Nano Influencers: Bringing Authenticity To Your Brand
In Singapore, you might have heard of influencers such as Andrea Chong, Nicole Chang Min, Crystabel Tan, and Shannon Taylor. Their unique content appeals to the millennials and Gen Z. This is especially true on Instagram. Brands often utilize the ‘star power’ that influencers have over their followers to market their products. Sometimes, they even create collections from scratch with the influencer. That is the power of influencer marketing which ranges from nano, micro, to celebrities.
60% of Singapore’s 2.24 million active Instagram users are between 18 to 34 years old. Approximately 73% of Singaporean consumers depend on social media networks for information on which they base their purchasing decisions. Furthermore, Influencer marketing in Singapore provides a high return on investment (ROI). Influencer marketing with Instagram generates, on average, a revenue of $6.85 per dollar spent on marketing. The most common influencer budget is $1,000 — $10,000/year, followed by $100,000 — $500,000/year. Knowing that consumers rely heavily on online sources for their information, local brands should ride on the wave of its popularity, perhaps using influencer marketing as a brand strategy.
First of all, who are Nano Influencers?
Blindly engaging influencers with a high follower count is well-known to be a very cost-inefficient method. Sure, big names on Instagram can do a shout out for you. However, how much sales do you have to generate to cover your costs? Is it value for money? Furthermore, ~17% of bigger influencers in Singapore pay for artificial follows and comments. At times like this, you could consider using nano influencers for your brand.
Nano influencers are influencers who have a follower count between 1,000 to 5,000. Compared to bigger influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers, they are far behind. However, what sets them apart is their high engagement rates. Engagement rates mean how actively their followers interact with their posts. It could be in terms of likes, shares, or comments. An example of a local nano influencer would be Claire (@stxrsescapes). She regularly posts about fashion, lifestyle, and travel. While her follower count is below 2,000, she boasts an extremely high engagement rate of 14.1%, as seen from Notjustanalytics.
How exactly can nano influencers help your brand?
1. Through word-of-mouth
One of the most valuable sources of marketing has been identified as Word-of-mouth marketing.
According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising. Brands should be connecting with their customers instead of just collecting social media fans. Imagine, would you rather have 100 really passionate fans that love your brand or product, or have 10,000 ‘fans’ who signed up just to win your giveaway? I believe the former is exponentially more effective and better for the long run.
Just like in life — if you have to buy your friends, are they really your friends?
This is where word-of-mouth comes into play. Trust is an emotion that multifold when it comes to people you know. When your best friend recommends a product, you will trust them more compared to an Instagram Ad you just saw. Similarly, when new moms are searching for nannies, they are more likely to trust their friend’s recommendations than an Ad they saw on the internet. Nano Influencers work just like your friends. Their social media following is largely organic and acts as a word-of-mouth platform to promote your brand. Although nano influencers are more open to working with different brands, brands should still find nano influencers that align to brand guidelines, look, feel, and personality.
2. Through the Law of Attraction
With a combination of both a high engagement rate and word-of-mouth, Nano Influencer marketing essentially becomes really powerful. According to research done by local influencer marketing platform Partipost, the average Instagram engagement rate for influencers with more than 30,000 followers is around 2%. From my own following, influencers with 50k followers on Instagram only get a 2–3% engagement rate.
In contrast, nano-influencers with up to 5,000 followers are likely to have an average engagement rate of 7 to 10%. Those with less than 2,000 followers can even achieve up to a 20 per cent engagement rate. This is thanks to the close, personal relationships that many of them have with their followers. Their followers also tend to advocate for their niche content.
Knowing your influencer’s engagement rates is essential to your brand. It shows you how many people are connecting with them. With a higher engagement rate, more people are commenting, liking, sharing, and mentioning their posts. Higher consumer engagement shows that the influencers are putting out great, valuable content. This in turn improves your brand visibility.
