Micro-Influencers: What are they?

By Oana Orzac

Photo by Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash

How do we choose something we’ve never tried before? Well, we can easily choose from recommendations – often from a person on social media such as a micro-influencer. Whatever the issue is, we all need recommendations, explanations and motivation.

When we want to learn more about a product, we turn to the internet to find other people’s stories and examples that have been successful. People such as micro-influencers frequently know what you’re looking for. This person shares their own personal experiences with the brand or domain in question through social media.

According to various estimates, influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok number between 3.2 million and 37.8 million, and they already have a significant impact on the world of social media.

Source: moversshakers.co

Micro-influencers have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. They are influencers with a high or very high reach who can bring good exposure and visibility - while simultaneously having a high interaction rate.

Anna Marzia, Fashion Influencer

Source: @annamarziaa on Instagram

Anna Marzia, 23, London-based, is a micro-influencer with 1,509 followers on Instagram. Even though she is working to become an influencer, she still spends her time studying and working to pursue a career.

“I am currently a university student and am doing a top-up year for Business HND in digital marketing. I also work as a Social Media Marketing Account Manager at Lannister, a new Fintech company launching soon in the UK,” Anna explained.

She developed an interest in makeup, “I learned it myself [makeup] and wanted to teach others, too, and that’s how I created my first account. However, I was never consistent and kept deleting and creating new accounts, so I never grew as much as I could have.”

Being an influencer full-time, especially a micro-influencer, seems very hard for Anna. She said, “A micro-influencer may make money from this full-time, but it’s certainly very hard. To do that, they would have to commit for a few months, posting and creating consistently, without making any money, and then they can reach a stage where they earn enough to live off it.”

Abbey Sadleir, Travel influencer

Source: @abbeysadleir on Instagram

Abbey Sadleir, 26, she is originally from Wellington, New Zealand. She moved to London to work as a freelancer and do short term contract roles to fit in with her travel plans. Currently, she works with the Global Esports Federation to help them with their communications strategy.

“I hadn’t planned to become an influencer. I have always loved creating content and sharing aspects of my life, so it happened naturally when I started posting consistently on TikTok once I moved to London. I have been incredibly inspired by TikTok. I just love creating videos,” said Abbey.

Source: @abbeysadleir on Instagram

Her passion is travelling, and her content is related to this. She describes what a micro-influencer is. She said, “someone who has an opinion or perspective on something that can relate to someone else and provide value in their daily lives”.

Both moved to London and soon realised the opportunities they could have as an influencer. Abbey explains: “Coming from New Zealand, it’s a tiny population, so your chance to grow is limited because the market is oversaturated. I think the content I can create in London is more diverse than what I could create back home, and there is more room for influencers at every level.”

Anna has the same vision. She said: “It is one of the most well-known cities, so living here means being much more likely to be accepted into influencer programmes.”

Their future plans are simple: to grow into the influencer’s world. “I hope to continue my freelancer journey and make more content on TikTok about how you can get started with this, so we can all monetise our skills! I plan to focus on TikTok and make this my main channel of content filled with daily vlogs, travel, and advice for career building,” said Abbey.

Anna’s plans are similar, “I want to take my social media much more seriously, which I cannot now, as I am giving time to both my job and my university. I plan to buy my own place and move out of my parents’ house by next year, so I will have a better place to film content!

“I also want to reach at least 10-15k on Instagram and 1-1.5k on YouTube to make them a stable and consistent source of income for me.”