authentic image concerning reviewing products. However, the quality of their engagement impact must be taken into consideration.

I would recommend the brand to tap on the business model on the web – Community model. Engage these everyday people using a community model such as social networking sites on Facebook, it allows them to build brand loyalty because it’s a platform where they can express the interest and how they feel about the brand.

Using community model enables the consumers to identify the experiential value it gets out of it to convince them that the product or services work.

Conclusion

A summary of my thoughts, both everyday people and influencers play a part for social media marketing as they are valuable to generate content which will attract entertainment chasers and connection seekers. Both play a role in contributing to a holistic customer value experience which will help the brand or business to grow.

Do you agree that both are equally important? Or do you have a stronger opinion for one over another? Share with me over at the comment box below.