How micro-influencer marketing can benefit your visitor attraction
Influencer marketing is nothing new, but it’s still trending. Since it exploded onto the digital marketing scene around five years ago, the way it’s used has evolved – and it continues to do so.
Influencer marketing is no longer all about celebrities. Consumers have become distrustful of endorsements by celebrity influencers* and the focus has shifted to authenticity, transparency and relatability – qualities that are hard to maintain when follower numbers (and sponsored post fees) scale dizzying heights.
Size doesn’t matter anymore
That’s good news for visitor attractions with smaller marketing budgets and local/regional target audiences that are active on social media.
The most cost-effective influencers for you aren’t necessarily the ones with the most followers; the vast majority of Kylie Jenner’s 263 million followers won’t be relevant to your visitor attractions, so don’t fork out the estimated US$1.2 million she charges for a sponsored Instagram post just yet.
Instead, consider micro-influencers**. Micro-influencers tend to have a more niche and loyal following, which can be more carefully aligned with your brand. Gartner’s Social Platforms and Influence 2019 report, which analysed 400 brands, found:
“While it’s true that the small share of posts authored by influencers with 250K followers or more capture the vast majority of interactions, small-scale influencers (25K or fewer followers) have the most engaged audiences—meaning, a larger percentage of their followers interact with their content. Brands seem to have gotten that message and have filled almost half their rosters on average with small-scale influencers.”
Micro-influencers’ fees are significantly lower too. Of course, there’s considerable variation in costs but as a rule of thumb, a micro-influencer might charge anywhere from £100 to £1,000 per post, depending on the social media platform, type of content, usage rights, exclusivity, reach, engagement and specialisation. And unlike the spike in interest that a celebrity’s post will cause, content shared by a micro-influencer is likely to have a much longer shelf life.
Higher, more meaningful audience engagement rates, access to a more targeted audience, content that sticks around a lot longer all for a more affordable fee – what’s not to love?
Travel is healing – and so are the travel influencers
If you’ve not dabbled in influencer marketing before, now could be a good time to explore how it could benefit your visitor attraction, without blowing your budget. As travel gets back on its feet, so are the travel and lifestyle influencers, after months out of work. And with international travel still looking out of reach for many consumers, the local reach and engagement generated through micro-influencer marketing might be exactly what you need.
Influencer Manager and Blogger Rachel Kershaw is often approached by brands and organisations to manage influencer campaigns on their behalf. She says, “Often, I am initially asked to approach influencers with huge numbers of followers but I encourage my clients to look beyond this. Engagement, relevance, community, personality and above all, trust is what I look for when choosing who to work with. Accounts with less than 10,000 followers often tick all of these boxes and provide an excellent return on investment for my clients.”
Tiny but mighty: nano and employee influencers
It’s also worth considering nano-influencers***, who can have even higher engagement rates. You don’t have to look far to find nano-influencers suitable for your brand. Local bloggers are a great place to start.
Rachel is based in northeast England. Alongside managing influencer campaigns, she runs a successful blog and Instagram profile, @life_in_geordieland, so she’s also experienced the influencer campaign process as a nano-influencer.
Rachel has fewer than 4,000 followers and is often asked to partner with brands and tourism businesses to help promote the local region. “Our collaborations are successful because my niche account is focused on showcasing the best of the area in a positive light and my followers trust me to give them an honest opinion of my experiences. I keep my content focussed and relatable, which benefits both my followers and the businesses I work with.”
You could even kick things off closer to home, with a programme that encourages employees active on social media to share content about your visitor attraction. Anyone working within your visitor attraction with an online network can be an employee influencer. It doesn’t matter what their follower size, employee influencers can influence the behaviour of a largely untapped audience. Plus, their insights can feed back into your influencer marketing strategy.
*Celebrity/macro-influencers: those with 1 million+ followers, tend to be celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, Ariana Grande and David Beckham.
**Micro-influencers: tend to be industry experts, bloggers, niche experts or trusted sources with 5,000 to 100,000 followers (some sources say micro-influencers can have as few as 1,000 followers).
***Nano-influencers: fewer than 5,000 followers, tend to be hyper-niche and/or hyper-local.
(Influencer category numbers vary depending on sources, so take these figures only a rule of thumb.)
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