3. Nano Influencers are Cost-Effective
This also means that nano influencers are a cost effective method of influencer marketing. With the same budget for 1 micro influencer, you could possibly work with 5 nano influencers. According to Mumbrella Asia, a mid-tier influencer in Singapore with a 300,000-plus following on Instagram charges $1,800 per post, $500 for an ‘Instagram Moment’ and $3,200 for a blog post. Nano influencers with 2000 to 10,000 followers get $75–300 per Instagram post and up to $100 per Instagram story.
For Smaller Local Businesses or MNCs
Smaller local start-ups like Zenyum use a community of nano influencers to promote their teeth aligners and other dental products. You can check it out under the ‘community’ story highlights! They use a wide range of nano influencers (some even with about 100–200 followers). This works for them, where they have amassed 10.8k followers on Instagram currently. Even for MNCs like Shopee, Shopee Singapore partnered with a huge number of local influencers in different tiers (including nano influencers) to expand their presence and reach on social media. This decision marks another milestone for the platform as it continues to build on a hyper-localized approach.
For Higher-end Big Brands or Hard-To-Ship Products
However, this may not be effective if your brand is a higher-end big brand or a brand that sells hard-to-ship products. It may be hard for such brands to engage nano influencers. The cost of distributing large amounts of free products can outweigh the reach and influence of nano influencers. For example, it may not be feasible for a big brand, a high-end beauty product like SKII. Providing every nano influencer with a bottle of facial treatment essence to try (priced at ~$231) is cost-inefficient. Their influencer marketing strategy revolves mainly around mid-tier influencers and above (50–500k followers), and has seen considerable success.
Where Do I Start?
1. Use the right strategy for recruiting
If you are a consumer-facing brand, your brand should utilize nano-influencers. These influencers are likely to already be your existing or potential customers. Their advocating of one of these brands should not look out of place on their social media platforms. Nano influencers are especially effective for F&B and FMCG brands. These brands being accessible and consumed in high volumes and available in a variety of price points.
To outreach to nano influencers, start from your own email lists or social media, or through social media ads. Tip: Make sure that all of your nano-influencers are real people with active and accessible social media accounts. Start a conversation with them, be it through emails or direct messages. Let them know what your brand does and lay out expectations. It’s also a good idea to provide some sample posts that you really like. This allows participants to have a better idea of what to strive for and how to be successful.
2. Engaging Nano Influencers
Once you have a list of names and emails, it’s time to engage the influencers. This lays out the expectations of the program. While you don’t want to get too overbearing (this can scare nano-influencers away — especially since they aren’t being paid), you must establish some simple ground rules for posting and receiving the free product. What you can include in your ‘contract’ include:
- What the participant will receive and how (i.e., Press Kit by delivery).
- Deliverables (i.e., social media post).
Make sure to be specific on the type and duration of the post (for example, do an PR kit unboxing video on your Instagram story). For example, the post must mention the brand and with an original photo featuring the product. This section is also where you should outline any specific tags or hashtags that you would like included in the post.
- Timeline for receiving product and timeline for posting: Specify when the participant will receive the product, when they must publish their post, and how long it needs to remain active.
3. Retaining Nano Influencers
With such a big pool of influencers under your wing now, it is crucial to have a system in place to make sure they keep the end of their promise. Most nano-influencers work hard to create timely posts that meet your expectations because they want the opportunity to work with you again in the future. However, there are always exceptions to the rule. While some brands ask nano-influencers to sign contracts, it’s not often cost-effective to enforce them. Hence, the pre-engagement vetting process is where you should be spending the majority of your time. This upfront time investment will pay dividends in the future. You can return to your nano-influencer list over and over to promote new products and services as they roll out.
The main value nano influencers provide is authenticity. Social media may just another medium for them to engage with their friends and family. However, this averageness and authenticity is what brands are most desperately seeking. Alternatively, if your brand is fashion related, you can also check out Shopform. We build a community of users that provide genuine reviews. On top of the nano influencers already onboard, you can also identify other similar key opinion leaders or nano or micro influencers that suit your brand. Drop us an email if you’re interested in joining us as a brand on Shopform.
