Mega-Influencers vs. Micro-Influencers

Recently, I have been taking a deeper look into what components create a successful influencer campaign, and a constant theme that I keep seeing is mega-influencers vs. micro-influencers.

Our PRGN partner, Aristo Communications, describes mega-influencers as having 50,000+ followers, getting paid to promote brand content and usually having gained their fame from other means outside of social media.

Micro-influencers are active social media users who typically have less than 50,000 followers, create content inspired by products and services they genuinely love, and do not always get paid for their content.

So when deciding what influencer to choose for your campaign, it must be best to choose the one with the most followers, right? Wrong.

Abbie touched on this in her blog post “It’s not about the numbers.” In summary, your influence does not come from having lots of followers; it comes from trust, consistency, credibility and investment.

These are four qualities that micro-influencers tend to have effortlessly because they aren’t focused on attracting advertisers, money or gaining followers.

Micro-influencers are focused on creating content about products and services that they actually enjoy using without monetary gain. This creates a level of trust with followers and is one of the reasons why we see micro-influencers having a higher engagement rate.

While micro-influencers might not have millions of followers, they do become experts in their areas of interest and create bonds with their followers that translate to organic engagement and reach.