The David's Amongst the Goliaths: The Rise of Micro-Influencers
What is a Micro Influencer:
Micro-influencers' ascendency in social media has prompted global brands to adopt them over A-list celebrities to create more intimate and authentic connections with consumers on social media platforms. To leverage this trend, business leaders should understand: What is the marketplace opportunity for brands with micro-influencers? How is social influencing effective, and what are its limitations? The following post is a guide to answering those questions.?
A Trillion Dollar Opportunity: What are Micro-Influencers
Digital marketing has become the norm in promoting marketing messages to the 5.1 billion-plus users of the internet worldwide (Statista,2023). Indeed, a brand's existence on social media is seemingly necessary for survival (Gensler et al., 2013), partly because consumers now consider social media watching a leisure activity (Lou, 2022). Social media influencers (SMIs) have reshaped digital marketing advertising and are expected to become a USD 15 billion-plus industry in 2023 (Kim Chang Olmsted, 2022). The International Advertising Bureau (2018) defined SMIs as individuals on social media platforms, ranging from celebrities to nonprofessional peers, who create engagement, drive conversation, and influence the selling of products of their followers (Kim et al., 2022). They typically deliver this influence "through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media" (Kim, 2022; Wang et al., 2014) across marketplaces inclusive of the political landscape (Ballestar et al., 2022) and their influence generates an electronic word-of-mouth impact on brands (Brown & Hayes, 2008). SMIs operate independently and or on behalf of brands (Erme?, 2022), and they have shifted the paradigm of how business connects with consumers (Hughes et al., 2019; Jin & Ryu, 2020). SMIs can receive payment from direct sponsorship or a sales-based contract where a sales commission is typically paid. The brand/influencer partnership success is dependent on the "congruence between brand and influencer attributes" (Shan et al., 2020; Himelboim & Golan, 2023); consequently,?75%+ of marketers include SMIs in their marketing mix, and 65% of global brands have allocated budgets to use SMIs because influencers impact purchasing in a digital marketplace?worth over USD 8 trillion?(Mundel et al., 2023).?
Furthermore, SMIs can be more successful in targetting than traditional marketing methods (Sharma, 2016) because they break through advertising noise (Beuckels et al., 2021) and, in so doing, can create an intimate consumer engagement model (Himelboim & Golan, 2023). Micro-influencers (MIs) are a category within SMIs typically defined as having between 10,000 to 100,00 followers (Warren 2021). MIs are an emerging trend in social media influencing and may be more trusted as opinion leaders than A-List celebrity SMIs(Schouten, Janssen and Verspaget, 2020). Indeed Forte (2019) identified that?30% of responding consumers attribute successful product discoveries to micro-influencers?(Forte, 2019) because followers tend to identify more readily with micro-influencers than celebrities (Schouten, Janssen & Verspaget, 2020). Indeed Kay et al. (2019) research discovered that consumers exposed to micro-influencers report higher levels of product knowledge. Furthermore, MIs engagement has a cost efficacy attractiveness for marketers because a celebrity post may cost USD 500k, and whilst they can reach millions, it means paying for advertising to an uninterested audience; in contrast, a USD 500.00 sponsored advert with an MI can be more effective as they typically have a content focus, which attracts a niche audience. (Ravi, 2022). Brands like Lululemon have taken advantage of the MI trend; they use micro-influencers like yoga influencers as partners, furnishing these fans with career development opportunities; indeed, 36% of its total earned market value from April 2019 to March 2020 came from smaller-scale bloggers (Rawitz, 2020).
Under the Hood of Social Influencing: Why Social Influencing Works
SMI's Create Parasocial Relationships
A?'Parasocial Relationship'?is where the follower/fan perceives an intimate relationship between them and the SMI, but in reality, this is a one-sided intimate relationship existing only in the follower's mind. (Labrecque, 2014). This relationship increases an SMI endorsement's effectiveness because the follower, whom the SMI readily influences, is persuaded by their cognitive perception of the relationship to act upon the SMI opinions, which can lead to influencing their purchasing decisions. Furthermore, MIs can leverage this relationship more than A-list celebrities because they have the time to respond to their follower's comments; consequently, they reinforce the perception that a relationship exists for the follower, thereby creating a stronger bond with their audiences and, subsequently a stronger influence on the follower's purchase decisions and thus they can be more successful at promoting products for a brand. (Chung and Cho, 2017; Leite and Baptista, 2022)?
SMI's Have Credibility
Micro-influencers have increased credibility in contrast to A-list celebrities because their smaller following/groups create a perceived level of increased intimacy, subsequently manifesting in increased trust by their followers (Van Der Heide, 2012), which enables the SMI to influence the follower's purchase intentions. Indeed a micro-influencer may be perceived as more modest (Pangakar, 2022); consequently, they are considered a more relatable 'human brand' (Kay et al., 2023), which promotes trust through perceived intimacy. Furthermore, SMIs who have gained followers organically on social media for their opinion content garner more attention, trust, and influence than traditional celebrities (Mediakix, 2019; Mintel, 2021). Naturally, the SMI content must have uniqueness, informativeness, and quality aesthetics, which, when achieved, enable the SMI to be perceived as a subject matter expert, consequently creating more influence on follower purchase intentions (Ki et al., 2020; Casal et al., 2020; Farivar and Wang, 2022)
Consumers Self-Identify With SMIs.?
The social identity of a follower in a group, particularly as a follower of an SMI, plays a crucial role in shaping their self-perception and, subsequently, their purchase intentions creating an opportunity for the SMI to exert influence through their leadership opinions and the follower's desire to imitate and assimilate the SMI's identity into their own. (Kim et al., 2022).
Caveat Emptor: Limitations of Influencers
Mardon et al. (2023) found that positive Parasocial Relationships of social media influencers (SMIs) may evolve into negative Parasocial Relationships characterised by followers' perceived antipathy of the SMI; indeed, this may cause the formation of anti-fan communities. Indeed if the SMI's credibility is challenged and considered lacking in authenticity, which can occur with sponsored adverts, the impact on the associated brand is negative. (Wojdynski et Al., 2016) Indeed, compliance advertising regulators' concerns over sponsored advert ambiguity have led to legislation requiring SMIs to disclose their sponsorship status explicitly and prominently(FTC, 2017; Kapoor et al., 2023).
Summary
Given the intimacy and perceived increase in trust of micro-influencers over A-list celebrities,?'Brands'?that want to cut through the noise of adverts in their marketplace and reach their target consumer in an intimate, authentic manner to influence their purchase decisions should incorporate micro-influencers as channels for their marketing messages whilst being mindful of the limitations and risks associated with social media influencing; getting the recruitment and selection of the micro-influencer will be critical and ensuring that sponsored content is delivered transparently will be vital to ensuring a successful consumer engagement.?
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