Macro vs. Micro Influencers: What’s Right for Your Campaign?

October 23, 2024

Influencers are a cornerstone of modern marketing campaigns. In 2024, brands know that consumers are more likely to digest information on social media than other forms of advertising. But, finding the right person to help market your product can be tricky, and brands need to consider whether they’re best served working with macro or micro influencers.

It’s a choice as old as marketing itself. Do you want to appeal to the biggest audience possible or connect with a smaller but more niche crowd?

Both options have benefits, and brands looking to hire influencers need to consider their target audience, budget, and campaign goals when deciding who to collaborate with.

So, which should your brand choose? Macro or micro influencers? Let’s break it down.

What’s the Difference Between Macro & Micro Influencers?

The main difference between micro and macro influencers is the audience size.

What is a micro influencer? A micro influencer’s follower count is between 10,000 and 100,000. A macro influencer, meanwhile, has more than 100,000 followers.

But for brands wondering how to hire an influencer or which type to choose, the decision isn’t as simple as “the bigger, the better.” Working with both micro-influencers and macro-influencers offers unique benefits and opportunities to engage with different audiences.

Benefits of Micro Influencers

Micro-influencers have a different audience reach than macro-influencers, but they tend to focus more on more distinct niches, and their followers are often highly engaged.

They offer benefits such as:

Expertise: Micro-influencers are often focused on specific areas of expertise and their followers know they can trust them for honest opinions and purchasing advice.
High engagement: Micro-influencers speak directly to their community of followers, who are typically more likely to engage with the content they produce.
Strong relationships: Generally speaking, micro-influencers have more personal relationships with their followers. There’s a built-in trust.
Cost-effectiveness: It can be more cost-effective to work with micro-influencers, so for brands that have smaller advertising budgets or more nuanced marketing goals, collaborating with them can provide a great return on investment.

Benefits of Macro Influencers

Macro-influencers have huge followings, which means brands collaborating with them will be exposed to a massive audience. Their benefits include:

Reach: For any brand looking to connect with the broadest possible audience, macro-influencers pack a serious punch. They can potentially reach hundreds of thousands of followers very quickly.
Diverse audience: With such large followings, macro-influencers often have followers that span different demographics and even areas of the world.
Credibility: Macro-influencers are well-known and in the public eye. Their endorsement of a brand or a product can bring it instant credibility.

Other Factors to Consider

While micro and macro influencers come with unique benefits, when organizing an influencer marketing campaign, you’ll also want to consider your brand’s:

Budget: Micro-influencers typically charge less for collaborations than their counterparts with more followers and tend to be more suitable for brands with smaller budgets.
Target audience: Think about your customers and who they are. Factors like demographics, personality traits and location all matter. Choosing an influencer whose followers correspond with those traits is important.
Values: Brands that hire influencers should make sure they choose creators who fit their brand values. Their voice and their content will be a reflection of your brand.

Examples of Successful Influencer Campaigns

If your brand is wrestling with the decision about whether to use macro or micro-influencers, it can help to look at how each has been used in past campaigns. Some brands even team up with both types of influencers simultaneously to leverage all the opportunities these content creators can provide.

Brands That Work with Micro-Influencers

Brands across nearly every industry have caught on to the advantages of hiring and partnering with micro-influencers. Here’s a look at a few popular brands and how they used micro influencers to drive engagement and sales.

Glossier: Glossier has been a leader in the beauty industry when it comes to collaborating with micro-influencers. They regularly send out new products to micro-influencers while encouraging authentic reviews and tutorials across multiple platforms.
Lululemon: The brand has worked with fitness and wellness micro-influencers who align with its values. It also encourages all types of influencers to apply to its affiliate program. The strategy has showcased Lululemon’s products and built a sense of fierce customer loyalty among customers.
HelloFresh: This meal-delivery service knows its audience. It works with micro-influencers, whether parents or busy professionals, to show how its kits make life easier.

Brands That Work with Macro-Influencers

Collaborating with people with large, devoted followings is a practice that dates back to before social media existed. Well-known people have been used in marketing since the 1700s.

We love the 1882 example of stage actress and socialite Lillie Langtry being used in a Pears soap campaign. We highly recommend checking out Lillie’s ad, in which she is quoted saying, “I prefer Pears soap to any other. " It contains both her signature and a testimonial from the President of College Surgeons. Talk about credibility.

With the rise of Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms, macro-influencers can connect even more directly with their followers.

Consider how Nike has used athletes to help sell its products for decades. Athletes have a vast, feverish following, and Nike has used their influence to connect with each athlete’s audience.

This is not all that different from Nike’s famously industry-changing partnership with Michael Jordan that started in the 1980s. They’re just showcasing the power of beloved sports stars in the digital space now, often to viral effect.

Brands That Use Both

Many brands use a combination of micro and macro influencers, depending on the campaign they’re working on—often using both simultaneously. Airbnb is a perfect example.

Airbnb regularly uses micro-influencers to showcase its stays in incredible locations around the world. Vloggers and bloggers' content is wildly effective at catching the eyes of their engaged audiences.

Take a look at Samantha Weiss, an AirBnB and travel Content Creator with 11,000 followers. This micro influencer helps promote specific AirBnBs around the globe.

AirBnB has also collaborated with global celebrities with huge social media reach, like Billie Eilish, on their innovative “Night At” series. This series provided participants with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to stay overnight at an iconic international location like the Louvre Museum in Paris or Dracula’s Castle in Transylvania.

Find the Right Fit for Your Next Influencer Campaign

Whether your brand is looking to collaborate with a micro-influencer or macro-influencer, the expert team at MODERNSPEAK can help you find the right fit.

Our team is based in Calgary, Alberta, and represents an impressive roster of micro and macro influencers specializing in everything from travel to tech to lifestyle industries across Canada and the U.S.

Email us at hello@modernspeak.co or call 1 (403)991-4988.

FAQ

Why are micro-influencers important for brands?

Micro-influencers have built a high level of trust with their followers, who are typically interested in a specific niche. For budget-conscious brands with nuanced marketing goals, micro-influencers can connect them directly with an audience and provide great engagement.

Why might a brand want to work with micro-influencers?

Brands that hire micro-influencers often find that they get a terrific return on investment, with high conversion rates. Connecting with the right audience is critical for any marketing or PR campaign, and micro-influencers can provide an unmatched direct-line to followers who have a pre-existing interest in a brand’s target audience.